The Commission Gap Nobody Talks About
You signed up for Amazon Associates when you started creating content. You put your tracking ID in your YouTube descriptions and moved on. But here's what most creators don't realize: that tag only earns commissions on the Amazon storefront where you registered it.
When a Canadian viewer clicks your US affiliate link and buys something on Amazon.ca, you get nothing. When a German viewer clicks and buys on Amazon.de, nothing. When a UK viewer buys on Amazon.co.uk — still nothing. Your US tag doesn't carry over.
If you have any kind of international audience — and if you're on YouTube, you almost certainly do — a significant percentage of your affiliate clicks are earning zero commissions right now.
How Many Amazon Storefronts Are There?
Amazon operates 20 separate storefronts, each with its own affiliate program, its own sign-up process, and its own commission structure. Here they are:
The Americas
● United States — amazon.com — affiliate-program.amazon.com
● Canada — amazon.ca — affiliate-program.amazon.ca
● Mexico — amazon.com.mx — afiliados.amazon.com.mx
● Brazil — amazon.com.br — associados.amazon.com.br
Europe
● United Kingdom — amazon.co.uk — affiliate-program.amazon.co.uk
● Germany — amazon.de — partnernet.amazon.de
● France — amazon.fr — partenaires.amazon.fr
● Italy — amazon.it — programma-affiliazione.amazon.it
● Spain — amazon.es — afiliados.amazon.es
● Netherlands — amazon.nl — affiliate-program.amazon.nl
● Sweden — amazon.se — affiliate-program.amazon.se
● Poland — amazon.pl — affiliate-program.amazon.pl
Asia-Pacific
● Japan — amazon.co.jp — affiliate.amazon.co.jp
● Australia — amazon.com.au — affiliate-program.amazon.com.au
● India — amazon.in — affiliate-program.amazon.in
● Singapore — amazon.sg — affiliate-program.amazon.sg
Middle East & Africa
● UAE — amazon.ae — affiliate-program.amazon.ae
● Saudi Arabia — amazon.sa — affiliate-program.amazon.sa
● Turkey — amazon.com.tr — affiliate-program.amazon.com.tr
● Egypt — amazon.eg — affiliate-program.amazon.eg
Which Ones Should You Sign Up For?
The short answer: sign up for every country where you get meaningful traffic. Look at your YouTube Analytics → Geography breakdown or your MakerManifest analytics countries tab. If a country appears in your top 10 click sources, it's worth the 5 minutes to sign up for their Amazon program.
At minimum, if you create content in English, you should have tags set up for:
● United States — your primary program, you almost certainly have this
● United Kingdom — large English-speaking audience, strong Amazon presence
● Canada — large English-speaking audience, separate storefront from US
● Australia — English-speaking, growing Amazon presence
If you create content about a specific niche (woodworking, 3D printing, electronics), check whether your audience skews toward any particular country and prioritize those programs first.
How Much Are You Actually Missing?
It depends on your audience, but the numbers add up faster than you'd expect. A channel with 50% international viewership that earns $500/month from US Amazon could realistically be leaving another $200–$400/month uncaptured — depending on niche and the storefronts where those international viewers are shopping.
Amazon's commission rates vary by category and by country. Some international programs pay higher rates than the US for certain categories. You may actually earn more per click in some markets than you do domestically.
The Problem With Managing 20 Affiliate Tags Manually
Signing up for all 20 programs is the easy part. The hard part is actually using all those tags. If you're manually building affiliate links, you need to create a separate tagged link for every storefront for every product — and then somehow serve the right link to each visitor. That's not realistic for most creators.
The practical result: most creators set up 1–2 storefronts and leave the rest uncaptured.
Geo-Routing: The Automatic Solution
MakerManifest's geo-routing feature solves this automatically. When a visitor clicks one of your short links:
● MakerManifest detects their country using Cloudflare's IP geolocation
● If their country has an Amazon storefront, the URL is rewritten to that storefront
● Your affiliate tag for that storefront is applied automatically
● If you don't have a tag for their storefront, your amazon.com tag is used as a fallback
You set up your tags once in Dashboard → Affiliate Programs. From that point on, every Amazon link you add to any gear list automatically routes every visitor to the right storefront with the right tag — with no additional work per link.
MakerManifest supports geo-routing across all 20 Amazon storefronts listed above.
Getting Started
Here's the fastest path to capturing more international commissions:
● Check your audience geography — YouTube Studio Analytics or MakerManifest analytics → Countries tab
● Sign up for the top 3–5 programs where you have meaningful traffic (links above)
● Add each tracking ID in Dashboard → Affiliate Programs → Add rule → Amazon → select the storefront domain
● Done — geo-routing handles everything from that point forward
You only need to do this setup once. After that, every existing and future Amazon link in your gear lists automatically routes international visitors to their local storefront.
See the geo-routing feature page for more details, or create your MakerManifest account to get started.