Updated November 2021
At first glance, it may seem that Amazon OneLink and Geniuslink do the same thing. Both are designed to localize your Amazon links for shoppers around the world. But dig a little deeper and you'll see how much more Geniuslink has to offer. The superior product matching accuracy and complete customization of your links distinguish Geniuslink as the better service, with additional coverage, features, and functionality that make the choice clear. But you don’t have to take our word for it.
Geniuslink | Amazon OneLink | |
---|---|---|
Localization score (See report...) | 1,039 of 3,119 (118% better) | 477.5 of 3,119 |
Correct Matches | 1,200 of 3119 (50.7% better) | 796 of 3119 |
Bad Searches | 572 of 3,119 | 1034 of 3,119 (80% worse) |
Incorrect Matches | 22 of 3,119 | 51 of 3,119 (131% worse) |
Customization | ||
Customize destinations | Yes | No |
Localization visualization | Yes | Very limited |
Coverage | ||
Amazon storefronts supported | 19 | 13 |
Link formats supported | 20 | 2 |
Supports non-affiliate links | Yes | No |
Localizes search-based links | Yes | No |
Localizes bounties / landing pages | Yes | No |
Supports ascsubtag | Yes | Yes |
Other | ||
Out-of-stock alerts | Yes | No | Supports other retailers | Yes | No |
Country / Destination Reporting | Yes | No |
Centrally manage Tracking IDs | Yes | No |
Use multiple Amazon.com tracking IDs |
Yes | Yes |
Use multiple international tracking IDs | Yes | No |
Prevents broken links (404's) | Yes | No |
API | Yes | No |
The whole point of using a link localization tool is to get your international visitors to the right product in their local Amazon storefront so they can easily buy. Doing this well can significantly increase your total commissions without any increase in your traffic, but using a sub-par service with low accuracy can actually drastically lower your commissions (more on that below!).
With this in mind, the first question you should ask when comparing Amazon link localization services is "Which one works best?"
Below are our findings and results of our testing the accuracy of Amazon L vs. Geniuslink (we highly encourage anyone who is equally as curious to do their own testing -- let us know if you have any questions on how to easily set up an accurate test!).
Period | Products tested | Geniuslink Score | OneLink Score | Difference |
---|---|---|---|---|
Summer 2021 | 3,119 | 1,039 (33.31%) | 477.5 (15.31%) | 118% |
Spring 2020 | 1,115 | 622 (55.78%) | 422.5 (37.89%) | 47% |
Spring 2018 | 840 | 388.5 (46.25%) | 292 (34.76%) | 33% |
Winter 2018 | 840 | 304 (36.19%) | 198 (23.57%) | 54% |
Fall 2017 | 840 | 409 (48.69%) | 326.5 (38.87%) | 25% |
Summer 2017 | 160 | 90 (56.25%) | 41 (25.63%) | 120% |
As you can see, Geniuslink consistently beats OneLink by a healthy margin, but with this most recent test, the difference is massive.
Seamlessly taking a shopper from clicking the link (showing intent) to a place where they can confidently press the buy button (purchase) is the name of the game in the world of conversion optimization.
Just as you work hard to choose the exact right product on Amazon that you are going to link to and recommend, you want your link localization service to do the same for your international buyers. As a result, you want your affiliate link management tool to send your foreign shoppers to the correct product in their local storefront as much as possible. On the flip side, you don't want the service to be sending your shoppers to products other than the one you were linking to.
The second point about why accuracy is so important is directly related to the amount of commissions that Amazon pays out in Europe.
Remember that blog we wrote about "Direct Qualifying Purchase" vs. "Indirect Qualifying Purchase"? Well, the gist was that Amazon pays a much higher percentage when you send someone directly to a product than when you send them to a search results page for the five original affiliate programs in Europe (which includes the second-largest Amazon storefront in the world -- Amazon Germany -- and the second largest English speaking storefront -- Amazon UK.)
And the difference in payout is huge! The commissions you earn when someone lands at a search results page ranges between 1% and 1.5% while the commissions you can earn when the shopper starts at the product "details" page starts at 3% and goes to 12% (with the exception of video game consoles).
In short, using a sub-par link localization tool, like Amazon OneLink, that translates most links (57% in our testing) into searches is likely significantly reducing your payouts from the UK, German, Italian, French, and Spanish Amazon affiliate programs!
While we take great pride in the work we’ve done on our patented link localization technology we are very well aware that programmatic link localization isn’t perfect. Even though we are constantly tweaking and optimizing our service, we know that sometimes a perfect affiliate link needs to be custom-built by hand.
Geniuslink gives you the tools to do exactly that (more below). This is another major advantage of Geniuslink over OneLink.
But before you fine-tune your affiliate link you need to know when it’s not perfect.
While technically both Geniuslink and Amazon OneLink give you a way to visually see the localization results of the service, Geniuslink just makes it way easier!
Unfortunately, once you spot an issue with the link localization from OneLink you are stuck. There is no way to fix it, nor can you optimize the link for your international audience.
However, with Geniuslink you can actually make adjustments to fine-tune how the link functions and completely customize the link for your varied audience. These customizations on the Genius Link platform are under the "Advanced" options and provide you simple if/then rules to alter the destination of a link based on the shopper’s location, device/operating system, language, or even the date when the link was clicked.
This means that if you aren’t happy with the localization results provided by our algorithms, or you think something could be better, you can simply add an Advanced rule to override exactly that behavior and get your desired results. See our full step-by-step guide.
In conclusion, Geniuslink allows for customizing the performance of a link when the programmatic localization isn’t perfect. OneLink however, doesn’t provide the ability to solve for its lackluster matching.
There are three aspects of coverage to compare between OneLink and Geniuslink:
These three metrics quantify (#1) how many creators and affiliate publishers will be able to use a service, (#2) how much of their traffic will benefit from the service, and (3#) what types of links work with each service.
For the first item, the OneLink platform is very specific in that it ONLY works with Amazon.com links that have been correctly affiliated with one of the affiliate publisher’s specific Tracking IDs. Amazon.com links on the publisher’s site that have not been properly affiliated will not be translated to the appropriate international storefront. While not supported at launch, amzn.to links that are created from properly affiliated Amazon.com links also now work with OneLink.
Alternatively, the Geniuslink service accepts links from any of the 20+ international Amazon storefronts that have an affiliate program, as well as links shortened with the official Amazon short domain – amzn.to. Further, Geniuslink doesn’t require that an Amazon link be properly affiliated before it will translate it, which is an important factor for recently purchased websites, forums, and/or other properties where user-generated content is created.
Further, Geniuslink provides link localization for Amazon links that are not affiliated! This is super helpful for marketers and brands that wish to put Amazon links behind QR codes in printed material, in PDFs, backmatter of books, or in email, all areas where Amazon has forbid their affiliate links to be used (see #2 in our blog about getting kicked out of Amazon’s affiliate program).
From the shopper’s perspective, the OneLink service only supports shoppers in thirteen countries (this was only recently expanded from seven in late summer of 2021). Conversely, Geniuslink will redirect users from around the world to one of the 20+ Amazon storefronts that have an Associates program.
It’s also important to note the speed of supporting new Amazon storefronts and affiliate programs. Geniuslink typically has auto-affiliation support for a new Amazon affiliate program within 24 hours of the program going live and localization support within 48-72 hours of getting access to Amazon’s PA API. Conversely, as mentioned above, Amazon just recently (August 2021) added support for some of the affiliate programs that they’ve had live for years (Australia’s affiliate program went live in May of 2018).
Amazon’s affiliate program primarily works with creators, affiliates, and publishers recommending products and, as a result, most of the Amazon affiliate links out there are for specific products (and have an ASIN in the link). Both Geniuslink and OneLink support these types of links, though as described in the Accuracy section above, each service does so at a very different level of professionalism.
However, there are two major exceptions -- search links and landing pages!
Search links are exactly what they sound like, the link to a page that shows the results for a specific query. While they aren’t the recommended way to promote products on Amazon (see notes above about Indirect Qualifying Purchases) they definitely serve their purpose. At Geniuslink we see a sizeable percentage of our clients using search links and having good reasons for doing so. As a result, Geniuslink supports the localization of search links across all of the Amazon storefronts with affiliate programs.
Quite simply, OneLink does not support search links.
Landing pages are an all-encompassing term for the various services, offers and promotions you can earn from on Amazon, and often at a high payout. Commonly referred to as bounties, the landing pages to promote Amazon Music, or Amazon Prime are again fully supported for automatic localization by Geniuslink. Geniuslink also supports the localization for landing pages around big events like Prime Day, Black Friday, etc.
And, you guessed it: Bounties, landing pages, and event pages are not supported by OneLink.
It’s also worth noting, as described in the Customization section above, any geni.us link can be tweaked to perform beyond what is programmatically available. So, one could support more link formats, link types, or storefronts than what the Geniuslink platform does by default. This customization isn’t available from OneLink.
In conclusion, Geniuslink has undeniably better coverage than OneLink on all three aspects of coverage across the Amazon affiliate ecosystem and Geniuslink keeps expanding at a faster pace.
It seems that OneLink was built with a fairly simplistic approach and while they may have grand ambitions it seems the tool really hasn’t progressed far since it was launched. Conversely, we’ve spent a decade building Geniuslink to be fully featured and have worked with thousands of clients’ feedback along the way to ensure they get the tools they need to maximize their sales and commissions.
The following are some pieces of functionality that are specific to help ensure you are maximizing your sales and commissions from the international traffic engaging in your content and clicking your links. It is not an exhaustive list of benefits and features our clients get.
Amazon allows for creating up to 100 unique Tracking IDs by default for each Associates’s account. While OneLink now allows you to localize any Amazon.com link that has one of your Tracking IDs added, the localized link, in the foreign Amazon storefront, will only use your default Tracking ID.
For example, if you are promoting the same product but on two different websites, you would likely use two different Tracking IDs. One Tracking ID would give you insights and commissions from one website were using the second Tracking ID with your second site would allow you to have a completely different set of metrics.
Unfortunately, using OneLink your careful setup quickly falls apart as OneLink affiliates all the international links with just a single tracking ID so you can’t identify if sales and commissions came from your first site or the second one
Geniuslink solves this challenge in a couple of different ways.
Amazon Associates Central is currently the only dashboard where you can get sales and commissions reporting from your affiliate efforts. Outside of that, the reporting available is pretty limited. The biggest bit of missing data, at least from looking through a lens of link localization, is knowing where your clicks are coming from and where they are going.
While Amazon blocks Geniuslink from aggregating your sales and commission data, the Geniuslink dashboard can give you detailed reporting on where your clicks are coming from (the Country report) and where they are going (the Destinations report) at the account level, the group level, and on a per geni.us link basis. Learn more about all the reporting Amazon doesn’t provide...
Amazon’s product catalog is huge and dynamic and, as a result, some links simply break (go to a 404) or the product they are linking to goes out of stock, with no plans to be restocked. Both of these experiences lead to a lower conversion rate as they result in a dead-end buying experience.
While OneLink doesn’t seem to care if the source or destination product is out of stock or even a broken link, it’s something that Geniuslink will alert you to and help you fix via the Amazon Link Health Reports we provide in the Geniuslink dashboard.
Ordered by popularity (eg. clicks), the Geniuslink service notifies you to which of your links we aren’t able to find info on (thus likely broken or not supported by the affiliate program) and which ones are going to a product where there is no inventory for sale or in stock. By watching this report, you can ensure your efforts at driving traffic aren’t being wasted with a broken (affiliate) link.
While Geniuslink is a full-featured intelligent link management service, with a deep history of supporting the Amazon Associates program, the features above aren’t the limit of the service. We’d encourage you to check out all of the features Geniuslink offers to learn other areas in link management and affiliate marketing where we can help you excel.
In conclusion, compare this to OneLink’s singular focus on localizing links that have often created more problems than it solves or confused more publishers than it has helped.
"Sales dropped to ZERO since implementing the revolutionary OneLink."
"Not sure, but as soon as I added it to my site the sales dropped in UK and as soon as I started to remove one links my sales have been increasing have also read this on a few places online too"
"This solution, for sure, is a step in the right direction. But still far away from what most Amazon affiliate partners would like to see."
"I've also been having issues with OneLink. I have it setup with my UK and CAN account linked, but the links don't seem to redirect. It says that they're valid when I use the link checker tool. Tried to contact support but heard nothing back, which is frustrating. "
"Half of my traffic is from Canada and UK but I have 0 clicks on the CA and UK dashboards. Months have been gone with multiple conversations with Amazon support team and they do not know how to solve it. I did everything I was supposed to. Dont understand why they sell this product if they dont know how to use it."
"Unfortunately, I didn’t have a great experience while trying to setup OneLink for my account and in the end, I did realize that OneLink only works on a pre-determined website that you have to pre-configure with Amazon (e.g. this blog). Since you have to prove that you own every website you link, you cannot use OneLink on social media channels like Twitter or Youtube… such a bummer!"
"One critique I’ve seen levelled at OneLink by a lot of people is that it’s not always accurate... ...Amazon’s OneLink Page has an option to ‘Check matching products’. I just ran a few products through it, and about half of them gave me errors in quite a few countries. It’s definitely a weakness. "
"If you see revenue coming in from OneLink, think about localizing your most profitable products using a link shortener like Geniuslink. This can give you better control over the product selection in other Amazon stores, plus control over Tracking IDs."
"I have no clue what happened. I didn’t even know that the issue was 100% related to onelink. The main reason why I asked to have my accounts separated is because all forwarded clicks through onelink pick up the main account store id which meant I couldn’t tell which site the clicks I was getting were coming from. I happened to be troubleshooting my traffic loss, and it turned out onelink was the issue. It may have been geniuslink in conjunction with onelink, I don’t know, but geniuslink lets me use my tracking ids so it was worth it to ditch onelink anyway... However my original post was saying that I had loss of sales using OneLink, check out Genius link as it is better at tracking and also customisation."
"I used amazon onelink because it is a free tool then found out that it somehow affected my amazon.com earnings and conversion rates. So i ditched it and started using genius link plugin. It eanbled me get an extra $50 per month which is a plus."
"Amazon has its own tool OneLink for geo-targeting. But I don't have good experience with Amazon's OneLink. If you are using a WordPress blog, there are many WordPress plugins that can help you in geo-targeting. My favorite is GeniusLink."
"On paper, it sounds like Geniuslink and Amazon OneLink are essentially the same thing, but in reality they are not. Geniuslink does a better job localizing. There are lots of situations where an international Amazon store might not carry the exact same product you linked to on Amazon in your home country. When that happens, both Geniuslink and OneLink try to send the user to the most relevant product possible - and Geniuslink does a substantially better job of it."
"After 11 days, it's glaringly obvious to me that Geniuslink is awesome. I can't believe how many Amazon affiliate sales I missed out on because their One Link technology flat out sucks even after I spent hours trying to make it work. I've seen about 50 times more clicks and approximately 100% more in sales so far. I also LOVE the reporting aspect so I know which products my readers are responding to, and it was super easy to set up."
"There is no shortage of plugins that you can use to simplify link management but nothing will come close to the functionality that Geniuslink provides. Earlier this year, I was able to sell my main money site for an extra 35% because of all the international commissions I would have missed out on (Spain, France, Italy, Germany & Australia) - this all because of the Geniuslink dashboard. My personal favourite is the Amazon link health tool that notifies me when products are out-of-stock or broken - I've managed to generate an additional 19% revenue year-on-year by keeping on top of this. Thanks guys, you've got a customer for life!"
"We implemented the Genius Link service on our blog, and I was very surprised to see a 50% increase in Amazon Associates revenue last month! The Genius Link service is now our link to maximized income. It’s unique, and more importantly, it works!"
"Our main perspective has been from that of the user since day one. For this reason, we serve less ads than many of our competitors and rely heavily on Amazon Associates for revenue. Geniuslink's automatic redirection of international readers to the storefront that's most relevant to them while capturing relevant commissions makes the service a no-brainer!"
I have been using Geniuslink for some months now and highly recommend it. Not only does it make life much simpler to have a single link you can use for any Amazon product, it has also boosted my income from Amazon's affiliate program considerably.
"I was looking for a way to be able to monetise my website to cater to visitors globally – not just from a single demographic. Genius Link offered a simple and straightforward solution. I just needed to do the configuration on my end and the visitor is seamlessly sent to their localised Amazon. I like Genius Link because if I ever needed any assistance, they were quick to get back to me and their support is top-notch."