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Geniuslink vs Amazon OneLink

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

Localization Accuracy

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!).

Our tests

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.

Why does accuracy matter?

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.

Search links payout lower in Europe

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!

Link customization

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.

Coverage

There are three aspects of coverage to compare between OneLink and Geniuslink:

• The number of Amazon link formats that are supported.
• The number of Amazon storefronts an international shopper may be directed to.
• The types of pages being linked to.

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.

Supported link formats

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 19 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).

Storefronts supported

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 19 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).

Supported link types

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.

Features

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.

Map Tracking IDs across programs

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.

• With the Groups / Overrides functionality, you can map the relationship of Tracking IDs across countries (or use the defaults when you want).
• With our Amazon IDs By CC parameter, you can identify which Tracking IDs are used per country on a link-by-link basis.

Reporting

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...

Preventing Broken Links

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.

Real-world experiences

OneLink

OneLink vs Geniuslink

Geniuslink

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