Amazon Associates Tracking IDs: How to Use Them to See What's Earning
Most Amazon affiliates have one number for the whole account: clicks, orders, earnings, all sites and all pages lumped together.
Which guide produced the orders, whether the comparison posts convert, whether the new site earns anything, none of it is visible, because every link carries the same tag. Tracking IDs are the fix, they're free, and they take ten minutes to set up for a site.
This post covers what a tracking ID is and isn't, how many you get, the naming schemes that work at different sizes, where to put the IDs in links and tools, and how to read the reports once they're split. It builds on the Associates ID post, which explains the tag itself; this one is about using more than one of them.
The short answer
A tracking ID is an extra tag on your Associates account that pays to the same balance but reports separately. Create them under Manage Your Tracking IDs (up to 100 per account), one per site at minimum, and one per page type if you want to know what converts.
Put the right ID in the links on each site, and the Earnings report, filtered by ID, shows which sites and which kinds of page produce the orders.
What a tracking ID is
Every Associates account has a Store ID, the tag in your first links (yoursite-20). A tracking ID is an additional tag in the same format, created by you, attached to the same account.
Amazon treats it identically for payment and differently for reporting: in the reports you can filter by tracking ID and see clicks, ordered items, shipped items, conversion and earnings for that ID alone. That's the entire feature. Amazon's help page puts the limit at 100 per account, with more available on request.
A tracking ID has to exist on the account before a link uses it. A link with a tag you haven't created still goes to Amazon and still earns under some conditions, but it reports under the wrong label or not at all, so create first, link second.
Naming schemes by size
| Site size | Scheme | Example IDs | What the report answers |
|---|---|---|---|
| One site, under 30 posts | One per page type | site-guides-20, site-reviews-20, site-vs-20 | Which kind of page converts |
| One site, growing | Per page type + per hub | site-bikelights-20, site-helmets-20 | Which topic earns |
| Several sites | One per site, then per page type on the biggest | siteA-20, siteB-20, siteA-guides-20 | Which site earns; which pages on the main one |
| Testing a placement | Temporary ID for one element | site-tablebtn-20 | Whether the table buttons or the section buttons get the orders |
| Social, email | One per channel | site-yt-20, site-email-20 | Which channel is worth the time |
Keep IDs short, lowercase and readable; you'll be scanning a list of them. Don't go per post on a site with two hundred posts; the report becomes unreadable and the limit arrives. Per page type and per topic answers almost every question a site owner has.
Where to set them
- Hand-built links: replace the tag in the URL (?tag=site-guides-20). SiteStripe and the Link Builder have a dropdown to pick the tracking ID before generating a link.
- Product-box plugins: most have a tracking ID field per site or per box; set it once.
- Generators and tools: set the ID per site (or per run) in the tool's settings so every link it writes carries it.
- Existing posts: changing the tag on old links is a find-and-replace across the site. Worth doing once; the links keep earning throughout.
Whatever the ID, it must belong to the same account the site is registered on. Tags from a second Associates account don't report anywhere useful and can breach the rules.
Reading the report
Associates Central → Reports → Earnings. The tracking ID filter at the top switches the whole report to one ID. For a quick comparison, the Summary tab with "all tracking IDs" and a 30-day range lists clicks, ordered items and conversion per ID side by side. Three things to look for:
- Clicks without orders. An ID with hundreds of clicks and few orders is traffic that isn't buying: usually informational pages, or a page whose picks are out of stock. The conversion rate post covers what to do.
- Orders you didn't expect. A small ID with a high conversion rate is a page type to write more of.
- An ID at zero. Either the site sends no traffic, or the links on it carry a different tag. Check one link.
Give any change a month. Report data lags by a day or two, and shipped earnings lag ordered by days to weeks, so a week's numbers mislead.
What tracking IDs don't do
- They don't show which product sold from which page. Amazon reports the product, and the ID, but not the link position.
- They don't track clicks inside your site; that's analytics.
- They don't change rates, cookies or payment. Same account, same money.
- They don't replace registering each site on the account, which Amazon still requires.
Doing it with AffSERP
AffSERP keeps a tracking ID per site in the site's settings, and the X Best Review tool puts it on every link in every guide written for that site; a run can also carry its own ID when you want one batch reported separately.
That gives the per-site and per-topic schemes above without touching a link by hand. The reading of the report stays in Associates Central, and the one thing to check after setting a site's ID is that it exists on the account first, which is the mistake that sends a month of clicks to the wrong row.
FAQ
What is the difference between a Store ID and a tracking ID?
The Store ID is the main tag Amazon gave you at signup. Tracking IDs are extra tags you create under it, each with the same format (name-20 on amazon.com), and every one pays to the same account. The only difference is the reports: Amazon splits clicks, orders and earnings by tracking ID, so each one is a label on a slice of your traffic.
How many tracking IDs can I have?
Amazon's help page says 100 per Associates account, and you can ask Associates support for more. Most sites never get near it: one per site, or one per site plus one per page type, is ten or twenty IDs for a portfolio.
Do tracking IDs affect commission rates?
No. Every tracking ID on an account earns the same rates and pays into the same balance. They change nothing about the link except which row of the report the click lands in. The Store ID itself is also a valid tracking ID, so links with it keep working.
Can I use one tracking ID across several websites?
You can, but you lose the point. One ID per registered site is the minimum that makes the report useful, and Amazon expects each site you earn from to be listed on the account anyway. Reusing an ID across sites gives you one number for all of them.
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