How to read the Amazon Associates earnings report when your links live on YouTube

The Associates reports tell you which products were ordered and shipped after someone clicked one of your links, split by product, tracking ID, link type and day. They do not tell you which video or which link the click came from. If you want anything close to per-video numbers, you have to build it yourself with tracking IDs and your own notes on which videos feature which products. This guide covers what each report shows, how to read the columns, and where the reports go blind.

Report names and column labels below follow Amazon's own help pages for the US programme, last checked in October 2026. Amazon changes the reporting screens from time to time, so if your screen differs, trust your screen.

Which Amazon Associates report should you open?

Amazon's help pages describe these reports in Associates Central:

• Earnings report. Commission income and bounties, with a daily earnings graph. Amazon says it is current as of the previous day.
• Orders report. What was ordered after a referral, with click counts. It has an "Items with orders" section and an "Items with no orders" section. Ordered items update hourly, and most orders show up within about three hours.
• Link-Type report. How each kind of link is performing.
• Daily Trends. Clicks, orders and earnings day by day.
• Tracking ID Summary. The same numbers split by tracking ID.

You can pick preset ranges such as Today, Last 7 Days and Last 90 Days, or a custom range. The help page says a custom range has to span less than 90 days, so a year-over-year comparison means running last year's range separately and putting the two side by side.

How to read the earnings report columns

• Product Title. The product Amazon is paying you a commission on.
• Clicks. Clicks on your product links in the period.
• Items Shipped. Items that actually shipped in the period.
• Revenue. Items shipped multiplied by price.
• Commission Income. What Amazon paid you on that revenue.

The detail that trips people up: the earnings report counts shipped items, not ordered ones. An order placed today shows in the Orders report within hours and reaches the Earnings report only once it ships. So "orders went up but earnings didn't" over a short window is often just timing. Returned, cancelled and refunded purchases don't qualify for commission under the Program Policies, which is why a strong December can be followed by deductions in January.

The rate you see on a row may not match the rate you expect. Amazon's help page notes that rounding, category caps and other adjustments can move it slightly. If the rate on a whole category looks different from a few months ago, compare it against the current rate table in the Program Policies before assuming anything is broken.

How to read the orders report

• Product Link Clicks. Clicks that took a visitor to the detail page of a product you linked to.
• Product Link Conversion. The share of those clicks that ended with that product being bought. "N/A" means the order came through a different link.
• Ordered Through Product Links. Units of the product you linked that were bought after a click on that link.
• All Other Items Ordered. Units of this product bought in a session that started from a link to something else.
• Total Items Ordered. The sum of the two.

"All Other Items Ordered" is why you see products you have never mentioned. A viewer clicked your tripod link and bought a phone case in the same session.

The "Items with no orders" section is your clicks-but-no-sales list

This section lists products that received clicks through your links and produced no orders in the period. For a YouTube creator it is the most useful part of the report. A product with steady clicks and no orders is worth opening: it may be unavailable, replaced by a newer model, or carrying reviews that have slid since you recommended it. The report won't say which; it only shows that people arrived and didn't buy.

Why clicks and orders don't line up day to day

Amazon credits you for items added to the cart within the 24-hour session after a click and then bought from the cart within about 90 days. Its help pages point out the consequence: over a short range you can see orders with no matching clicks (the click was weeks ago) and clicks with no orders (the buyer hasn't checked out yet). Judge links over weeks, not days.

What the report can't tell a YouTube creator

• Which video earned it. There is no video, URL or placement column. Every link carrying the same tracking ID lands in the same bucket.
• Clicks on links without your tag. A link that has lost its tag= parameter isn't tied to your account, so it doesn't appear at all. See the missing tag guide.
• Clicks on links carrying a tag that isn't yours. They are credited, if at all, to whoever owns that tag. More on that in the tracking ID guide.
• Links that no longer reach a product. A dead link produces no row. The absence of a product you expect to see is the only signal.
• Why a product stopped converting. The report shows clicks without orders. It doesn't show stock status or ratings.

Put together, the report describes the traffic Amazon could attribute to you. It says nothing about the traffic that leaked before it got there.

How to get closer to per-video numbers

Use tracking IDs for the splits you care about. Amazon allows up to 100 tracking IDs per account. That is not enough for one per video on most channels, and it is plenty for one per channel, one per series, or one each for your ten best earners. The tracking ID guide covers naming schemes.

Map products to videos yourself. Most products appear in only a handful of your videos. A simple sheet of "product, videos it appears in" turns the product-level report into a rough video-level one.

Compare against views. If a video's views are steady and the products it features have dropped out of your report, look at the links in that description first.

A 15-minute monthly check

• Earnings report, last 30 days against the same 30 days a year ago. Seasonal swings are normal; a gap that last year doesn't explain is worth chasing.
• Orders report, "Items with no orders", sorted by clicks. Open the top five product pages.
• Tracking ID Summary, if you use more than one ID. Look for an ID that went quiet.
• Note any product you expect to see that is missing, and test its link with the free link checker.

If the numbers have already fallen and you want to find out why, the earnings-dropped diagnostic tree walks through the causes in order.

Common questions

How often do the Associates reports update?

According to Amazon's help pages, ordered items and bounties update hourly, with most orders reported within three hours. The earnings report is current as of the previous day.

Why are my earnings lower than my orders suggest?

Earnings are counted when items ship, and cancelled or returned items don't earn. Different categories also pay different rates, so order volume alone doesn't predict income.

Can I see which YouTube video a sale came from?

Not in the Associates reports. The closest you can get is a tracking ID used only on that video, or working backwards from the product to the videos that link to it.

Why does the report show clicks but no orders?

Either buyers haven't checked out yet, or the product has stopped converting. Open the product page. If it is unavailable or poorly rated now, replace the link.

Channel Workbench does not read your Associates reports. It scans your video descriptions and flags possible issues with the links themselves. Related: Earnings dropped? A diagnostic tree · Tracking IDs for YouTube · What changed in 2026 · Do Amazon affiliate links expire? · Channel Workbench vs ProfitPatrol