Why Brands Lose Money on Their Levanta Programs (and How to Fix It)

Commerce Bridge
Nov 18, 2025
3 min read

As more brands turn to the Levanta affiliate platform to accelerate Amazon growth, many quickly realize that simply launching a program isn’t enough. While Levanta has massive potential, it's also easy for brands to lose money, stall growth, or miss out on publisher opportunities, not because the platform doesn’t work, but because the strategy behind it needs refinement.

If you're struggling to scale your program, here are the top reasons brands fail on Levanta, and exactly how to fix them.

1. It’s Not All About Offering the Highest Commission on Levanta

Many brands assume that increasing commissions will automatically attract top publishers. The reality? Publishers are being bombarded with requests daily, and commissions alone rarely determine who they prioritize.

What matters more is relationships.

Working with an agency like Commerce Bridge, which already has strong, trusted relationships with top publishers, helps brands get placed faster and earlier. This relationship leverage often matters far more than a commission bump, especially when competing for publisher bandwidth during peak periods.

2. Missing Promotions Means Missing Visibility

A major reason brands lose traction on Levanta is simply this: They forget to upload promotions.

During tentpole events like Prime Day, Black Friday, Cyber Week, and category-specific sale periods, publishers are actively looking for:

Updated offers
Timely codes
Real-time promotions
Category-relevant deals

If your deals aren’t uploaded into the Levanta dashboard, publishers cannot surface you, even if they want to.

Keeping your Levanta program up to date ensures you appear across the network whenever publishers are searching for products to feature.

3. A Publisher Joining Doesn’t Mean They Will Produce

One of the most common misconceptions on Levanta is that publisher sign-ups equal publisher output.

They don’t.

Signing up is only step one, similar to how DTC affiliate programs operate. A publisher joining your program simply means:

They’re interested
You’ve passed the initial filter
They’re open to a relationship

But producing content requires nurturing:

Consistent communication
Sharing top-selling ASINs
Providing updated deals
Offering product education
Building the relationship over time

Without this, publishers often remain inactive and brands mistakenly assume the channel “isn’t working.”

4. Affiliate Is a Marathon, Not a Race

Brands often panic during the first 60–90 days of running a Levanta program. But that early phase is foundation-building, not revenue-driving.

A realistic timeline looks like this:

Months 1–3: Onboarding publishers, organizing promotions, setting up tracking, optimizing the base.
Months 4–8: Relationship-building, securing placements, scaling output, generating incremental content.
Months 9+: Consistent revenue flow, optimized partnerships, and compounding growth.

Patience is a competitive advantage. Every top affiliate program, especially in the Amazon ecosystem, takes time to mature.

5. Trying to Manage Everything Alone Slows You Down

Levanta is powerful but can feel overwhelming:

Publisher management
Deal uploads
Outreach
Relationship-building
Performance optimization
Reporting
Seasonal strategy

Doing all of this without experience often leads to missed opportunities and wasted budget.

That’s where Commerce Bridge comes in.

With over 12 years of experience in the affiliate and Amazon ecosystem, we’ve helped brands scale programs to over $6M+ in GMV and many of those wins came directly from optimizing Levanta programs.