The Amazon affiliate program, also known as “Amazon Associates,” is an easy way to monetize your blog or website. Just sign up, receive instant approval, and place Amazon affiliate links on your website. When somebody makes an Amazon purchase through one of your links, you receive money- it is that simple. But how to get started with Amazon affiliate marketing? Below, you will find a step-by-step guide to becoming an Amazon affiliate. Whether you are an aspiring entrepreneur, starting a new business, or just looking for a side small business, then this guide will help you to begin.
What is Amazon Affiliate Marketing Program?
Amazon affiliate program is an affiliate marketing program. It is free of cost for website owners and bloggers to become Amazon Associates. They advertise items from Amazon.com on their websites by creating links. When customers click the link and buy products from Amazon, they earn referral fees.
Amazon Affiliate Program Requirements
Being an Amazon associate is a great way to monetize passion projects or make supplemental income from your company. However, Amazon has guidelines for partners to follow, so it is better to understand those before you start. Noncompliance may ban you from the program.
Most of the rules are in place for ethical promotion and preventing associates from gaming the system. Here are some of the important things to keep in mind:
- You must disclose on your website or in your communication that you may be eligible to earn from your proposals.
- You must not make any type of false and deceptive claims in your recommendations
- Avoid referring to expenses as prices keep changing
- Do not use Amazon affiliate links in eBooks, offline promotions, and email
- Do not use affiliate links or link shorteners
Advantages of becoming an Amazon Affiliate
There are many reasons to join the Amazon Associates program, including:
Amazon is highly visited, a popular name that people use and trust
- It is free
- There are no traffic thresholds or metrics that you need to be accepted in the program
- There are tons of products that you can promote
- Amazon has several tools to sell certain items
- There is a good reporting system so you can get an idea about what is getting clicks and what is selling
- You can get payments directly into your bank account
- Amazon provides good customer service to its customers, so you lessen the risk of having your customers get mad at you if they have an issue with the product
- Even if your visitor does not buy the product that you referred, if they buy something on that visit, then earn a commission.
Disadvantages of Amazon affiliate marketing
Nothing is always perfect, including Amazon affiliate marketing. Here are a few disadvantages:
The rate of commission is low when compared to other affiliate marketing programs, 6 to 10% depending on the products. It provides a flat rate for the bounty programs, like $15 for signing up business accounts, $3 for Prime referrals, and around $5 for Audible referrals.
Their cookies just last for 24 hours. This means that if your referral does not purchase within 24 hours, you will not get money. However, if the product is added to their cart, the cookie lasts 90 days.
You are not permitted to send Amazon affiliate links in emails. That includes blogs that get sent as an email. As email is a great way to send great offers to your readers, this rule is specifically disappointing. If you have a U.S. website and want to promote products in the Amazon U.S. store, then you will not get credit for referring someone who ends up purchasing the product from outside the country, i.e., Amazon UK.
Payment choices are through direct deposit, Amazon gift card, or check. You will not find a PayPal option. The minimum payout is $100, which is not that huge if you make a lot of sales, but of course a lot if you are earning a few dollars every month.
How to earn money through Amazon Affiliate Marketing?
Learn basic affiliate marketing tips to increase sales and earn more and more money.
Post links daily to optimize your earnings
This needs you to find creative ways you can include product recommendations into your posts on your blog while still establishing the impression that you are offering your readers experience on the subject.
It should be noted that the links to the affiliate marketing programs that Amazon provides are active for 24 hours after a potential customer clicks it which means that they get expired after 24 hours with fresh links allowing earning money.
Build links for various types of products with time
You receive an advertising fee from Amazon on the whole purchase and not just for advertising a product. This means that you must ensure that people use their link on Amazon so that they can make a full purchase which they wanted to make by using a referral link.
You can use your referral link to send info through email or to family members
You earn commission on anyone’s purchase, except yours, if they use your referral link within 24 hours. An important tip here is that you can trade referral links with friends and family members and utilize their link to make your purchases and ask them to do the same so the rewards can be shared. This might not be a major way to earn money through Amazon affiliate marketing, but it can help your commission structure too.
Add widgets to your site
One of the important ways to earn money using affiliate marketing programs is by adding widgets to your site. There are online stores and widgets of the Amazon Associates Program that can be added to website templates. Make sure you list different recommended products in the sidebar.
Promote products worth $100 and more
If you want to earn money using different affiliate marketing platforms, then always look for products that are higher in price as this will give you a higher commission. Thus, make sure you recommend such products more and more.
Use lists
Prepare a recommendation list every month on a new topic as they are valuable to your readers and customers too.
Use Amazon Associate links to post seasonal content
Obviously, during the festival period, people buy more things, therefore, you must post recommended products before the festive period comes to take benefits of sales that will go on Amazon affiliate marketing. It is better to start making a seasonal schedule for your blogs early enough. There are many holidays, so you can plan for them to increase your sales and earn more commission.
Win the confidence of the customers
Make sure you write a detailed and genuine review of the products and services that fall under your niche. While writing a review for a product and service, make sure to answer all the relevant and possible questions that the customer might have regarding the product.
Use an attractive “CTA”
Having a clear CTA is necessary to start conversion. No matter how much review or promotion you do, without a clear CTA, all your efforts will be a waste. You can add a clickable “Buy Now” button to take the customers to Amazon Store Page directly.
These are some of the easiest ways to earn money using Amazon affiliate marketing. If you know any other way or affiliate marketing tips, do let us know in our comments section.