Hey everyone,
It's going to be long, but it's worth it. This is the most comprehensive guide on the web to help you learn everything about the Amazon Associates Program (also known as the Amazon Associates Program).
In this guide, you’ll learn:
- What is the Amazon Affiliate Program?
- What are the benefits of Amazon affiliate marketing?
- How to become an Amazon affiliate?
- What are the requirements for Amazon affiliate marketing approval?
- Amazon Affiliate Commission Rate?
- What is the Amazon Affiliate Disclosure?
- How to get Amazon affiliate links?
- Amazon Associates vs Amazon Affiliates?
- Amazon Affiliate Payment Proof?
There is more to help you get started with Amazon Associates.
Now, to make the most of it, eliminate all distractions and keep reading to learn that will help you make money in the days to come.
Amazon is one of the largest e-commerce marketplaces in the world. Over the years, Amazon has been committed to being the best e-retailer and the trust it has with its customers makes them buy products from them again and again.
There’s a good chance you’ve purchased a product on Amazon before. So, can you make money from the world’s largest e-commerce marketplace?
The short answer is: yes.
You as a blogger, website owner, or even an influencer can make money through the Amazon Affiliate Program.
Before we dive in, let’s learn the basics.
What is the Amazon Affiliate Program?
Amazon Associates Program is an affiliate marketing program that allows website owners, bloggers, YouTubers, social media influencers, developers to earn money from Amazon by recommending products.
Once you have an approved Amazon affiliate account, you can recommend any product on your blog, YouTube channel, Android or iOS app, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or other media and earn a generous commission.
Note: Amazon Associates and the Amazon Affiliate Program are essentially the same thing. In this tutorial, we will use the two interchangeably.
How does the Amazon Affiliate Program work?
Let's understand this with an example:
Veronica is a fashion blogger who found an interesting fashion product on Amazon. Now, she wants to write an article to let other people know about this new fashion product.
One way is that she could simply write some content about the product and then her readers would click on the link and buy the product. She would get a lot of thanks from her readers but would not get any money.
Now, one day, Veronica came to know about the free beginner’s guide on Amazon Affiliate Program by ShoutMeLoud and she learned all about Amazon Affiliate Program.
She followed the steps mentioned in this guide to sign up for an Amazon affiliate account and then replaced the fashion product with an Amazon affiliate link.
Now, from now on, when her users click on her blog link to visit Amazon and buy the product, she will also earn a commission from each sale. Now, she gets a double benefit:
- Sincere thanks from readers
- And a salary from Amazon
The best part is that it took her only 1-2 hours to learn everything and she can earn a good income from Amazon without doing any extra work.
Now, while pursuing her hobby/passion as a blogger, she is also making money to pay off her student loans, fund her new travel plans, and grow her online business.
Okay, now replace Veronica with your name and her blog with your blog or social media platform.
You or any of your friends who are looking for ways to earn passive income can do the same.
sounds good?
Now, in the following section of this guide, you will learn how to get started with the Amazon Affiliate Program.
What are the requirements for an Amazon Associates account?
First, you need to know:
Becoming an Amazon Associate is completely free.
There are three types of people who can join the Amazon Affiliate Program:
- Blogger/Website Owner – Someone who has a blog or an existing website. If you don’t have one, you can create a blog for your Amazon website right away by following the guide to creating a blog.
- YouTubers: If you have a YouTube channel, you can use it to apply to become an Amazon affiliate.
- Social Media Influencers – Amazon Influencer is a new program for micro-celebrities aka social media influencers. It is an extension of the Amazon Affiliate Program and anyone can join. You can find out more about this program here .
Amazon Affiliate Commission Rates 2021:
Amazon offers fixed affiliate commission rates for products in specific categories. However, the commission rates vary across categories.
Here are the new Amazon affiliate commission rates:
Now, if you are just starting out with a new Amazon niche website, you should choose a niche that offers higher commissions .
For example, Luxury Beauty offers a 10% commission rate. This means that if one of your readers clicks on your Amazon affiliate link and purchases a Luxury Beauty product, you will receive 10% of the product price as a commission.
Meanwhile, other categories such as furniture and home furnishings are taxed at 3%. Meanwhile, digital videos are taxed at 5%.
Amazon Bounty Program – Commissions
Amazon also has many of its own programs/products, such as:
- Amazon Prime
- Amazon Business
- Amazon Music
- Amazon Audiobooks
- Amazon Gifts
and many others…
For such programs, Amazon offers a one-time commission (bounty) ranging from $0.5 to $15.
How cool is that! 🙂
We’ll explore a variety of other ways to make money with the Amazon Affiliate Program below.
Now, let's get down to the most critical part.
How to Sign Up for Amazon Affiliate Program?
Now, we will look into the action part, in this part, I will help you to create your Amazon affiliate account.
One important thing,
Did you know that Amazon has localized Amazon websites for different countries?
For example, if you are from the United States, you will shop at Amazon.com; if you are from Japan, you will shop at Amazon.jp; if you are from India, you will shop at Amazon.in.
Interestingly, each store has its own dedicated Amazon Associates program.
So, the question is: which Amazon affiliate program should you join?
Well, you can join the affiliate program for all Amazon stores, but that’s for another day. I’ve explained this in the advanced section of this series.
To keep it simple, you should sign up for the Amazon Affiliate Program for a store that is located in your country or the closest to your country.
Below, you can find a list of all Amazon Affiliate Stores sign-up page links:
- United States: https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/
- Canada: https://associates.amazon.ca
- UK: https://affiliate-program.amazon.co.uk/
- Germany: https://partnernet.amazon.de/
- France: https://partenaires.amazon.fr/
- Japan: https://affiliate.amazon.co.jp/
- India: https://affiliate-program.amazon.in/
- Mexico: https://afiliados.amazon.com.mx
- Brazil: https://associados.amazon.com.br
Click on the store link where you want to create an affiliate account. If you have any doubts, feel free to ask me below and I will help you to clarify your doubts.
Click Join Now, on the next page, log in with your Amazon account, if you don’t have an Amazon account, just click Create One.
From here, you only need to complete 4 steps to start using your Amazon Connect account:
After selecting the payment account information, on the next page you need to enter your website, YouTube channel or Android/iOS application link.
Once you are done, click Next and fill out your profile. Once everything is done, you will be in the Amazon Affiliate Dashboard which will look like this:
I’ve highlighted some of the important parts of the dashboard to get you started.
How to Make Money as an Amazon Affiliate?
I am assuming that you are already registered with the Amazon Associates program. If not, please register now . (This is for the Amazon US store).
The next step is to get a link, banner or widget for your website. Depending on your niche, you can choose different types of links. For example:
- If you have a gadget blog, you can create a page called "Recommended Gadgets".
- If you have a movie or music blog, you can add a widget with affiliate links to movie DVDs in your sidebar.
The possibilities are vast, and depending on your niche, you can add links and monetize your website to a great extent using Amazon.
I have published a detailed tutorial on how to get links to every product on Amazon and how to put them on your blog. Start linking your products with this ID and make money!
*( Note: Many people ask me whether *Asian bloggers can join Amazon affiliate programs. The answer is yes .)
To become an Amazon affiliate, please sign up using this link: Sign Up for Amazon
How to improve conversion rate
If you think changing the color of your “Buy” link or optimizing an image won’t impact your conversion rate, think about every successful online business.
Why are red and blue the most widely used colors for Buy buttons?
Why don't people use pink or gray?
When I first used black as the button, the clicks were only half as many as the blue and red.
Not only that, but the size of these buttons is also important. The button size shouldn’t be so small that the reader can’t see it, nor should it be so large that it fills the entire width of the page. Instead, use a size between 200-400 pixels.
Now, try changing the colors around. Blue and red have the most significant impact on click-through rate.
-Contains more links-
The “Buy” button shouldn’t be the only place with links.
You must also use affiliate links in images and text.
Remember, when you use a product name in your paragraph, put a link to that specific product name which should redirect them through your Amazon affiliate link.
Make sure the text uses eye-catching colors to attract visitors.
You only need to get one click because that's what gets the user to place a cookie on Amazon.
Amazon uses a 24 hour cookie to track your ID and will give you a commission even if it is not the product you are promoting. 20% of the products I get commissions for are different than the products I promote.
-Using Link Locator-
80% of affiliates don’t use link locators, which is shocking because if you don’t use link locators, you’re losing a lot of money.
Here’s how it works…
I am Indian and my target are four countries:
- USA
- Canada
- U.K.
- India
80% of my affiliate revenue comes from the US, which is common for many affiliate marketers. But countries like the UK and Canada also bring good conversion rates.
The point is, when a US user clicks on my link, they are taken to the US Amazon store. When a Canadian user clicks on the link, they are taken to the Canadian Amazon store.
Note: I use Payoneer to receive payments from the UK and Canada, and I'm still deciding if I should use cheques or direct transfers! Haha! But I could use the money to hire a native English writer or give gift cards to Canadians.
You might think I use the EasyAzon plugin or something similar to do link localization. But that's not the case, I use the Affiliate Geo Target website. You can also use geniuslink, a popular tool used by ShoutMeLoud and other bloggers .
To use Affiliate Geo target, you must fill in the product ASIN in the product page and the tracking ID in the Amazon Affiliate dashboard for each country. This way, whenever a visitor clicks on the link, they will be redirected to the Amazon store in their country.
The site will replace every 100^^ affiliate IDs with its own, but it's still a good deal because you're already losing a lot of money by not using it.
But make sure the product you are promoting is available in every Amazon store. If not, you should just fill in the product ASIN on Amazon and use an alternate search term.
Promotion is important
Posting and praying for traffic doesn’t work anymore. That’s like throwing a party in the jungle that no one knows how to get to. You have to spend a lot of time promoting your content.
From the moment you first publish your first article, you should create separate profiles for your brand or niche blog on each social media platform like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc. These are super authoritative sites and getting nofollow links from them will definitely help. Whenever you add new content, you should post them on social media.
Here are some promotional strategies you shouldn’t miss to increase your affiliate sales:
- 20+ tested platforms to distribute your content and get massive traffic
- Where to share and promote blog posts after they are published
- The Only 15 Blog Marketing Tools You'll Ever Need
- How to Republish Existing Blog Posts on Medium to Drive More Traffic
Make sure you use Quora and Reddit too.
On these platforms, it's easy to post a link and get referral traffic. But do it in a way that shows you want to help people. Don't just go out there and say, "Hey, I have an article for you. Read this... link". Please don't do that.
When I post a link I always include text like this:
- “If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.”
- "Send me a private message and I'll help you."
These comments will definitely make people think that you are actually helping.
Note: You also need to really want to help. You can't just pretend.
I get a lot of “Thank you, Sarfraz” emails.
This is a good sign.
Another promotion technique is to find relevant niche forums . Create accounts on these forums and start helping people. Whenever you find an opportunity, post a link with a phrase like “this may help”. But before linking to your website, you should create 10 or so replies or posts.
Many forums will allow you to add a link to your website to your profile, and some may even allow dofollow. This will definitely improve your rankings.
Is Amazon Associates better than Adsense?
Let's say your blog has 1000 visitors per day. Considering that the eCPM of Google Adsense is about $3 (which is pretty much the standard), you can earn about $100 per month.
On the other hand, if you have monetized your blog through Amazon affiliate marketing, and assuming a safe click-through rate of 5%, you will be driving about 50 visitors to Amazon per day. While I can’t say what your conversion rate is, let’s assume it is 5%. This means you will be making about 2-3 sales per day!
This equates to 60-90 sales per month and commissions ranging from $200 to $2000 depending on the products you promote, which is much better than what you would earn with Adsense.
There are many Amazon success stories on the Internet , but I would not recommend removing Adsense unless you are extremely successful on Amazon. Adsense gives you the peace of mind of regular income, while Amazon Associates links can help you increase your income.
Depending on the type of blog you have, you can choose the money making program you want to use.
Keep both combined and watch how they perform.
Amazon links work great in blog posts.
You can also add a widget showing related Amazon products below your blog post which works really well.
You can also utilize YouTube videos and review any product and then link to the Amazon page from the description.
Running a Successful Amazon Affiliate Marketing Business – Final Thoughts
In general, I think don’t focus too much on the competition. You’ll find that there is competition in every niche and for the first few months or so you’ll be frustrated because you won’t be getting any organic traffic.
If you only work 1-2 hours a day, it may take a year to get organic traffic.
Blogging is a process and you have to work at least 6 hours a day to see results in just a few months. Don't expect to see any results in just a few weeks.
But if you start committing fully now, you can enjoy the money later.
As long as you work hard, you will get the money!
If you have any questions or comments about Amazon Associates or how to set up your Amazon Associates account, please let me know in the comments and I’ll be happy to help you.
I would love to know your story as an Amazon affiliate. How much money have you made so far through the Amazon affiliate program?
If you have any issues signing up for the Amazon Affiliate Program, feel free to give me a “shout out” 🙂
Here are some selected articles for you to read:
- How to Choose the Best Affiliate Products to Promote
- A Beginner's Guide to Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers and YouTubers
- Get the Affiliate Marketing eBook Now
Disclosure: Some of the links in this article contain affiliate links, which means we may earn a commission if you click through to visit us, at no extra cost to you. See how SidelinePlay is funded, why it’s important, and how you can support us.
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