Are you looking for ways to earn through Amazon? If you don’t have the resources to start selling directly on Amazon, one good way to save up is through making money with Amazon affiliates. You earn a commission for the customers you lead on to the Amazon website. You don’t need to have products to sell — instead, you get paid for generating traffic for Amazon.
What Is an Affiliate Program?
An affiliate program is a marketing strategy used by businesses to promote their products and services. This strategy gives incentives to affiliates or promoters when they gather leads (customers) that can potentially buy the products and services offered. Incentives provided by the businesses may vary — but most commonly, they will be money, products, or gift cards.
Here’s how to join an affiliate program:
- Look for an affiliate program offered by a site.
- Choose the offers that suit you and your website, social media account, or channel.
- Get a unique affiliate link for the offers.
- Share the links using posts on your website or other platforms.
What Is the Amazon Affiliate Program?
Amazon’s affiliate marketing program is known as Amazon Associates. It was created to boost Amazon’s sales by providing commissions through referrals. Influencers, bloggers, writers, and more can earn money by promoting and sharing the links of different products and services available on Amazon.
How to Do Affiliate Marketing With Amazon
If you’re an influencer, blogger, writer, or another type of content creator, you have to place affiliate links in the content of your social media account, website, blogs, and articles. When your visitors click the links, they’ll be directed to the Amazon page for the product or service.
Then, you’ll earn your referral when the customer visits the page and adds a product to their cart following your link within 24 hours. The customers have 90 days to check out their cart and purchase any product for you to earn a commission.
If you’re interested in joining the affiliate program, you need to read the Operating Agreement and Program Policies. Amazon implements specific rules to prevent potential fraud and negative customer feedback.
How Much Do Amazon Affiliates Make?
There is no fixed amount of money that an Amazon affiliate makes. The commission you earned depends on three categories:
Sales
You’ll earn money when the customer you’ve reached buys the product or service on Amazon. The merchant might have a fixed commission per purchase, or you could get a percentage of the sales. Therefore, you’ll earn a lot if the customer pays for the products and services, but you may not gain at all if no purchase was made.
Clicks
You’ll be paid based on the number of visitors to the Amazon merchant’s site using the affiliate link you posted, and you’ll get paid even if the customer didn’t make any purchase.
Leads
You’ll earn money if the visitor who clicked on your link signed up and provided the information needed by Amazon and their merchant — for instance, an email address for promotions.
How to Become an Amazon Affiliate
Are you interested in becoming an Amazon affiliate? Here is a step-by-step guide to help you understand the process of becoming an affiliate with Amazon.
You Must Have a Website or Blog
To share the affiliate link, you must have a website. If you are a blogger, publisher, or content creator, you need to register first as an influencer for the applicable Amazon site.
Have an Active Platform to Share Links
To become an affiliate for Amazon, you’ll need an active platform to promote or share the affiliate links. The application process requires that you register your platform to avoid fraud. It’s an advantage to have lots of followers and site visitors, as it helps Amazon know that your account or site is authentic.
Upon application, you need to describe the content you make on your platforms. It’s best to stick to content you’re good at, and that has the highest engagement. For example, let’s say your social media account is full of OOTDs (outfit of the day). You can write about this on your affiliate application so that you’ll be linked to merchants and Amazon shops with clothing products.
Go to the Amazon Associates Homepage and Sign Up
Before applying as an Amazon affiliate, you need to sign up and create an Amazon Associates account. Visit the Amazon Associates website, and you’ll find the sign-up button. You’ll be led to a page where you can log in if you already have an account or create a new one. Upon creating a new one, you’ll need to provide some information, including:
- Personal Information: name, address, and phone number.
- Website address: web address where you’ll promote Amazon products, links to your social media accounts, YouTube channel, and more
Create Your Amazon Associate Profile
The profile page is where you’ll provide an identification that you’ll use for your affiliate links. You need to create an Associates ID; this tells Amazon and their merchants where to send the commissions. You can use the name of your website for your ID to link the referrals to you easily.
Another part of the profile is the description of your content on your social media pages or websites. If you’re into makeup and beauty products, you can add, “I create makeup tutorials and share my skincare routine.”
Below the description are options for content categories. You can choose where they fit, and some checkboxes will appear for specific Amazon products you intend to list on your account or site. For example, the general category for the example above falls under “Medical/Health/Beauty.” Then, the specific Amazon items are “Health & Beauty” for the checkboxes.
The last part of the profile page is Traffic & Monetization. Here are the things you need to take note of:
- You need to indicate how you’ll drive traffic to your site. Some options are paid search, email, shopping portal, offline, paid to advertise, and more.
- Then, you need to share how you use your websites and apps to generate income. Some options are commissions, other affiliate programs, display advertising, and more.
- You’ll also be asked how you build your links — blog editor, HTML editor, content management system, manual via a text editor, etc.
- There is a survey regarding how your site is doing; you’ll need to estimate the number of visitors you have per month.
- You need to indicate the main reason you’ve joined Amazon Associates, and the usual answer is to monetize your site or to get site content.
- They also need to assess how you heard about the affiliate program Amazon offers for their reference and marketing. The options included are a blog post, Amazon website, word of mouth, and online search.
Select Your Payment Preferences
After building your profile, you’ll be directed to a page to confirm your application. Amazon will provide additional information on navigating through the program and how to use your Associate ID.
Then, Amazon will review your application. You need to make at least three sales within the next 180 days, and if you don’t reach the target, Amazon will withdraw your application.
The page will also ask for your payment details and tax information, but you can skip this process and choose to do it later if you still don’t have the information.
Once you save up with all the payments you’ve received, you can also open your own Amazon shop to generate more income. But, if you already want to open your store early, you can ask for help from PIRS Capital to fund your small business. We provide loans to help grow your business, and we also provide consultancy services.
Start Generating Your Affiliate Links
After finishing the steps above, you’re now part of the Amazon affiliate program. When you promote and share the products, you need to take note that Amazon requires a disclaimer indicating that you’re an Amazon Associate. If you forget to do this, you might get banned from the affiliate program.
To create your first affiliate link:
- Go to Amazon Associates’ homepage and search for the products you want to include on your website by typing them in the search bar.
- Click on the Go button, and you’ll get a list of items.
- Choose the product that suits you and your site and click on the “Get link” button.
- Then, you’ll be directed to a page on how you’ll display the product on your website. The options include Text and Image, Text Only, Image Only, and Add to Widget.
- If you choose text only, you’ll be given a link. But, for the other three options, you’ll be given an HTML code that you can add to the page or post of your site.
See Also:
What Is an Amazon Affiliate Store?
If you do not have your own website or blog, you might want to create an Amazon affiliate store. It earns the same way, but you have to create your website or eCommerce store specifically to sell products available on Amazon. When a visitor clicks the product, you lead them directly to Amazon; you earn your commission once they purchase the product.
Unlike other eCommerce stores, you do not need to worry about the shipping, logistics, inventory, and others since Amazon will take care of that. All you have to do is lead the customers to their website.
Using WordPress to create your Amazon affiliate store would be helpful. You need a domain name, hosting web service, and an SSL certificate. Then, sign up for an Amazon Associate account, and once approved, you can get Amazon affiliate product links that you can put on your website.
Add the products to your WordPress site and select external or affiliate products. Then, place the URL from the Amazon affiliate links that would be opened once they click the “Buy Now” button on your eCommerce site.
When you are an Amazon affiliate member, you will have access to the wide range of tools they offer, including analytics and marketing tools that you can use to maximize your earning potential.
Follow the Rules to Stay in the Amazon Affiliate Program
Amazon’s operating agreement and program policies guide the affiliate members of Amazon, whether they are just beginners or have been a member for a long time. Disobeying such rules can cause termination of your membership any time they find that you are operating outside their given policies.
Amazon expects every member to diligently review the rules of the affiliate program to stay in compliance with if you are interested in joining the program and want to learn more about the rules. Here are ten of the most important rules for the Amazon affiliate program.
Disclosure Statement for Amazon Affiliates
1 Affiliate members are required to verify their identification. In the operating agreement, Amazon states that you need to indicate on your site that you earn through qualified purchases with the aid of the Amazon Associate program. You’re not allowed to share to the public any other information with the agreement and participation in the Associate’s program without Amazon’s permission.
Amazon also added that you need to be cautious about the information you’re displaying on your site. Unless it is part of the agreement, you must not imply that they support, sponsor, or endorse you. Misrepresentation can lead to you being banned from the affiliate program.
Don’t Use Multiple Accounts
2 Amazon prohibits multiple accounts to prevent spamming. If you’re caught with more than one account in Amazon Associates, you’ll be banned from the program.
Besides, having one account is simpler anyway: it’s easier to manage, and you’ll also get separate IDs for different sites, which will be enough for your Amazon referral.
Make Sure Your Site Has Appropriate Content
3 Amazon will ban your site if they find you are partaking in illegal activities, like collecting information from minors, publishing hateful and discriminatory content, and promoting violence. Amazon’s goal is to build connections with affiliates that can drive traffic using original, well-built, and established content websites. It’s not enough to have a website; you need to make sure that it will positively affect people’s lives.
The Date and Time of The Last Price Update Must Be Listed
4 When you post the link or share the product, you need to indicate the product’s price. You can get this from the Advertising API (API). You need to include the time and date since the prices on Amazon are constantly changing, caused by an increase in demand, discounts to boost sales, and other marketing strategies.
If you are using a plugin, it should automatically have the date and time of the price you are listing, and it may give you the option to control the style of your text.
No Link Cloaking
5 The link you provide in your content must direct the customer to the Amazon website. Amazon needs to check where the traffic is coming from and going to.
When you create your links, it is better to use shorter ones. However, you must not do link cloaking (masking the link with shortener tools and hiding the actual shape of the link). Amazon doesn’t allow this. Instead, you can use their tool, amzn.to, to shorten long links.
Affiliate Links Must Not Be Placed in Emails
6 Using emails to direct customers to Amazon is strictly prohibited since they are not fans of offline promotion. It can also compromise your personal information’s safety. Therefore, the affiliate links must be placed on your website only. If you’re sending emails, you can add links to your website instead, and when they’ve reached your site, they can click on the Amazon affiliate links you have.
Amazon Content Must Not Be Used Inappropriately
7 The Amazon website contains intellectual properties; in other words, Amazon owns all the content found on its website. Therefore, it is important not to plagiarize the information on their website, such as the images, titles, or descriptions of the products.
If you want to include information from their website, you can do so with the Product Advertising API on the Amazon affiliate website. The API plays as your data feed access ID, and you can gain API access after having at least three sales as an Amazon affiliate.
Amazon is also protective when it comes to trademark infringement. You must review the allowed and unauthorized uses that Amazon has indicated before using any official Amazon marks or any marks that may be associated as Amazon “inspired.”
Keep Your Personal Information Updated
8 Indicate the URL of any affiliate website where you’d like Amazon affiliate links to appear. Email, direct deposit, bank account, and tax information should all be current. This is how Amazon will contact you if there are any issues with your account or new policies.
Do Not Copy Amazon’s Layout
9 It will be considered a violation if your site uses the same design, color, or layout as the Amazon website.
Rebates Are Prohibited
10 Don’t offer any promotions, financial incentives, or rebates from the purchases from your affiliate links. Use your affiliate links to direct traffic to the Amazon website.
Ready to Start Making Money As an Affiliate?
Becoming an Amazon affiliate is a great way to earn money! It can help you build savings, which you can then put towards starting a business of your own. If you’re looking for startup capital, you can also give us a call at PIRS Capital. We help small businesses financially, so they can grow successfully.
I work with companies that sell products on platforms such as Amazon, Shopify, Walmart, Ebay, Etsy, etc. I understand that every business is unique and thats why I form genuine relationships with owners so I can help them reach their goals and find success through our working capital solutions.
