Amazon Associates — Affiliate Program for Website Owners and Bloggers
Updated: Sep 14
What is Amazon Associates?
The Amazon associates program provides the opportunity to monetize your website, blog, or social media content and earn a commission. It also allows Social Media influencers and Affiliate marketers like you and me to become involved in eCommerce without having to establish or maintain an online store.
It is one of the first Affiliate marketing programs to start in 1998 when Amazon shopping was only for books. It’s free for everyone to join and approval is instant especially if you own a website or blog.
You may already know these three types of affiliate marketing (from the previous Affiliate Marketing post):
Pay-per-sale: Involves getting paid a fixed or percentage rate for a sale
Pay-per-click: Affiliates are paid based on how many visitors arrive at the merchant’s site via the affiliate link regardless of whether visitors buy.
Pay-per-lead: This means getting paid for the number of sign-ups or number of people who fill out the requested information on the website.
How the Amazon Affiliate program works
From your associate's dashboard, you simply create unique product links, promote the links on your blog or website, and drive referral traffic back to Amazon to earn a commission. Here’s how it works:
First, you need to have an Amazon Affiliate account which you can have by first visiting the Amazon signup or login page.
Each individual/website owner is given a unique Associate ID.
Wait for your application to be approved then access your associate's dashboard to begin creating affiliate links.
Place your affiliate links on your website, blog posts, or Social media.
If someone clicks on your links and buys, you earn a commission.
The commission rate differs depending on the product category. For instance, if you run an automotive blog, you can earn 4.50% from each sale. If you sell three car parts at 3,722,957USh ($1,000) each in one day, you’d make 502,599USh ($135) from those three transactions.
Good things about Joining Amazon Affiliate Program
It’s Completely free to join for Website owners and Bloggers
Amazon handles the Customer care so don't have to
Get paid with direct deposit to your bank or check
Anything bought through your link earns you a commission
Free Delivery on millions of products via Amazon Prime
Not so good things about Joining Amazon Associates
The commission is very little, you need to sell a lot
It requires having a Website to optimize earnings
You are given 180 days to make a sale to become a real Associate
It requires aggressive marketing techniques
If you are wondering how much money you can make online just by promoting Amazon Associates links for qualifying purchases within product categories specified, read this.
Having your own website or blog before applying to the Amazon Associates program will be a great advantage and a way to help you increase your sales and Affiliate Earnings through your links. Having a blog in the 21st Century is not all about content but also about the layout and design.
Luckily for you, there are various Website Builders that can give you very good-looking, professional layouts and designs without having to learn anything about coding. It doesn’t hurt to learn some code though.
Codecademy, Udacity, and various other websites like LinkedIn Learning help you get started learning anything from Graphic design and responsive website layouts to real programming and Web development for completely free. Okay, not completely free but with a Free Trial, you can learn a lot.
Wix is by far the best option I have seen so far. Wix is a Free Website Builder and also offers free domain names and hosting for your website. It allowed me to build my first website super easily with drag and drop features.
Wix’s integrated Apps like Facebook & Instagram Ads allow you to run Facebook ads right from the Wix Dashboard. There are also apps like Printful or Modalyst that allow you to create fully-functional Print-on-demand Dropshipping eCommerce stores without a lot of hustle or any code.
Get a Free Wix website and hosting here.
How to Get Started with Amazon Affiliate Program
3 Steps to Earning Commission with Amazon Associates
1. Signup and Join creators or Influencers
2. Generate product links and start recommending
3. Earn up to 10% associate commissions for qualified purchases and programs
Step 1: Create your Amazon Associates Account
To get started earning a commission by linking to Amazon product pages and programs, first you need to visit the Amazon Login page to create a free account. If you already have one that is connected to your Amazon associates account, you will be redirected to your Amazon associates dashboard.
You might want to review any terms to make sure you don’t fall into any legal issues with your account.
Step 2: Add Payee & Contact Information
Your Amazon account has contact details associated with it. Things like your Address and phone number. If you already have this setup, you need to choose the address to which you will be receiving your check. Alternatively, you could just choose your most current address.
If you don’t see your current address you can click on the “Choose Different Address” button.
And if there is no address to choose from, you may use the form fields to add your own address. The most important fields or required fields are marked with a red star.
· Payee Name
· Address Line
· City
· State, Province or Region
· ZIP or Postal Code
· Country
· Phone Number
Note: If the Payee name you entered is not the name of the person receiving the check, you are required to enter the individual’s name (Payment recipient) in the Address line.
Step 3: List your Websites and Mobile Apps
If you have more than one website that you plan to use to promote your Amazon Affiliate links, display banners, widgets, and Special promotions, here is where you add all of them.
You can add up to 50 websites or Mobile Apps.
You simply type your Website or Mobile App URL(s) and click on the “Add” button.
If you don’t have a website, get a Free Wix Website and Hosting here.
Once you add your Websites and Mobile App URL(s), you will also be asked to declare if any of them is directed primarily at children under 13. Such websites are not allowed to display any ads from Amazon Associates including banners, widgets, or special links.
When you are done, click on Confirm and enter your Profile information.
Enter Profile Preferences
The first thing is to enter your preferred Associates Store ID. The other part of the ID will be generated and embedded within your Amazon Associates links.
Your Websites and Mobile Apps from the previous step will be listed here for confirmation. Along with the details for your promotions.
These include things link:
· Audience type (Who are the people you are targeting)
· What kind of products do you intend to promote?
· What Topics best describe your websites or mobile apps
Congratulations, you should now have access to the Amazon Associates Dashboard.
Before I forget, there are some rules you need to follow.
First of all, you need to make it clear on your website or blog that you are to earn from your recommendations via the Amazon Associates program.
Do not use Amazon affiliate links in offline promotions, eBooks, or email.
Do not use link shorteners like Bit.ly on affiliate links.
Your content cannot contain sexually explicit or obscene materials
Please consider reading more about the Amazon Associates program requirements and policies here.
Welcome to your Amazon Associates Dashboard
If your application was successful, you will have access to the dashboard. From the dashboard, you can do things like getting Ideas for your next blog post via the Idea Hub, generating promotional materials such as Banners, Links, Promo Codes, and even learning more about the Amazon Associates program via the Resources tab.
The dashboard also displays your Amazon Associates Earnings summary including Commissions, Bounties, and Clicks.
Let’s look at (Product Linking) How to use the Amazon Associates Dashboard to generate Affiliate links.
Product Linking — What you should know.
This menu helps you generate various types of links to various parts of the Amazon website. When you click on this menu, it will bring up Sub-menus to specific types of links. They are basically 5 types of Product linking.
1. Product Links
2. Banners
3. Native Shopping Ads
4. Mobile Popover
5. Link to Any Page
1. Product Links (Product Page links)
When you click on this, a search bar will appear that allows you to Sort and filter your search for the Amazon products you want to promote. You can easily search by term, or specific product name (keyword) from the catalog. You can also search across subsidiaries of Amazon (amazonsupply.com) or search for the product’s AISN or ISBN.
When you find the right product to promote, simply click on the Get Link button to start Customizing your Affiliate links and get an HTML code to embed in your Blog or Website.
Types of Product Links
· Text and Image (Get product image with name and Price)
· Text Only (Get a short link)
· Image Only (Get product image and its link)
2. Banners
Amazon recommends you place your Affiliate banners at the top of your pages with the most visits. Banners are a good way to promote up-to-date content and earn from promotions that are constantly changing.
Some of the most common banner links categories include:
Amazon Fashion, Amazon Music, Amazon Kids+, Amazon Trade-in-Program
Prime, Prime Video, Musical Instruments, Kindle, Beauty
Consumer Electronics, Software, Outlet, Clothing and Shoes, Health and Personal Care, Pets
Banners come in various sizes, you don’t need to download the image or graphic provided. All you need to do is just click on the dimensions you prefer and click on the highlight button to copy the HTML code and paste it into your website.
3. Native Shopping Ads
This is my other favorite way to generate passive income online using Amazon Affiliate links. It integrates highly relevant and dynamic recommendations in a well-designed and responsive ad unit. It is one of my favorites because it allows you to earn more from one link.
Amazon’s native shopping Ads can be placed within the content or at the end of the content to create a compelling website visitor experience. See below for examples:
Search Ads (Display products to visitors most likely to buy from your website)
Custom Ads (Choose your handpicked products)
Recommendation Ads (Get sales from frequent visitors)
4. Mobile Popover
Increase your Amazon Affiliate Earnings using Mobile experience and greater conversions. This is super easy to set up and implement. You can add product info, reviews, and prices to your existing links.
To set this up, simply edit, highlight and copy your Affiliate JavaScript code and paste it into your Website or Blog then preview your Popover in Mobile.
5. Link to Any Page
When it comes to product linking to specific pages, there are 3 ways to generate links to start recommending and earning Amazon affiliate commission.
Specific Product Categories e.g. Best Sellers — To use this, simply select product line, Subcategory, and Name your link then click on Get HTML to get your anchor link to use in your Blog or Website content.
Search Results — To use this, select a product line, enter keywords, and name your link. This is a great way to send visitors to a list of products related to certain search terms or topics on your website. Again, click on the Get HTML button to generate our link.
Link to any Pages — This is my favorite. It builds links to any page on Amazon. It requires a URL and the name of your link. The link name is very important if you want to stay organized and make link tracking easier for you.
Increase your Amazon Affiliate Earnings with these Tips & Tools
Sitestripe — This is a very useful tool for quickly creating text links for product pages or specific categories. The Sitestripe appears at the top of your Amazon website while shopping. It only appears for Associates. You can install the Sitestripe by clicking on tools from your dashboard
Resources — As mentioned earlier, if you want more knowledge about how to make money online using the Amazon Associates Affiliate program, consider looking at the resources section under the Help menu. This is where you find in-depth articles and tutorials created by members of the Amazon Associates team and the community at large.
Canva — To increase your sales and commission, you need to be creating beautiful designs and graphics (Professional Marketing visuals). One tool that can help you do that very effortlessly is Canva. A free online graphic design platform. It also has a paid version, Canva Pro which you can learn more about in my Free Canva course.
YouTube— Google’s YouTube video marketing platform is by far the best and my favorite when it comes to promoting your content and Affiliate links. It is also one of the ways I have learned a lot of invaluable stuff free. Video gives you a different kind of connection with your audience and endless possibilities especially Live video.
To make sure your videos are seen, you may want to consider watching the last video I made on how to promote YouTube videos using Google Ads.
Ascend by Wix — Email marketing campaigns have proven to be a very effective way to promote affiliate links. Lead generation is very important even for non-Affiliates. The more qualified leads, the more possible sales and the more commission (Passive income) you are likely to make.
Become an Amazon Seller — Did you know that more than half the units sold in Amazon stores are from independent sellers? With over 300 million customers worldwide, Amazon is your best bet. Startups and Fortune 500s, B2B and B2C, Brand owners, and resellers all use Amazon to make money.
There are some legal documents required before you can complete your application, including a Bank Statement, current citizenship confirmation, identification documents, and proof of a real address.
Becoming an Amazon Seller is a dream come true for anyone that wishes to get started or participate in eCommerce but lacks an online store. Amazon takes care of all the shipping, returns, and customer service through the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA).
You can also do the Shipping yourself if you prefer via the Seller Central Dashboard. It only costs 39.9$ per month to get started. Don’t forget selling fees whenever you make a sale.
Conclusion
Unlike the Amazon Seller, Amazon Associate is open to the whole world. The trick is to find products that can have high sales volume online, and search for them on Amazon. Again, it is highly recommended to have your own blog or website.
Luckily for you, I have a full course I put together to help you get started creating your own website.
Have you been using the Amazon Associates program? What tips do you have for those just getting started?
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