Apart from selling a certain niche on Amazon, there are other approaches to boost your income from this eCommerce platform. If you have never heard of “Amazon Associates,” it is an Amazon affiliate program that lets you sign up to become their affiliate and gain profit from promoted links.
So what do you need to know about this program to get started? This article will provide a detailed guide to help you become an Amazon Affiliate, regardless of your goal of expanding an eCommerce business or getting a side hustle.
What is Amazon affiliate program?
The Amazon affiliate program – Amazon Associates, is a free affiliate marketing program open for all website owners and bloggers. After signing up, they will create links to promote Amazon products on their sites. You will earn referral fees when a customer purchases something via your links.
What is affiliate marketing?
When an online retailer allows website owners to create unique affiliate links for product advertisement, they apply the affiliate marketing tactic. As of 2023, the affiliate marketing industry worldwide is predicted to increase its worth to $17 billion.
Your job as an affiliate is to promote those links, and you will receive a commission after someone use the link to purchase. Keep in mind that only when your links are used for transactions, then you will earn money.
Affiliate marketing is a brilliant strategy if you are already a blog or website owner, as you can mention products through your content. For example, if your blog is about cooking recipes, your advertised links should be for product ingredients.
If your website directly sells products, this program may not be the best fit. However, it is still possible to make money both from affiliate marketing and product selling.
How does the Amazon affiliate program work?
In Amazon Associates, the affiliate earns a commission by creating their own product links, advertising them on their channels, then driving referral traffic to Amazon. This is how the program works:
Although it may seem full of potential and benefits, it is important for you to look at the Amazon affiliate program review before participating. Here are the biggest advantages you can get from becoming their affiliate.
Pros of Amazon affiliate program
Easy to use and set up links
Generally, the Amazon affiliate program is user-friendly with an intuitive dashboard. The signup process does not take much time, and building links is also a simple task. This convenience is brought to you by Site Stripe, which will later be explained in detail.
In short, as part of this program, there is no need to worry about not being paid for the sales you gain for Amazon. All of their distributed affiliate links are highly guaranteed to track at a precise rate.
Free of charge
Similar to most other affiliate programs, Amazon Associates does not request any payment to join, so you can begin monetizing your traffic without spending a cent.
Various products for promotion
Hardly any other program can surpass Amazon affiliate regarding products on the platform. As long as your niche is physical, including the weirdest stuff ever built, like the Bocarina nose flute, you definitely stand a chance to promote them with something relevant.
This explains why a lot of newbies in affiliate marketing choose to become an Amazon associate since you can easily monetize every blog posted on your website.
High rate of driven conversions
The majority of eCommerce websites convert at an average of 1 to 3%, according to Adoric. In general, conversion rates will differ by industry, such as 1.4% for consumer electronics and 4.9% for gifts. Thus, it is already a success if 1 out of every 20 website visitors converts into sales.
But Amazon has proven itself to be incompatible as Ad Badger shows its world-beating conversion rates of 9.87%. This statistic is over twice as high as other average sites hope to achieve with converting their visitors.
What’s more, it is estimated that Amazon Prime had 200 million memberships worldwide in 2020, each contributing a significant shopping time to the platform. So many of your audience is likely Amazon Prime members, and their conversion rate should be high.
Besides the beneficial assets that an Amazon affiliate receives, the program also has several setbacks worth taking into account:
Cons of Amazon affiliate program
Cannot cloak links
From Amazon’s standpoint, being the best eCommerce website in the world, their affiliate should never try to cloak their links.
In fact, you have legit reasons to cloak the banner ads or text links with a URL redirect. It shortens and rebrands the URL, which makes the links more trustworthy to visitors and enables easier tracking.
However, you are not allowed to do it in Amazon Associates. You might be eliminated from the program if your affiliate links are cloaked without letting readers know they are heading to Amazon.
Only direct to one product
Some affiliate programs let you link to as many pages as you wish. It means you can direct your audience to a category page with various versions of the same products, and they can select their favorite.
With Amazon affiliate program, you can only promote affiliate links to specific pages. While it might be a bit restrictive, you will do fine because the ultimate goal is to drive traffic to the product page you are promoting.
Certain niches experience stock problems
Ideally, you might imagine your advertised products never running out of stock so that the affiliate links will last without updates.
But remember that you are linking a specific product page from a particular vendor; thus, your links will turn useless if that vendor has stock issues. Now you have to create new links for a different promotion, or there would be no commissions.
An average affiliate website is roughly estimated to contain 10 articles, each linking to 20 products. In total, there are 200 Amazon affiliate links for you to follow up on and update whenever they run out of stock. You can look for some reliable Amazon plugins to help you manage this.
Email newsletters cannot include links
Many affiliate marketers take advantage of email marketing, which drives about $44 ROI (return on investment) for every $1 you spend. Despite the attractive benefits, Amazon does not allow their associates to include links in emails.
You can try a workaround by writing a landing page or blog post comprising all your affiliate links and directing your audience toward that instead. Still, it is a disadvantage for affiliates who have invested time and effort in developing email marketing campaigns.
Limited 24-hour cookie duration
The cookie window from Amazon Associates is much shorter than other affiliate programs, which only lasts 24 hours. If your referrals are add-to-cart right away, it is technically extendable up to 90 days. But it will be much better for affiliates if Amazon extends the standard cookie duration.
Pros
- Easy to use and set up links
- Free of charge
- Various products for promotion
- High rate of driven conversions
Cons
- Cannot cloak links
- Only direct to one product
- Certain niches experience stock problems
- Email newsletters cannot include links
- Limited 24-hour cookie duration
How much does the Amazon affiliate program pay?
Amazon offers 10-20% commission rates for affiliates.
The Amazon affiliate program commission you can receive depends on the number of referrals you direct to Amazon, which averages from $100 to $20,000. Since this program runs on commission ranging from 1% to 20% depends on different categories, affiliates will make a percentage per sale.
The niche you promote decides your commission rate. For example, you can get 4.5% for each sale with an automotive blog. So if your audience purchases 3 car parts worth $1,000 each from your links in one day, you will earn $135 from 3 transactions. Multiply that by 30 times a month, your monthly commission would be $1,350.
Keep in mind that newbies usually make little money from Amazon Associate, so it is better to have an extra source of income. Also, before signing up for an account, review the program’s commission rate for each product category to estimate your potential earnings.
Who is suitable to be an Amazon Affiliate?
Amazon affiliate program sign up is 100% free of charge and available for affiliates around the world. It does not require any registration fee or maintaining a limit to receive commissions.
After successfully applying to become an Amazon affiliate, you can promote their goods straightaway. All you need is a suitable medium to advertise their products and services.
Bloggers, website owners, social media influencers, and anyone who wants to promote Amazon products and earn commission.
Website
The most popular means for Amazon product advertisement is via a website, specifically a blog. Your blog ought to have at least 10 entries of unique content for qualification, and the latest entry is from at least 2 months ago.
You should avoid violating the following regulations in your content:
- No sexually explicit materials or inciting criminal or violent activities
- No violation of intellectual property rights
- No display of race, sexual orientation, age, gender, and nationality discrimination
Apps
It is alright to use your mobile app for registration as long as it complies with Amazon’s criteria.
Here are the requirements for your app:
- Consist of unique content
- Available on Apple, Google Play, and Amazon for free
- Different from Amazon’s shopping app
- No price tracking
Social media
A majority of affiliate marketers use their social media accounts to sign up for Amazon Associates membership. So your account must have at least 500 organic followers and be active on social media.
The program accepts advertisements on these platforms:
- TikTok
- Youtube
- Twitch.tv
What are the requirements and rules of Amazon affiliate program?
Before signing up as an associate, you should acknowledge all the Amazon affiliate program requirements to avoid accidental violations. Here are some essential pointers:
- State yourself clearly as an Amazon affiliate
- Make at least 3 sales in the first 6 months
- Avoid revealing product prices
State yourself clearly as an Amazon affiliate
All Amazon affiliates are required to publicize this information to disclose their relationship with the company. Therefore, their disclaimer should be understandable and easy to read for everyone.
Make at least 3 sales in the first 6 months
Affiliates need to have a continuous traffic flow to their websites to retain their Amazon Associates membership. However, you should never use your own affiliate links to purchase. It is considered a violation of Amazon’s terms, and they may suspend your account.
Avoid revealing product prices
Promotional items from Amazon cannot come with detailed prices. This is because product prices usually fluctuate, so they do not want affiliates to provide incorrect information.
It is advisable to include a simple call to action along with your links, such as “Check it on Amazon,” encouraging your referrals to visit the link directly.
How to Become an Amazon Affiliate?
The following tutorial shows you how to sign up for an Amazon affiliate program.
- Head to Amazon Associates and click Sign up > Log in with an existing account if you have registered before.
- Fill in your basic details, including your name, address, and other contact information.
- Enter all of your website, apps, and social media channels’ URLs. Amazon lets you include up to 50 mobile applications or websites, which is helpful for product promotion in different regions.
- Select a unique store ID similar to your primary website.
- List down how you drive traffic to your website blog. Then, explain your money-making strategy from previous marketing efforts and how you usually build affiliate links.
- Choose a payment method by entering your payment and tax ID information. You can add more payment details at a later date. Return to the dashboard and enter the 4-digit PIN Amazon provided.
That’s it. Amazon will take some time to approve your affiliate registration. If your website responds to their requirements and you have filled in all necessary fields correctly, you should get acceptance to the program quickly.
Once accepted, you will have access to the Amazon Associates homepage. More insightful extensions, such as commission overviews and monthly summaries, are available on the dashboard. From this point, you can begin creating unique affiliate links.
How to Create an Amazon Affiliate Link?
Due to Amazon’s strict policies in affiliate linking, the site makes it less challenging for affiliates by offering some optimal product linking tools.
Product link tool
This tool allows you to create image or text links.
- From your Associates Central dashboard > Click on Product Linking.
- Select Product Links on the menu.
- Assign an ASID (Amazon Standard Identification Number) for each item.
- Click Go for a new affiliate link.
- Click Get link to make an image-only URL or other options.
Site Stripe
Site Stripe is complimented as the most user-friendly tool out of the 3 by many Amazon affiliates. The tool enables you to create direct links from Amazon product pages.
- Head to Associates Central.
- Find Tools, then choose Site Stripe
- Before clicking Learn more, read the brief description. Unlock the display settings window > Switch on Enable.
How to Promote Amazon Affiliate Links?
After creating Amazon affiliate links for future promotions, you need to consider how to advertise them on diverse platforms to monetize your website. Besides writing product reviews like most affiliate marketers do, try these 2 strategies to promote your links.
Promote best-selling products
Head to the best-sellers list on Amazon.com to see the current most popular products; then, you can run adverts for these items with your affiliate links.
Prospective shoppers tend to look for reliable guidance and reviews of the best products. The more your blog provides value for the audience, the more likely they will purchase via your links.
Advertise limited-time discounts
You will have to constantly look for Amazon’s promotional activities using this method. Which event is Amazon offering sales and discounts for? After learning about their current promos, you should select relevant items and post something to update them.
How to Make Money with the Amazon Affiliate Program?
Applying for the program and becoming an Amazon associate is not the hard part. Your biggest problem is generating enough sales so that this passion project can become your stable source of income.
We recommend a few tactics for you to start making money from this affiliate program.
Choose a niche
Being an Amazon affiliate is not ideal if your website includes beauty products, novel writing, and home improvement content all at once. You need to choose a specific eCommerce niche for the website to make the most out of your Amazon partnership.
Whether your niche is DIY educational activities or paleo cooking, it should be of high interest to you since you have to write about it constantly without getting bored. Over time, you will find how important it is as you can insert links naturally in your content without being too promotional.
If you aim to make your blog appears more authoritative to target audience, choosing a niche and talking about this particular topic all the time will give off a sense of expertise. Moreover, you will face less competition if you concentrate on a specific topic that is not mainstream on the market.
Write product reviews and comparison posts
When producing content for your eCommerce website, you can write product reviews or comparison blogs between 2 or more products. This is a fail-proof tactic to make money from Amazon Associates as you have the chance to link the reviewing products.
These high-intent posts usually target people who are close to buying the products (if not ready to purchase). After all, people would only search for a product review they intend to get.
Product comparison content is even more profitable because if the customer decides not to purchase a specific item, your post also offers great alternatives of the same type. Either way, you will be in a win-win situation that attracts more Amazon referrals.
Create unique content for different platforms
Among millions of other affiliate marketers who are approaching potential customers in a similar way to your strategy, you have to produce high-quality content to grab their attention. It helps your blog stand out and build trust with your audience, thus, establishing authority for the website.
Use the same materials to create diverse content to take your content writing to the next level. For example, a short TikTok clip is much different from a Youtube video due to their duration, even when they deliver the same storyline.
Carry out content consistently
An active blog with unique content for organic product links and mentions is your most powerful tool as an Amazon affiliate. For that reason, you ought to carry out content on a consistent basis.
One blog post a week is ideal, but remember that quality is more important than quantity. If you upload 2 well-researched posts per month, you may get more quality traffic to Amazon than 8 poorly-written blogs.
Furthermore, you should adopt a smart content marketing strategy with firm SEO basics to create relevant content and optimize your page for online search.
Insert Amazon Associates Links
Last but not least, you need to learn how to insert Amazon Associates links into WordPress to display them in your blog posts. You will start with generating the links in the program’s dashboard, then adding them to your WordPress.
Look for product links
To begin, go to your Amazon Associates dashboard > Navigate the Product Linking drop-down menu > Click on Product Links to be directed to a new page.
Find any Amazon products by inserting relevant keywords into the search bar > Click Go. Another way is to scroll down and check out the best-selling products in various categories.
When you have discovered an item you want to advertise > Click Get link > Select your URL type and customize how it looks on another page.
Choose from 3 different link options:
- Text only. It provides the anchor text linking directly to your chosen product. This URL is suitable for product introduction in long text-based content.
- Image only. You will be adding a picture to your WordPress with this selection. When visitors click on the image, the product page will show up. You should use this structure to separate walls of text with pictures.
- Text and image. The last option combines both anchor text and linking images.
Once you are done selecting your desired link type > Scroll to Get HTML Code For This Product Link. You may use the URL as your anchor text by opting for the Standard linking option and copying your URL.
Insert links
Open your WordPress page > Place a Custom HTML block in the editor section where the link/image should appear > Paste the code from the Associates dashboard into this block:
The Preview option on this block’s toolbar shows you what the link/image would look like. Choosing the standard link format means you are free to use it like other URLs in WordPress, but be careful not to cloak affiliate links.
Best Amazon Affiliate Tools and Plugins
If you are concerned about figuring things out manually on Amazon Associates, there are several tools and plugins that help automize the process and reduce time on certain tasks.
| Tool/Plugin | Vendor | Features | Cons |
| AmaSuite | AppBreed | – Extracts data from various Amazon categories
– Filters out potentially money-making products – Produces interactive reports with ready links – Scans review to save time on content writing |
– Only available for Amazon.com and the UK region |
| EasyAzon | EasyAzon | – Quickly adds affiliate links to text
– No need to know coding to control links – Localizes link to reach international traffic – Automatic product pop-ups and add-to-cart |
– May conflict with other existing plugins
– Minimal updates or improvements |
| OneLink | Amazon | – Supports international visitors in shopping via links
– Offers great alternatives for product display |
– Poor customer support |
AmaSuite
- Vendor: AppBreed
- Price: $197
Instead of browsing Amazon.com with little idea of which product you should promote, AmaSuite can quickly recognize worthy items among limitless categories. Affiliates will receive quality data within Amazon’s Top Rated, Best Sellers, Most Wished For, Hot New Releases, etc.
The tool is able to identify money-making products that match your requirements via its fast filter technology and customizable opportunity score. After that, it will export collected data into interactive HTML reports with affiliate links for you to start selling right away.
Most users are impressed with its Review Analyzer feature, which scans any product reviews and gives you insights into the buyers’ opinions of what they like and dislike. This could be a significant time-saving support to writing product review content.
Best features:
- Extracts data from various Amazon categories
- Filters out potentially money-making products
- Produces interactive reports with ready links
- Scans review to save time on content writing
Cons:
- Only available for Amazon.com and the UK region
EasyAzon
- Vendor: EasyAzon
- Price: Free
EasyAzon is an optimal solution for affiliate marketers who do not want to spend too much time building affiliate links. The tool enables you to quickly add these links to your text without going through each step in the process.
Using EasyAzon means you can have complete control of all your affiliate links with little knowledge of coding. Everything is automized for you to earn commission as soon as possible, even from international traffic, as it localizes the links and directs to where your audience is based.
The best part about this plugin is that it attracts user attention with product pop-ups from your links. As soon as the visitor hovers over one of the affiliate links, the product information will pop out, and it may also add the items to their shopping cart automatically.
Best features:
- Quickly adds affiliate links to text
- No need to know coding to control links
- Localizes link to reach international traffic
- Automatic product pop-ups and add-to-cart
Cons:
- May conflict with other existing plugins
- Minimal updates or improvements
OneLink
- Vendor: Amazon
- Price: Free
Although this plugin is much simpler than most Amazon affiliate tools, it is still an effective tool that earns you commission from global traffic. It improves customers’ shopping experience by redirecting them from your eCommerce website to their nearest Amazon site.
You are allowed to choose the product display as you wish: show the exact products in the destination country store, find another closely matched item in the local geographies, or bring your audience back to Amazon if the product is unavailable.
Best features:
- Supports international visitors in shopping via links
- Offers great alternatives for product display
Cons:
- Poor customer support
FAQs
Does it cost money to become an Amazon affiliate?
Do you need to pay for anything to be an Amazon affiliate? No charge is required.
Moreover, you needn’t reach any minimum referral quota or requirement before earning commissions with this program. The referral fees can be yours right away.
How long do you need to begin earning from Amazon affiliates?
Amazon affiliates will receive their commission income in one of the following ways as they wish: direct deposit, check, or Amazon.com Gift Certificate around 60 days after the last day of their paid month.
Do Amazon affiliate links expire?
The 24-hour cookie window from your affiliate link will close right after the buyer completes their order or clicks on a competitor’s link. When this window closes, the affiliate will no longer earn advertising fees from following purchases.
Conclusion
Choosing to be a part of the Amazon affiliate marketing program marks a promising start for your affiliate marketing career. Your current eCommerce website, mobile app, or social media profile is all you need for registration to become their associate.
Suppose you visualize affiliate marketing as a profitable side business. In that case, this program is the perfect springboard for earning extra money. Focus on a niche, produce high-quality content, and insert Amazon affiliate links organically – then you are all set to boost your income here.
