The Amazon Associates program is known for generating passive income by promoting Amazon products to an audience. But what if you are an Amazon seller? Have you thought about using this program to get more traffic to your listings, promote your products and sell more?

So, how do you get started? What are the requirements to join the affiliate program? How much can you make as an Amazon associate?

I hope this article will help you dive into the world of Amazon Associates to leverage your Amazon seller account and sales.

What is the Amazon Associates program and how sellers can use it

Amazon Associates, also known as the Amazon affiliate program, is one of the largest affiliate programs on the internet.

The Amazon Associates program allows people with an audience to make money by promoting Amazon products in their content.

• bloggers
• publishers
• social content creators
• podcasters
• and Amazon sellers

Amazon pays 1% and 20% commissions for every successful sale, depending on the product you promote.

The idea for Amazon sellers to use Amazon Associates is to push organic traffic to their listings. If you sell on Amazon, you likely have your own store, but you are wasting a lot of traffic potential by keeping your blog and content strategy non-existent.

If you sell pillows, many other websites are creating content on pillows and recommending other brands. You are also missing out on controlling the position of the recommendations if you don’t have your own detailed pillow guide where you can insert your own products.

With any affiliate program, you need an audience or be very good with SEO. Because it’s a long term strategy, if your product sells well on Amazon, there is a high chance that people are looking for it from Google. Think about the thousands of dollars spent on Amazon ads. Allocating a couple hundred to a blog post a month and building backlinks to it will get it ranking in the search results for people to discover your post and your product organically.

How does the Amazon Associates program work?

The Amazon Associates program works like any other affiliate program. You receive a commission if you successfully refer a buyer through your Amazon affiliate link to the Amazon marketplace to make a purchase.

The beauty of this for Amazon sellers is that if people buy your product through your link, then it’s like a cash back from Amazon.

Stack on the 10% brand referral bonus using the attribution link incentive that Amazon is also giving sellers, and it’s a huge cash-back incentive.

Selling on Amazon before PPC typically costs 40%. If you can get back 2%+10% for a 12% total commission, that is extra margin on your product.

The basic way Amazon Associates works is like this:

• You open an Amazon Associates account to generate affiliate links.
• You promote Amazon products on your blog or social media accounts and mention the product in your affiliate links.
• Interested buyers will click on your affiliate link, and this link will redirect to the Amazon product page. The buyer purchases the products within 24 hours. 
• Amazon pays you a commission (a certain percentage) from the sale within 24 hours. The percentage depends on the product category.

Amazon Associates also receive payments for every item added to the shopping cart within 24 hours, provided the buyer makes payment before the cart expires. 

Non Amazon sellers get a tiny commission of 2-4%, but with your brand referral bonus, you get 10% back.

Now, let’s say the visitor doesn’t buy your product but instead clicks the affiliate link and purchases another pillow brand. Well, you at least get the 2-4% commission and all other purchases the visitor makes within a certain period. With enough volume, it all adds up.

Who is eligible to be an Amazon Associate?

This is now seller central. It’s a different program which you must apply for. If you are going to sell your Amazon business in the future, consider whether you want to include your Associate account as part of the sale.

The Amazon Associates program is open for anyone to join, regardless of their location. There are no registration fees. Plus, you don’t get to maintain a quota before earning a commission from the program. Once you send in your application and Amazon approves it, you can start promoting any product immediately.

Just because you have a seller account, it does not mean you are automatically approved.

Here are the different channels where you can post your content to get traffic and convert the visitors into buyers.

#1. Your website

Your blog must have unique and sufficient content to qualify for the program. The content you post on your blog must not display discrimination based on age, nationality, sexual orientation, gender, or race. The content must also not incite violence or criminal activity. That’s not all; the content must not contain sexually explicit materials and also not infringe on intellectual property rights.

If you have Shopify or Wordpress and sell your products directly, it’s much easier to get accepted and to stay within Amazon’s TOS and not get kicked off the program.

#2. Social media platforms 

Are you on social media account with at least 500 organic followers? That seems to be a good number to get started and promote your products and content. You can promote Amazon products on Facebook (a public group or a business page), TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitch.tv.

#3. Apps

This is much more difficult, and for the advanced sellers out there.

These days, mobile apps are becoming popular to promote products and services to reach a wide range of shoppers. You can promote Amazon products using your mobile app, but the app must fit into Amazon-specific criteria, which include:

• Not having a price tracking feature.
• The app must be different from Amazon’s shopping app. 
• The app must contain only original content.
• The app must also be free on Google Play and Apple App Store. 

How much does the Amazon affiliate program pay?

If you have a monthly traffic of at least 10k visits a month, the content is relevant and attracts visitors looking to buy, then your sales will go up for sure.

How much?

Depends on the keyword.

If you rank #1 for a keyword with a search volume of only 100 people a month, expect dollars in sales and commissions.

If you rank top 3 for a keyword with 30k search volume, then with the increase in your sales, expect it to be in the 4 figure range. And I’m only talking about a single keyword.

The more keywords you rank for in the search results related to your product, the higher your sales.

And Amazon loves sales from external websites.

Some associates like NYT and massive review sites generate millions in commissions. Imagine replicating some of that with your website.

So, there’s no benchmark in the amount you can make being an Amazon Associates member. It will help if you increase your earnings by integrating SEO and link building to grow your website traffic.

Compensation methods

Amazon uses three payment methods to credit associates their earnings. These payment methods include:

• Direct deposit. The minimum amount Amazon will send is $10. 
• Check. The minimum amount you can receive through this method is $100. You’ll pay a $15 processing fee.
• Amazon gift card. If you want your payment through gift cards, Amazon will send it through your primary email address. The minimum amount for gift card payments is $10. 

Note: Regardless of your chosen payment method, you will only receive the payment within 60 days after the end of the calendar month.

If you used your seller attribution link, it is applied to your account after 60 days to verify that the buyer has not returned the product and it’s not fraudulent.

Benefits of the Amazon Associates program for sellers

• Control of the content created on your website.
• Can partner with existing websites or influencers who are pushing other brands in the same category.
• Amazon is a trusted brand. Conversions are higher with the affiliate program. That’s why Amazon also slashed commissions because they hold the power and know that people will keep using their affiliate program.
• Unlimited choice of products to promote: Amazon is home to more than 120 million products, giving you an unlimited choice of products to promote. Do proper keyword research to determine the products to promote. 
• Universal cookie: If your website visitors click on your affiliate link, you will receive a commission for every inventory the visitor purchases on Amazon. Not just on the specific product mentioned in the link. 

Any drawbacks?

The Amazon affiliate program has its unique drawbacks, which include:

• Category-dependent revenue: As you set up your Amazon affiliate program account to start earning money, you will discover that the commissions payable in some product categories are abysmally low. If you blog about video games and consoles and insert your affiliate links in some of your posts, the links will get you a 1% commission on the sales. With Amazon Associates, not all products are created equal. So go through the commission payable in each product category before anything else.
• Your website must have good traffic: You can only make good money if you own a website with consistent traffic. It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme. Building a successful Amazon Associates business takes discipline, effort, and lots of time if you’re starting from scratch.
• Effort required: Content creation is hard work. You need someone to strategize and plan what type of content to create and publish. The frequency as well as building SEO around it is vital for a long term position in the rankings. 

How to create an Amazon affiliate link

Here’s how to generate affiliate links using the “Product Linking” tool if you have an account.

• Log into your Amazon Associates account and select Product Links from the “Product Linking” banner.
• Use the search bar to search for the product, add the product’s ASIN, and click on the Go button.
• Navigate to the right side of the result and click on the “Get Link” button. 
• Start to insert your affiliate links in your content according to Amazon Associates guidelines.

Alternatively, you can generate product links directly from the product page using the Amazon Associates SiteStripe. The SiteStripe feature lets you generate different links, including image, text, image+text, or customize shopping ads. No matter what type of link you choose to generate, your tracking and store IDs are already included in the link. The SiteStripe feature also lets you view your earnings report. 

To use SiteStripe, log into your Amazon Associates account and access the retail platform. SiteStripe is available at the top of the retail page. 

How to make money with the Amazon affiliate program

Amazon Associates program is a game of numbers, so you need enough followers and consistent website traffic to make passive income. The following tips will help you stay on top of your game and also give your competitors a run for their money:

Choose a relevant niche

The niche you pick can make or break your chances of becoming a successful associate. It will be a lot easier if you already have a site with great traffic that you can link to products related to your niche. 

Newbies should focus on a niche they are passionate about. The reason is that you’d be dwelling so much on the topic, allowing you to naturally include product links without being too promotional. 

Create valuable and unique content 

Attract visitors to your website by consistently creating valuable, high-quality content that solves your audience’s pain points. Valuable and unique content will help you establish authority, build trust with your audience, and stand out from the crowd. 

You can take a step further by distributing the content across different platforms for more visibility. For instance, you can leverage YouTube to elaborate more on how Amazon products can help your audience.

Write product reviews and comparisons

Product comparisons and reviews can let you insert product links into your content organically. Most people that read product reviews and comparisons are likely to make a purchase. Plus, you don’t get to sound too pushy and promotional. Additionally, product comparisons give readers choices over which product to purchase, so curating an effective product comparison is a win-win situation. 

Post content regularly

Your blog or social media platforms must be as active as possible with high-quality content. You can schedule your posts, say twice weekly, and inform your audience about them. Post only well-researched content that delivers value. 

SEO is important, so adopt a content marketing strategy to help your content rank high on search engines.

What Are the Amazon Associates Guidelines?

Amazon has established some guidelines that associates must comply with to remain in the program. Failure to adhere to these guidelines may lead to a total ban from the program. The Amazon Associates guidelines are compulsory for every associate to uphold. While it might be an extensive read to go through each of the guidelines, being abreast with the guidelines will help you remain in the program.

Here are the Amazon Associates guidelines to keep in mind:

Avoid masking Amazon affiliate links

Never mask your affiliate links. In other words, Amazon forbids link cloaking. Since Amazon places value on transparency and has vowed to deactivate any account found masking Amazon affiliate links. 

Make three sales to avoid account deactivation within six months

You need to make three sales within six months to avoid account deactivation. Hitting the target can be challenging if you don’t have a website with great traffic, so I advise that you join the Amazon Associates program when you already have a website with consistent traffic. 

Use caution when including affiliate links

Amazon also frowns at including affiliate links in promotional materials like eBooks, private Facebook groups, PDFs, emails, and offline marketing supplies. 

Disclose your Amazon Associates status on your website 

Amazon expects you to put up a disclaimer on your website stating that you are an Amazon associate. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) mandates Amazon associates to make this disclosure on their websites or social media platforms. The disclosure should be easy to read. You can write something like this on your website “as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.”

Don’t host images downloaded from Amazon on your website

Amazon prohibits associates from downloading product images from their marketplace to use on their websites or other marketing platforms. You need to generate a product image from Amazon and link it directly to your site. You won’t get into trouble this way since the images will load from Amazon’s servers. 

What if you have your own images? You can use your photos to promote Amazon products, but you cannot add affiliate links directly to the images. You can use a custom button next to your image with your affiliate link. 

Other things to be aware of include copyright stuff, cookie stuffing, and spammy websites. You must conduct your Amazon Associates business in line with Amazon guidelines; otherwise, Amazon can deactivate your account if you violate these guidelines.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion: get started with the Amazon Associates program today

Amazon Associates is a great way to get started making money online. Promote Amazon products on your website/social media platforms, and that’s it. 

There is no secret to becoming the best associate. The winning formula is to offer value to your audience through your content, use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to attract visitors to your website, and use Amazon affiliate links to monetize. 

Amazon Associates is highly profitable. If you choose a best-selling niche, write great content about the niche’s products, organically integrate your affiliate links, and stick to the program’s policies, you’d be a step closer to becoming the biggest Amazon associate. 

Lastly, if you have any questions bothering you as you get started, don’t hesitate to reach out to me for immediate assistance.