Amazon Affiliate Program is the world’s largest Affiliate program launched in 1996. Website owners and Bloggers have successfully been able to earn money from it for more than a decade.
You can easily earn up to 10% referral fee commissions by selling Amazon products. If you own a website, you can monetize it with Amazon affiliate ads. Whenever your visitors buy items through those ads, you earn commissions.
The program offers multiple opportunities and tools to effectively market and sell Amazon products. We will discuss each of them in detail in this guide. There’s a reason webmasters prefer the Amazon Associates system over other affiliate networks. We’ll explore those in the next sections.
How to Become an Amazon Affiliate
Becoming an Associate on Amazon is fairly easy. You just need to fulfill all the eligibility requirements. There are 2 main eligibility criteria to get enrolled in the system:
- You must have a website / mobile app under your ownership
- You must include your website / mobile app in the application
That’s about it. You only need to be the owner of a website and you’re good to go. The application process is very intuitive. Make sure you fill in all the requirements as accurately as possible.
Steps:
Follow the steps below to enroll in the Amazon Affiliate Program:
- First of all, you need to visit the Associate Registration page. Click HERE to Register.
- To apply you need to have an Amazon account. Create your Amazon account through the above link.
- After creating your Amazon account and signing in, you will be taken to the Application form.
- Fill all the data with absolute certainty and honesty. After submitting your application you will receive a confirmation email.
- Once you’ve applied you have to generate 3 qualifying sales within 180 days to become an approved member. If you’re unable to produce any sales, Amazon may reject your application.
- After the application process, you will be able to login to your Associates Dashboard. Here’s how it looks:
- You can view your Affiliate stats through the Dashboard. The User interface is extremely intuitive and friendly. You can view all the statistics easily just by logging in to the Dashboard.
- All the tools are accessible from the Dashboard. You can view the Reports, create Product links, and get Promotion banners all from one user interface.
How to use Product Linking Tools
The next step is to start selecting the products you want to market and create their affiliate links. There are a number of tools available that you can use to promote affiliate links. They are accessible from the Product Linking header menu.
- Product links generator
- Banners
- Native shopping ads (new)
- Mobile Pop-over
- Link to Any page
We are going to discuss them one by one.
Product Links Generator
Product links are affiliate links of products that contain your Affiliate ID. If you don’t know what Affiliate ID is you can read our Affiliate Marketing guide. It’s basically your tracking ID that tells which user the product sale belongs to. That’s how you earn commission through your affiliate sales.
You can search products using keywords or ASIN (unique block of letters for identification of products).
Once you search for your desired product, you can get its affiliate link by clicking the “Get Link” button. You can then use the affiliate link on your website to promote the product.
Banners
Banners are one of the most effective tools for affiliate marketing. Amazon offers attractive banners that you can use on your websites and blogs. You can place them on your website for any position you deem suitable.
Just copy the banner code and place it anywhere on your website. It’s that simple.
Native Shopping Ads
Amazon has introduced a new tool called “Native shopping ads” that allows you to show “Recommended and Related” products in a horizontal bar view. They are really good for monetizing an e-commerce or review-based website. You can even create custom ads with your favorite products.
Mobile Pop-over
You can also display a Mobile pop-over for mobile web browsing. This will display a Pop-over on the web pages the user browses on your website. You can simply copy the JavaScript code and insert it into your website.
Link to Any Page
You can use this tool to create an affiliate link to any page on Amazon.com. Whenever someone buys a product on Amazon you will earn a referral commission. You can link to any category page, search page, or any other page of your choosing.
How to Generate Earnings Reports
You can generate detailed visitors and earnings reports right from your Dashboard. To do that you have to browse to the Reports menu from the top navigation bar.
In the Reports section, you can extract reports for your desired period of time. You can see how many clicks, orders, or sales have happened through your Affiliate ID. The earnings you have made in a specific period of time can also be viewed.
You have the option to download the reports to your computer to view them at a later time. You can also generate your Payment history for the total time period since the creation of your account.
Amazon Affiliate Payout Structure
Amazon associates are paid monthly if they have reached their required threshold. The payments are made approximately 60 days after the end of the month for which you are being paid.
For example,
Payment for the month of January will be paid in late March
Payment for the month of February will be paid in late April and so on…
The payment threshold is different for different types of payment methods. Also, there are different payment methods available for Domestic (U.S.) and International affiliates.
For Domestic Affiliates:
- Direct Deposit (Minimum payment threshold: $10)
- Gift Certificate (Minimum payment threshold: $10)
- Check (Minimum payment threshold: $100) – Also note that a $15 processing fee will be charged if you request the payment via Check.
For International Affiliates:
- Gift Certificate (Minimum payment threshold: $10)
- Check (Minimum payment threshold: $100) – Also note that you may get the $15 processing fee waiver if Direct Deposit isn’t available to you
What is OneLink and How to Use it?
OneLink is a new amazing tool offered by the Amazon affiliate program. It lets you link your International Associate accounts for broader reach. Don’t worry we’ll explain it to you with an example:
So for example, the majority of your website’s traffic comes from different countries. Let’s say it comes mostly from the USA, UK, and Canada. OneLink lets you link all these accounts so that you can offer matching products from visitors’ local Amazon stores.
That’s a huge opportunity for you because your earnings can potentially multiply.
Let’s say your affiliate link is for a Dell laptop being offered at an Amazon store in the U.S., a visitor from the UK comes and clicks on your affiliate link. He/she will be taken to the local UK Amazon store with a similar product being offered to him. Once he/she orders from their local UK store you will earn a commission on it.
OneLink is accessible from the Top Menu under Tools. Follow this Integration Guide for easy step-by-step configuration.
How to Market Amazon Affiliate Links
You can choose a number of methods for effective marketing if your affiliate links. The 3 most effective ways are:
- Website / Blog Marketing
- Social media marketing
- Participation in online forums
The best scenario is obviously marketing through your website/blog. That can drive a good amount of traffic and sales for you. It all depends on how many visitors your website is getting. With around 350,000 regular visitors to your blog, you can generate a good number of sales. You can display banners and widgets all over your website.
Social media marketing is also a productive way to market your affiliate links. You can use the Site Stripe tool to generate product links for sharing on Social media. Site Stripe is accessible through the Tools menu.
Participation in online forums is also a good way to share your product links. If you’re an established member of a popular forum, you can recommend products with your affiliate links. You can also create a signature on the forum that will display below every post you make.
Online marketing is easy once you get the hang of it. You should keep experimenting but try to take calculated risks. Try to create a balance between content and ads on the website. It should not look overly promotional. Furthermore, always try to mix text links with banners and widgets.
I hope that this guide gives you a jump-start to your affiliate marketing career. Please drop your feedback and suggestions in the comments section.
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Does the Amazon site take into account the location of the assignee?
For example, I put a link on Facebook and the visitor entered it and bought it, although I did not put Facebook on my Amazon account list
Hello admin, I came via Authorityhacker, and I found up to date in your article. Thanks for your great article. By the way, which you recommend, Adsense or Amazon?
After the Pandemic, the Amazon affiliate commissions have been cut to a good percentage. Therefore, it is much better if you monetize your website with Adsense at the moment. You could change it to Amazon in the future whenever you see fit.
Excellent writing!
I think that To be an Amazon Associate, you ought to have a functioning website, blog, or YouTube channel. This is additionally useful assuming that you have effectively populated this website with content, so it looks utilitarian and genuine for both the client and Amazon