How The Amazon Affiliate Program Works to Monetize Your Blog

Get all the information you need on how the Amazon affiliate program works, so that you can monetize your blog easily.

Teen brought in nearly $2 million selling gaming consoles and pools on Amazon during the pandemic. ~CNBC

I’m sure that’s not the only headline you’ve seen like that recently. If you’re wondering where all those people quitting their jobs are going — it’s online and Amazon is the cash cow.

Today it is easy to earn money working remotely thanks to the opportunities offered by the Internet. That being said, there is still a lot of competition which can make it hard to earn a lot from the get-go if you are only learning about the power of the World Wide Web.

One of the best routes you can take is monetization. If you have a YouTube channel, a blog, a website, etc., you can likely monetize it in some way. For example, you can become an Amazon affiliate. But what does this mean and what is the Amazon Affiliate Program? Here’s everything you need to know about it.

This post is going to thoroughly cover how the Amazon affiliate program works so that you can make money too.

What Is the Amazon Affiliate Program?

The Amazon Affiliate Program, also known as Amazon Associates, is an affiliate marketing program offered by Amazon that allows influencers and content creators to earn money by advertising products sold on Amazon. Website owners, bloggers, and other content creators can become an Amazon affiliate for free.

The program works just like any other affiliate marketing program. As an affiliate, you can generate your individual links for different products on Amazon. Then, you use those links in your content on your website, blog, etc. When someone clicks on one of your links and buys the product from Amazon, you earn a commission from the purchase.

The Amazon Affiliate Program is by far one of the most famous ones because Amazon is one of the largest platforms of its kind. There are millions of products you can choose from to start advertising. The best part is that you can earn up to 10% in commissions which is quite high compared to other affiliate programs.

#1 Get Acquainted with Affiliate Marketing

First of all, if you are new to it, it’s best that you first take the time to get acquainted with affiliate marketing. Many brands have their own affiliate marketing programs, but the great thing about Amazon is that you can promote products from a variety of brands which can help you diversify your product selection.

It’s important to remember that affiliates have to disclose the fact that they are promoting or advertising products. For example, you will have to include a sentence or two about being an affiliate at the beginning of your articles and blog posts where you include affiliate links. This is similar to how Instagram requires influencers to add “#ad” in posts where a product or brand is being promoted by the influencer.

Keep in mind that you will only earn the commission if the person makes the purchase through your link. If they learn about the product from you but access the product page through their own search, you won’t get a commission from their purchase. If they click your link but don’t make the purchase, you won’t get a commission either. This is why you need to persuade your audience to complete these purchases through your links.

#2 Get Started with the Amazon Affiliate Program

Once you understand how affiliate marketing works, you can get started with the Amazon Affiliate Program. As explained above, Amazon’s program works just like any other affiliate marketing program. Essentially, you will be driving affiliate traffic to Amazon and earning commissions from the purchases people make on Amazon through your links.

When you register with Amazon and sign up for the program, you get a unique Associate ID. Then, you will need to go through the approval process before you can start creating unique affiliate links and using them on your website or blog.

To maximize the performance of your content, you can use different content marketing tools, try various marketing techniques, etc. The more people see your content, the more chances there are that someone will use your links to make a purchase on Amazon. Of course, you should also aim to persuade your audience to make the said purchases, so your engagement rate needs to be good as well.

#3 Estimate How Much You Can Earn

To set realistic goals for your future as an Amazon affiliate, it’s a good idea to try to estimate how much you can earn with the program before you enroll in it. On average, it is assumed that you can earn anywhere from $100 to $20,000 through the program.

These numbers depend on the number of people who click your links and the number of purchases these people eventually make. In other words, your current website or blog traffic directly influences the number of purchases you can expect.

On the other hand, you should also take into account the commission rates that differ based on the products you are promoting. Amazon offers commission rates up to 10%, but the key phrase here is “up to”. For instance, the automotive product category has a rate of 4.5% per sale while the health and personal care product category has a rate of 1% per sale.

#4 Study Amazon Affiliate Program Rules

Another thing you need to do before you enroll in the program is to study its rules and requirements which can be accessed on the Associates Program Policies page. Amazon has strict requirements for people who want to become an Amazon affiliate (more on this later). At the same time, it’s important to know the guidelines that Amazon affiliates should follow:

• As mentioned before, you need to disclose the fact that you are an affiliate.
• You can’t make false or deceptive claims about the products. It’s also best not to refer to prices because they can change.
• You can’t use affiliate links in offline promotions, emails, and e-books. You also can’t use link shorteners.

If you don’t follow these rules, you could be banned from the program (as well as judged by your audience for not following ethical practices). It’s not hard to comply with these guidelines, so you likely won’t have many problems with them.

#5 Create Your Own Website or Blog

Now that you fully understand how the program works and what you can expect, you can create your own website or blog if you don’t have one already. If you are just getting started, it will be easier for you to create exactly the kind of website or blog that will fit Amazon’s requirements. If you have a website or blog already, you will need to make any necessary adjustments to it to fit the program. Here are some general tips to follow:

• Choose a specific niche that will work with one or a few product categories.
• Set up a posting schedule to publish content regularly. Plan out different topics you will cover beforehand.
• Consider outsourcing content creation to have a steady stream of high-quality content. You can do this by hiring professional writers from the custom writing reviews site 
• Plan out your marketing strategy with a variety of techniques that will help you generate both organic and paid traffic to your website or blog.

#6 Sign Up to the Amazon Affiliate Program

When you have a website or blog up and running, you can sign up to the Amazon Affiliate Program. To do this, follow these simple steps:

1. Go to the Amazon Associates homepage and click “Sign Up”.
2. Enter relevant information, including your name, address, phone number, website or blog address (alternatively, app or YouTube channel or any other platform you will use as an affiliate).
3. Enter your store ID, preferably the same as your website/blog/etc. Add explanations for your goals and choose your niche topics. Explain how you drive traffic, generate income, use links, etc.
4. Choose your payment method either now or later. You will need to provide your credit card and tax ID information.
5. Proceed to your dashboard and start using the program.

#7 Start Earning as an Amazon Affiliate

You now have access to your dashboard and can start earning as an Amazon affiliate. Here are some tips on how to proceed:

• On your personal homepage, check your performance overview for earnings, clicks, etc. Here, you can also search for different products to promote and link to in your content.
• Use the Product Linking feature to create links. You will need to use either the product’s Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN) for this or search for the product itself. The 10-character ASIN can be found on every product page in the Product Information section.
• To complete the link generation, confirm that it is truly the product you want to generate the link for. If you want a different way to generate links, you can use SiteStripe for this.
• If you are unsure about which products to choose, you can use consumer behavior analysis to better understand your target audience and its preferences. You can do this with your current audience or you can start using Amazon affiliate links and then analyze the clicks and purchases they get. If certain products do better than others, then you will likely want to adjust your product selection appropriately.
• Keep in mind that an Amazon Affiliate cookie lasts for 24 hours. This means that the person who clicked your link could check out at any point during those 24 hours and their purchase would be credited to you.
• Don’t rely solely on the Amazon Affiliate Program as your source of income. You never know when there will be a drought or when your traffic suddenly decreases. This is why it’s best to diversify your sources of income and use both affiliate marketing and other methods for monetizing your website or blog.
• Likewise, try to use different tactics in your marketing. For example, even though you can’t use affiliate links in emails, you can still use email marketing to generate traffic to your website. For example, an email with a weekly roundup of the best articles on your website can help you direct your subscribers to your site and eventually get them to purchase the products by using your links.
• Analyze the results of your efforts and adjust your activities accordingly. By constantly improving your content, you can attract more readers to your site and gradually increase your earnings from affiliate marketing.

Conclusion

To summarize, becoming an Amazon affiliate might be much easier for you to do than you think. However, you will still have to overcome numerous challenges on your way before you start earning enough online. Use the tips in this article to help you understand how the Amazon affiliate program works before trying to monetize your blog.