NOTE: If you found this page because you’ve been contacted by a sales rep to become an Amazon Associate for a fee (ranging from $100 – $1,000’s) then read this post here. Those people are scam artists and do NOT work for Amazon. My review here is in reference to the real program and has no association to those types of scams.
Amazon is currently the most popular e-commerce site in the entire world, and with that they’ve obviously established an extremely reputable brand. Their associate (affiliate) program is widely used by affiliate marketers and can convert quite well if you know how to market properly. As long as you live within an approved state or country (residents of Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, and Rhode Island are not allowed to participate) they aren’t very picky about accepting people into the program.
I don’t work for Amazon, so I don’t know what goes on behind the scenes when they approve or deny applicants, but as long as you fit their guidlines and have a semi-developed website with a privacy policy or disclosure you shouldn’t have an issue with getting in. Actually, they’re probably one of the most lax programs when it comes to accepting people as affiliates.
However, if you find yourself denied to the program make sure you are adhering to their terms and conditions. Usually it’s either because you’re violating their agreement (Amazon doesn’t approve websites with sexually explicit material, violience, discrimination, or ones that promote illegal activites) or because your site isn’t developed enough. When first starting out in affiliate marketing, many people get anxious and start applying for affiliate programs left and right, before they even have a solid foundation for promoting the material.
You can always wait and reapply after you’ve tweaked or added more content to your site. They welcome applicants to reapply at any time, so not getting in on the first attempt isn’t the end of the world.
But once you’re accepted, is it realistic to expect to make money as an Amazon Affiliate?
You can definitely make money using Amazon’s program, but the amount of income you make is going to be highly variable. There are right and wrong ways to market online; posting Amazon’s affiliate links around your website and social media isn’t going to be enough to make money. Sure, you may get lucky and get the odd sale here and there – but if you’re not providing value to your readers, there’s no reason for people to buy from your link.
Another huge chunk of the equation is the types of products you are selling from Amazon. Their commission rates are generally lower than average, so if you’re promoting a $5.00 product at 4% base commission, that’s only 20 cents per sale! You’d have to make a lot of sales to even earn anything worth while, and it probably isn’t worth it. The key is to promote higher priced items – ones that earn you at least $4 or $5 a sale, but preferrably above $15. Keep in mind the more you can make per sale, the less sales you have to make to earn money; which ultimately comes down to less work for you.
Amazon isn’t a “way” to make money online, but it’s a tool you can leverage to help you out with the battle. The program only will “work” for you if you put in the effort to make it work. It takes proper training and guidance to get started no matter what affiliate program you’re using.
Want to make money as an affiliate marketer using Amazon?
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But let’s talk a bit more in detail about Amazon….
I’ve used many affiliate programs as an online marketer, and at least in my experience, Amazon’s program has a relatively HIGH conversion rate
Many people prefer not to use the Amazon Associates program largely because the commissions are relatively small compared to some other programs. And that is very true, as it is not unheard of for other affiliate programs to offer up to 75% commissions. Let’s face it – compared to the 4-8% rate for Amazon, it sure seems a lot better.
BUT keep in mind your conversion rate is an extremely important aspect to your affiliate campaigns. And yes, your personal campaign will have a high impact on your conversion rate, but did you know the actual program you’re promoting also has a huge impact as well? If you’re promoting through a little known sales outlet people are going to be less likely to actually buy, and not many companies have a conversion funnel as powerful as Amazon’s.
However, average commission rate largely depends upon your niche and what you’re promoting – so for many niches, 4-8% is about average. It really comes down to what you’re selling , so keep in mind that the Amazon program really isn’t the best option for every niche.
How the Amazon Associates commission structure works
Amazon has two different commission structures for their affiliate program – volume based rates and fixed rates. For certain product categories (as you can refer to the table bel0w) the commission rate you receive will remain constant, whereas for their general products your commission rate can increase up to 8.5%, depending on how much you sell.
It’s important to note the rate for volume based product commission resets at the beginning of each month.
Say you’re promoting something somewhat expensive, say around $400-$500 (like an iphone or tablet). Amazon has a fixed commission rate of 4% for electronics.
500 x 4% = 20
Even at just 4%, you’re still earning $20 per sale. What if you were able to make many sales per day? It’s easy to see that $20 would add up pretty quickly! (Note: While 4% may seem low, it is quite a high commission for electronics. Most affiliate programs within the niche, i.e. Apple, Tiger Direct, Toshiba, etc are much lower, starting at just 1 – 3 %!)
Obviously if you’re promoting things that aren’t so expensive you’d have to sell many more to add up, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible.
Reasons why Amazon’s affiliate program can be very profitable for marketers
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It’s a very reputable and trusted brand –
Let’s face it, who hasn’t heard of Amazon? They’re the #1 E-commerce site in the world – millions of people buy from them every single day. This is good news because it means there’s already an existing trust factor between your customer and the brand. Most likely your audience has purchased something from Amazon.com in the past, so they would be less hesitant to buy from them again and you’re more likely to make a sale.
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You can promote virtually anything –
What can’t you buy on Amazon?
There are many, MANY niches that are relevant to products sold on Amazon.
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Amazon has an amazing sales funnel that’s proven to convert well –
For example, let’s say you’re interested in buying this camera…
- They’ll provide you with everything you need to know – lots of pictures, product information, customer reviews. They even show you related products and accessories that you may not have thought about, but would be more likely to consider buying now that it’s displayed in front of you! Oh yes, thank you Amazon. I would like that lovely pink case to go with my cute pink camera…
- People find product reviews very helpful and they definitely increase sales (assuming they’re positive).
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You get commissions for ANYTHING the customer buys if they land on Amazon via your affiliate link –
In 2013, around 30% of my Amazon sales were from products entirely unrelated to my niche. This means that if you can catch people in a buying mood, they’re likely to be tempted to buy something from Amazon just from clicking around the site. Like I said, GREAT SALES FUNNEL!
A few tips for getting higher conversions via Amazon
This question gets asked all the time, “Why would people buy from you instead of going directly to Amazon?”
And it’s a perfectly legitimate question, why would they? You need to give your visitors a reason to buy it from your link. It’s unrealistic to expect people to click and buy from your link just because it exists.
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Capture your audience when they’re already in a buying mood –
This means aiming for keywords that people are typing when they are already looking for information or reviews on a particular item. Take a look at this article about the customer purchase life-cycle, it will provide you with a clearer idea.
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Provide a personal and trustworthy review of your own –
Don’t just link a product or provide links to lots of products (like using an Amazon shopping store via your website). They won’t convert well. Remember you need to give your visitors a reason to want to buy from you. Write a review of whatever it is you are selling, but don’t just rehash the same reviews that already exist on Amazon’s website. Make it personal, interesting and most importantly helpful!
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Provide a text link to the product within your content –
I find that a text link within the review has a much higher click through rate than just a big banner ad for a couple of reasons. Firstly, people tend to ignore anything that looks like an ad online because they are so used to seeing them they’ve just learned to tune them out. Secondly, many people have ad block software installed in their internet browsers and if you only provide an affiliate ad with no text they won’t be able to see it! Last, your readers that actually read your content are more likely to trust you.
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Pictures, pictures pictures! –
You know what they say, an image is worth a thousand words. This is especially true when you’re trying to get someone to buy something. Amazon provides images of nearly everything they sell, so you can always use the ones they provide you.
Personally, however, I don’t like to use the images they provide because I find that I get higher conversions when I provide my own images and text links.
I find providing my own images (and linking them to the product), and providing a text link within the content of my post will convert at a much higher rate. The more personal you can be with your audience, the better! I would trust someone more who took an actual picture, than just someone who used a generic Amazon button.
I find Amazon to be an excellent affiliate program despite the lower commission rates, and for me has proven to be a very high converting one at that. If you were questioning if you could really make any money being an Amazon Associate, I can assure you it’s entirely possible if you’re smart about it.
Remember, your effectiveness with online marketing all comes down to providing value to your customers!
Be information, provide value and earn your readers trust. Don’t just sloppily post your Amazon links all over your site with no valuable or unique content; your readers won’t have any reason to buy from you versus going directly to Amazon, or another affiliate’s site that is perhaps more helpful than yours. Because of their lower commision rate, you do have to sell a lot more product than with some other programs to make decent money, but it can still be done. If you follow my advice, you should see the program start to work for you.
Take action! Finally fill in the missing pieces -get the help, training and support you need to make Amazon work for you…
This is just coming from what I’ve experienced with the program, so what’s your take on the Amazon Associates program? I’d love to hear other people’s personal experiences!
-Wendy
Owner, SurvivingAfterCollege.com
About Wendy
I just signed up for amazon affiliate with a gentleman named josh for $200. Did I make a mistake?
Hi Francis,
Yes, I would ask for your money back. There is nobody that works for the Amazon affiliate program and signs people up to become affiliates, that is an entirely free program by Amazon that anyone can apply for. This “Josh” fellow is a 3rd party scam artist that does NOT work for Amazon!
My problem with the amazon program is there are many, many rules in place to take the sale and not give you a dime in commission. Like the person must be a stranger rule. according to amazon if you know the person in any way you don’t get the commission. this may be that I just chatted with the person. Or a person who is your friend On facebook. And yes this is direct from a call I made to amazon because I didn’t get my .40 cent commission. Also according to amazon You can’t post on facebook groups you don’t own. Basically that’s all of them. The rules go on and on. But of cause they don’t mind taking the sale.
Hm, I wonder how Amazon would know you “know” somebody or not. The only thing I was aware of was YOU couldn’t personally buy through your own link, but that is true for pretty much any affiliate program. But anyway, once you learn how to properly market using techniques that work you don’t really have to concern yourself over if you actually know the person or what facebook groups you’re allowed to post in, because the best way to do it wouldn’t even make your concerns matter. There are 2 billion people online and I’m positive you can find people you don’t know to sell to.
They won’t tell you how they claim to know. They say they can’t list their criteria, but I have several sales over the past few months for which (again for reasons they won’t disclose) they are not paying me for.
I received a phone call this past monday in regards to them saying they are amazon and can build me a website for $99.00 a month. Is this a scam or legite
It’s most likely a scam from the sounds of it… what are they offering you for the 99 per month?
George:
You have done a very important step in your online success: due diligence.
Seeking further information on a program before joining it.
Every day thousands of people seeking to begin their online “Profitable” business or money making program join a program without looking at what others have to say about it before joining the program, only to learn that they have been taken. They pay, the program is a scam, and they can’t get their money back.
Yep, it has happened to me, not once, but a few times. It takes time to learn a lesson specially when fantasy is in our emotions and minds: overnight riches.
First: how did “Amazon?” get your phone number?
I have been associated with Amazons for several years, and have never received a phone call from them: not as an associate, not as a customer.
All my communications with Amazon have been through email.
Wealthy Affiliates is an excellent program to join, you can stay free forever, but the best option is Premium, but that is your decision. I have been with them for almost two years.
Amazon associates (affiliates) is free to join, but there are outside providers that offer you good options to optimize their sales funnel.
Never join a program until you do some research on it. And, of course, never give your credit card info even if it is for $1.95. You never know what they will do with your CC info. And beware of recurring billings.
Your friend,
Luis Antonios
Hi Wendy,
I have recently signed up for Affiliate Program for Amazon through an advertisement I saw on a website. The website that I was directed to for the sign up did not look legitimate, but I signed up anyway as it only required my email address and phone number. Straight after I received an email thanking me for my interest and so on. The very next day I received a phone call from from Affiliate and they told me that I need to pay a small fee of $1.95 to sign up to start the free 5 day trial to see if I was satisfied, and then continue to pay a fee of $29.90 (or some other price around this price range) to continue. I have done a small amount of research to see if this program is legitimate and I was directed to your page. I have read on another website that it is free to work with affiliate and if they ask me to pay a fee, then it is a scam. I have not given them my credit card details to make the first payment. I am honestly not sure if what I have signed up for is a legitimate way to sign up with Affiliate and I need your help. I would like to know your opinion on whether you think I should continue to believe that what I have signed up for is legitimate and go ahead with the payments, or if I should discontinue as I will be scammed from my money. Please help me with my situation as I desperately require someone’s assistance.
Natasha
Hey Natasha,
What is the name of the program you signed up for exactly? I can’t say for sure if it is a scam or not because I don’t know all the details, but I can tell you that being an Amazon affiliate is completely free and if that is all they are charging you for then you are definitely being taken advantage of. It also seems a little suspicious you’re being sold to over the phone. Do you know what exactly they’re offering you? Because if they aren’t telling you much and asking for $30 bucks a month, that isn’t right.
If you want my advice, I can recommend a great program that will teach you how to use programs like Amazon (as well as others) to market products and geniounely help others solve problems and find what they are looking for. I recommend signing up to my free email course here (right hand sidebar) and it’ll get you started. There’s absolutely no money required up front for anything I recommend, so you can at least get familiar enough to know if it’s something you’d be interested in or not.
Natasha:
You can be very proud of yourself for not paying for that program before doing some research about it. Please look at my comment on George’s comment for what I mean.
You should never join a program that isn’t telling you the whole story before you pay. What are they hiding?
To make money online you have to invest. You have to pay money to really succeed online. But you have to know where, why, who, when, what and how you are investing your hard earned money.
Joining programs that are always free won’t really make you money, or it will be hugely time consuming. Somebody has to take money of their pockets so that you can earn. The best thing on always free programs that pay you are CPA programs, but even though you don’t have to “sell” anything CPA offers are somewhat not easy to get conversions. Many people won’t follow through even if the offer is “free”.
But there are excellent programs that you can start free and afterwards have an upgrade option, others have an always free option (like WA), and if you really want to get in the high profitable train, get premium. In these programs you have the opportunity to test the program for free and see if it is something that you want to get involved with.
Don’t worry about people asking you to pay them for something. Just analyze what you are getting for what you are paying.
You pay for food, clothing, medical services, auto repair, rent, mortgage, recreation, travel, lodging, board, school supplies, college, internet access, electronics (you bought your pc, laptop, right?), electricity, phone service, etc. Why not pay for your online success if it is going to produce your salary?
Did you know that those online “gurus” that are earning thousands and even millions of dollars per month are paying (investing) hundreds and even thousands of dollars per month to get that earning?
They invest in electricity, best internet access, employees or outsourcers (they don’t have the time and/or knowledge to process all the things that are needed to have a successful online biz), office space, equipment, materials, taxes, advertising campaigns (these are the most expensive parts of an online biz)
What you need to know is your “profits”. This is the difference between your investments and your earnings (income). If each time you spend (invest) money it will generate more and than what you spent, you are in the right track.
Scammers know all about this, that’s why you have to be careful each step of your online success, because they will want to take money out of your pocket without delivering the service bought, or the very poor quality of the product or service delivered is more damaging than good.
Your friend,
Luis Antonios
Nice write up and some good tips. I’ve been really trying to build up my Amazon sales with one of my niche websites(coffeemakersmadeinusa.net). Though the 24 cookie is challenging, I do see quite a bit of potential to really rake in some commissions with Amazon.
Hi Wendy – very clear post. The thing that really put me off the program was the short window for punters to buy where you still get paid – what’s your view on this?
Yeah their cookie window is only 24 hours which is very short when you consider that many others have 30 day or even lifetime cookies. While it could account for some lost revenue, Amazon is very good at getting people to buy and most people do buy their products within 24 hours. It can be good to test different affiliate vendors and see what one works out the best.
Thanks for your guidance. I am working as a amazon associate but not any single sale . Can u help me how to promote i just create the facebook page that is https://www.facebook.com/Supermarketonline and promote it through social media like facebook, google plus, linkindi, twitter , pinrest but yet not succeed . So please guide me how to work it. I am only use those tools which are free.
It appears that you don’t even have a website. Are you providing value to your customers or just linking them to the products directly from your Facebook page? This isn’t the proper way to market online and it doesn’t surprise me you aren’t getting sales. I suggest you try my recommended training course.
Very nice article and you are true, the amazon program really works . I have added it on my website and I can see the earnings. It is worth it to have such an affiliation program where conversion rate is high though the percentage is less.
Hi Wendy,
I read your post and congratulations on your great effort Wendy. Im from South Australia and I have been learning blogging over 14 months.that Im enjoying really well and I’m almost a step closer to launch my website later. I have a question below!
I joined amazon affiliate nearly 7 weeks and haven/t made money yet. Is there an easier way to make money the right steps with Amazon?
You’ve been learning blogging for over 14 months and haven’t launched a website yet? How are you promoting products as an Amazon affiliate? These things do take time, but perhaps you aren’t approaching it the right way. There’s no “easy” way but there’s good and bad ways to go about it. I recommend you check out this training because it may help you start out on a better foot. : )
Hi Wendy,
Great article. Is the Amazon affiliate program stick for 90 days, 30 days ?
Thanks!
Tomer
I believe there’s a 90 day hold on your earnings, so there’s a 3 month delay from the time you start earning til they’ll pay you… but after that initial waiting period once you start earning regularly you should get checks each month!
Hi Wendy,
I’ve been an Amazon Affiliate for many years, and you are absolutely right – you can make money. You just have to still provide quality content for your readers, not just put links up.
I have two different tools I use, on different sites – and you might want to look at them. First is Fresh Store Builder (www.freshstorebuilder.com) which allows you to build a really nice eCommerce type store. I add these to my blogs, and can use them for really focused stores that provide value.
The second is a new WordPress plugin that just launched, called Fresh Bundle Master (www.freshbundlemaster.com) This is really neat in that you can add a grouping or “bundle” of products into a post, and make additional revenue without seeming spammy. I’ve already had some sales in just the last couple of days – it literally just launched this week. I highly recommend taking a look at it.
Hi wendy your contents are so nice.Well about me i am the owner of twitbing.com this is in construction within two days it will be live to world.So my aim is to earn on internet i have not earned so far.I wish to earn i am now going to review affiliate products and i want suggestion from you (as you are experienced) on how to make earning website.help me
Hey I’d suggest you sign up for my free email course. I will guide you on how to start out and give you some advice
You can find it within the right hand sidebar of my website.