As an aspiring affiliate marketer, you’ve probably heard that Amazon has an affiliate program. And you’re right, Amazon has a fantastic affiliate program, especially for those who are new to the world of affiliate marketing. In this article, we are going to highlight the many benefits of becoming an Amazon affiliate, guide you through the process of becoming one, and provide you with some useful content ideas to set you along your way. Read on to kick-start your prosperous adventure into affiliate marketing with Amazon. 

What is the Amazon Affiliate Program? 

The Amazon Affiliate Program, otherwise known as “Amazon Affiliates,” is a marketing program that allows you to advertise Amazon products in exchange for commissions made on sales. This process works by using a specific link as part of your advertisement. When a user clicks on that link and makes a sale on Amazon, you receive a reward in the form of a commission referral fee. One of the best things about the Amazon affiliate program is that you can sign up and get approved for free, as long as you have a website or blog. 

Why is being an Amazon Affiliate Beneficial? 

Free and immediate approval

One of the most significant aspects of becoming an Amazone associate is that it is easy to join. You fill out a form (explained later in the article) and voila – you’re instantly approved. Amazon gives its affiliates the benefit of the doubt by providing them with a six month probation period to make a sale and verify themselves as an actual affiliate. 

Commissions and Sales

Working with Amazon will guarantee you a commission on each sale made when someone uses your affiliate link. While a commission of 5-15% doesn’t sound like much, there is a silver lining. You gain this commission on each product bought during their browsing session (not just the product you are referring to). Furthermore, if they decide not to purchase the product and instead buy something else, you’ll still receive a commission. 

Trusted brand

Amazon is a well-known brand with a solid reputation for e-commerce and cemented itself as a trusted brand in the mind of many customers. In 2019 Amazon had a net income estimate of over 11 billion USD. For affiliate marketers, the more trustworthy the brand, the better. 

Many products to choose from

Having established itself as an e-commerce giant, Amazon has a massive variety of products to choose; this is great for affiliates because it gives them a wide range of product types for all manner of different niches to select.  Furthermore, Amazon’s vast product catalogue increases the likelihood that customers will make additional sales, which results in more commission for affiliates. 

How to get started

The road to becoming an Amazon affiliate is quick enough, especially if you already have a website, blog, app, or youtube channel set up. If you don’t happen to have one, don’t worry, these things are easy enough to create. In the following paragraphs, we’ll guide you step by step through the entire process, offering you some levels and nuggets of useful information along the way. 

Create a website or blog.

The primary condition to become an Amazon associate is that you must have a website, blog, app, or youtube channel. We recommend that you stick with a website or blog because, with these platforms, it is a lot easier to get the ball rolling, especially if you’re an aspiring affiliate. We recommend that you choose a hosting plan that guarantees high uptime and impressive server speed. Moreover, we also recommend that you fill your website or blog with valuable content before signing up as an Amazon Associate so that they will not question your legitimacy and intentions as a potential affiliate.  

It is important to remember that when building your website or blog, you have a plan of action to support it. Furthermore, you should have an excellent idea of why you made the website in the first place, what kind of audience you’re looking to attract, and have a detailed plan as to how you gain traffic towards your new site. Moreover, when you are building a website, it should always be optimized for mobile viewing, since more than 50% of consumers are using their mobile phone for website visits. Given that a good majority of traffic to your site will be viewing it on mobile devices, you should be catering to the user experience towards them. 

Visit the Amazon Associates homepage

After you have finished building your website or blog, it is time for you to visit the Amazon Associates page to join the program. First, you’ll want to click on “Join now” so that you can sign up for free. If you already have an amazon account, you can log in; else, you’ll need to create a new account. Don’t worry, creating a new amazon account won’t take you longer than five minutes. 

Build your Amazon Associates profile

Now that you’ve created your new Amazon account and signed in, its time to create your Amazon Associates profile! 

1. Firstly, you’ll need to click on “new customer” to begin creating your Amazon Associates account. 
2. Fill in your account information (including the payee name, address, and phone number).
3. Enter the URL to your website, app, or youtube channel. 
4. Enter your website’s name as the store ID, write a summary of what your site is about, and then select several amazon topics relevant to your niche. 
5. Check the option that best describes how you drive traffic to your website, then selects how your site generates income, how you build links, and how many visitors you get on average. 
6. Verify your identity with the “call me now” button.
7. Select your preferred payment method.

Create Amazon Affiliate Links

Great! You’ve created your Amazon Associates profile, now its time to create your Amazon Affiliate links. Firstly, you’ll notice that after completing your profile that you’ll be sent a link to your home page. On this home page, you can view your affiliate performance statistics, such as your total earnings, ordered items, and total clicks. 

To create an amazon affiliate link, you need to: 

1. Firstly, select “search for product” under the quick links menu (which allows you to search for a specific product) or “browse for product” (which will enable you to search for products relevant to a particular category).
2. After finding a particular product that you want to get an affiliate link for, click on “get a link.”
3. If you’d like, you can customize your link with a widget, text, an image, or both text and an image. You may also change the background colour, image size, and font colour. 
4. Copy the URL or HTML copy and paste it on your website!

It’s important to remember that permanent approval is given after six months. You have to make a sale during the approval period; otherwise, your affiliate account will not cut it.  

The best content for making conversions

To become a successful affiliate, you should focus on making your content useful and valuable. Furthermore, it would help if you also were publishing content consistently. Typically, the type of content you produce will largely depend on your niche and your audience, but here are some examples of content that we recommend converting your readers into buyers: 

Best-of lists

One of the best types of content to put affiliate links into is “best-of” lists. These lists typically include the best products relevant to a specific category or niche. The best thing about using best-of lists is the fact that you can insert more than one affiliate link into it, at least one per product on your list. 

Product reviews

Product reviews are another fantastic content type that goes into more depth than “best-of” lists. These reviews will typically provide the reader with much value by highlighting the merits and drawbacks of a particular product to help the reader make more informed purchasing decisions. 

Product comparisons

All too often, consumers are unable to decide between similar products and will rely on product comparison articles to compare and contrast the merits and drawbacks of their options. A pivotal perk to writing product comparisons is that you can use more than one affiliate link – a link for each product that you’re comparing. 

How-tos

How-to articles are incredibly useful nuggets of information that give step by step instructions explaining how to achieve a specific objective. You can get creative in how you write these, incorporating products, with their respective affiliate links into your articles to generate some commission. You should also check out Online Academy Scam to make sure that any course that you’re buying to learn about affiliate marketing or how to make money online, you can verify that it’s not a scam.

Alternatives to Amazons Affiliate Program?

While Amazon’s affiliate program is great, there are other affiliate programs out there that may work better for you depending on your needs and preferences. If Amazon’s affiliate program is working out for you, then you may also want to consider other affiliate programs, after all, why put all your eggs into one basket? 

Clickbank

Clickbank is a titan in the affiliate marketing industry. Many other businesses use their example as the standard. Commissions are generally set by the vendors and are known to be quite generous, ranging from 25-75%.

ShareASale

While not as popular as Clickbank, ShareASale is still another great alternative to Amazon. Your commissions are usually set by the vendors and are typically a little less than what you would find from ClickBank. Commissions generally range around 5-15%.

Is Amazon Affiliates for you?

If you like the idea of getting approved for free by a trusted brand with a vast spectrum of products that you can potentially make much commission from, then becoming an Amazon associate is a good idea. However, if you are an experienced affiliate marketer, you might want to consider Clickbank as a viable alternative because of its generous commissions. At the very least, you should consider using a variety of different affiliate marketing platforms to diversify your sources of earnings for a more consistent passive income.