Let’s walk through the process of how to become an Amazon affiliate marketer together. New bloggers often ask if becoming an Amazon affiliate is a good choice, especially after Amazon’s recent commission reduction. In my opinion, it’s still an excellent choice!
Why?
Here are several reasons why I believe that adding Amazon to your monetization mix is a good strategy:
- With unsurpassed brand and logo recognition worldwide, good prices, and prompt shipping, Amazon is a trusted vendor.
- It’s easy to get started with Amazon making it beginner-friendly.
- Their product array is enormous with something for just about any niche.
- Once you get people to Amazon.com, you will earn a commission on anything they decide to purchase. And, they often buy multiple products.
- Amazon is an expert at converting customers and affiliates benefit from that expertise.
Our goal as affiliates is customer satisfaction, right? And, isn’t it comforting to know that Amazon shares and supports that goal? Amazon’s vision statement seems to express that position well:
“Our vision is to be earth’s most customer-centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”
Hopefully, becoming an Amazon affiliate makes a lot of sense to you. But you may be a little fuzzy on exactly how it works and how to get started,
So, let’s delve into the details. shall we?
What is Amazon’s Affiliate Program and How Does it Work?
Amazon is the most popular retail website in the US averaging more than 200 million unique visitors each month. Amazon also runs an affiliate program, called Amazon Associates, which is the largest affiliate network in the world. Website owners and bloggers can join the program for free and earn money by promoting Amazon products in exchange for a commission.
Here’s an infographic that summarizes the process:
Affiliate marketing is brilliant in its simplicity. But you do have to lay the groundwork for success. So, let’s lay out all of the steps you must take to become an Amazon affiliate marketer up to and including the Amazon application process.
Step One: How to Build a Website For Your Affiliate Marketing Business
Maybe you already have this first step well underway in which case you can skip over this section. But, I want to make it very clear that affiliate marketing is an online business venture and a website of your own is an absolute necessity.
The most successful Amazon affiliates are website owners and bloggers who write captivating, solution-driven content and publish that content on their own site. The focus must be on solving problems that a target audience is experiencing.
Naturally, you want to be successful and there’s a very clear action plan you can follow to make it happen:
- Research a Niche or Target Market to Identify Key Problems or Pain Points Members Face
- Build a Website
- Create Solution-Driven Content (Including Product Reviews) That Aligns With the Needs of Your Ideal Reader
- Gain Trust & Loyalty with Readers by Helping and Answering Questions
So, How Do You Get Started With A Website?
Creating a website is not as difficult as you might think. There are various options for getting started relatively quickly at a minimal cost. Once you’ve identified your topic and your niche target market, here is what you’ll need to do:
- Get a Domain Name
- Secure Hosting and a Blogging Platform
- Select an Aesthetically Pleasing Theme
Performing these steps will lay a viable foundation for your new affiliate marketing business venture. I accomplished these steps in minutes when I created my website several years ago.
If this online world is all new to you, I’m sure you feel some trepidation. I did too! But I found the perfect solution when I stumbled upon an online training platform called Wealthy Affiliate. I’m a natural-born skeptic, and that makes me very cautious about spending money on unknown products.
Are you like me?
Wealthy Affiliate’s offer of a free Starter Membership is what jumpstarted my blog because it was completely risk-free. I didn’t have to give them a credit card number or make a commitment of any kind. That approach worked for me.
I typed in an email address to create a free account and began an exploration that transformed my life. The online space is a captivating realm that completely sucked me in from the very first day. And, it started with the excitement of building my first free website.
In just a moment, you’ll enjoy a video that creates a brand new website from scratch in real-time. But, first things first.
Laying the Foundation for Your New Website
We should spend a bit more time discussing the website foundation elements presented above. Then, I’ll point you in the direction of previous posts that will provide more details. Finally, you can view the promised video and see just how simple it is to get your site up and rolling.
Domain Names
Your domain name is the unique address where your target market can find you on the Web. In essence, it’s a piece of virtual real estate.
You can read more about domain names here.
Web Hosting and a Blogging Platform
Much like a brick and mortar business needs a location from which to operate, your online business needs storage on a server for all of your files and website content. Viewers must be able to reliably access your content on-demand.
Read more about web hosting considerations here.
The only blogging platform I can recommend is WordPress. According to this Wikipedia article, WordPress supports more than 60 million websites and is the most popular blogging software on the Internet. The open-source nature of WordPress makes your site highly portable.
Be cautious about hosting providers that offer proprietary website builders. You don’t want to limit the portability of your blog and the ability to seek hosting solutions elsewhere.
Moreover, nothing compares to WordPress when it comes to designing a website with stunning good looks and exceptional functionality. There are more than 2,800 free WordPress themes, hundreds of premium themes, and thousands of plugins that add additional features to your site.
WordPress rocks!
So, here’s that promised video where you can watch a new website evolve.
As you can see, with a few clicks of the mouse your website is live and open for business.
What’s next?
Focus on Traffic
You need eyeballs viewing your pages, and readers need to have a good reason to choose your website. So, do your research and start efficiently communicating with your market. Create some great content centered around the needs and questions of your desired readers and keep posting.
Fundamentally, traffic flows from careful keyword research.
Building a customer base will take time and effort, but there are time-tested ways of increasing the traffic to your site.
Traffic is another facet of internet business development where Wealthy Affiliate can help. Extensive tutorials and webinars are devoted to this topic.
How Do You Apply to Become An Amazon Affiliate Marketer?
Once you have a website, applying to become an Amazon affiliate is an incredibly simple process. It takes about 5 minutes. If you go to the Amazon.com homepage, you will see the following link at the bottom of the page.
Just click the link. Then fill in a few personal details (including the name of your website), and you’re off and running. In most instances, you’ll instantly have access to customized affiliate links to entice your customers and satisfy their needs for an incredible array of products (from A to Z 🙂 ).
What Are the Rewards of Being an Amazon Affiliate?
On average, Amazon pays its affiliates a commission of about 3 to 4%. If you’re promoting low dollar value products, you will naturally need patience and a lot of customers for your site to become profitable. But it’s entirely possible to make money partnering with Amazon.
Bloggers from all over the world prove that every day!
Do I think you should restrict yourself to partnering solely with Amazon? Absolutely not! A single income stream is far too risky. You have many alternative affiliate programs to choose from. Some of them may offer higher commission rates which are obviously a plus. But, don’t discount the many advantages of having Amazon as part of your monetization strategy.
With millions of products, Amazon has a role to play in almost any niche affiliate blog. This giant is a household name and few days go by when we don’t see an Amazon Prime Van in the neighborhood.
How to Monetize Your Website or Blog
Once you’re accepted into the Amazon Associates program, you immediately have ready access to a variety of links that you can incorporate into your blog.
Try these ideas:
- Link to products from simple text links within the body of your content. Studies show that these textual links often work best.
- Create clickable product images that visually encourage customers to drill further for more product details.
- Make it easy for readers to click-through to Amazon by adding multiple links.
- Be aware that transparent and thorough product reviews convert well.
- Use Native Shopping Ads that complement your content.
- Sidebar banner ads seem to be less compelling than text links, but seasonal banners may be an exception and something to consider.
Amazon.com is the world’s largest Internet-based retailer with a plethora of enthralling products. Get customers to Amazon’s site and let them take over because they’re experts at closing the sale. Let Amazon do what they do best!
Again, your customers do not necessarily have to purchase the Amazon products you specifically promote. Once your customers click on your affiliate link and go to Amazon.com, you will receive a commission for any items purchased during the next 24 hours.
Wrapping Up
I sincerely hope you found this tutorial on how to become an Amazon affiliate marketer helpful. There are sound business reasons for pursuing an Amazon affiliation as a component of your monetization strategy.
These reasons include exceptional brand recognition, a spectacular array of products, and consumer-oriented business practices. There are indeed many benefits to new bloggers. It comes as no surprise that droves of affiliate marketers celebrate their first online successes because of an Amazon sale.
You may see your first success with Amazon as well!
Even after a reduction in commissions on some product categories, Amazon’s fee structure is not less than that of many other organizations. Partnering with Amazon is still a wise choice for many affiliate marketers!
Over To You
Will you share your thoughts on becoming an Amazon Associate or any personal experience you already have with this program? Do you still have questions? Please leave me a comment below. I always respond to all comments!
Like It! Please Share It!
Hi there, I actually have a couple of sites many dedicated to using amazon the affiliate program and it’s a great program. I also recently discovered genius link, where I can target other countries. Being in the UK, I was not reaching my audience, (mainly US) and it’s made a massive different. Amazon is an especially great program for newbies to start with, because it’s easy to get accepted and also very easy to work out once you get your head around it. Amazon are also constantly updating their program to make it easier for people to use. I don’t have an Astore on my sites yet, but I definitely think it would be a beneficial thing for me. You’ve reminded me! Thank you!
Amazon does make it particularly easy for newbies to get started, don’t they? That’s always a HUGE plus in my book. I hope you’ll let me know how aStore works out for you. Good luck!
Great article Linda on how to affiliate market for Amazon. Amazon Associates is actually the very first affiliate program I myself joined, and for the most part I have had a great experience with them. It’s so quick and convenient to grab affiliate links from the bar at the top of the site; a lot of other programs out there make it really difficult to get the links you actually want. Thanks for this!
Hi Paul,
I too have had excellent experiences dealing with Amazon. Combine that with the fact that they sell everything at reasonable prices and they really are a wonderful choice for a newbie affiliate marketer. Thanks so much for your input!
Hi Linda
Thanks for your article about using Amazon’s affiliate program. I actually use it myself on my website and I really love how easy it is to get set up and use.
I didn’t know about the aStore until I read your post. It’s a really great idea for something I can add to my website. Thanks!
Hi Nate,
I’m so glad I could share a new idea with you! Good luck with it!
Hello Linda,
I am new to the affiliate marketing and found that amazon was the easiest to use.The others are more specific to your niche, what i like about amazon is the wide variety of products. I just looked at the sample store display and liked it going to try it on my site. Is it easy to setup?
thanks
Chris
Hi Chris,
Yes, the aStore option available from Amazon is a breeze to setup. I think it’s a super idea for providing a variety of products. I hope it works out well for you too! Please stop back and let me know. Thanks for your comments and for visiting my site.
Personally, I’m already an Amazon Affiliate, so most of the things you’ve mentioned here I’m already aware of!
But one thing that I’ve learned from this post is that you get commissions even after the customer clicks away from the product you’ve promoted if he buys the next product he or she clicks on.
Wow. Just another reason to be an Amazon Affiliate.
Thanks for sharing!
Hi Cerulean,
Yes, it’s true that once a reader clicks on your affiliate link you will earn a commission on anything they purchase from Amazon within the following 24 hours. This is a very nice feature of the affiliate relationship. Best of luck to you and thanks for commenting!
Hello there,
I am already a member of Amazon’s affiliate program, however, didn’t start earning anything yet. I know that they offer you bigger commissions when you start getting more traffic but I don’t really know what’s the maximum commission rate. Do you perhaps know it and how do you achieve it? Also, would you say there are any better similar affiliate programs out there at the moment ?
Hi Dejan,
It’s true that Amazon affiliate commissions vary. There are 2 key factors that affect your commission rate. This information is available on the Amazon Associate web page but I’ll talk high level here. They offer fixed standard commissions for specific product categories. Those rates can range from 1 to 10% depending on the product. They also offer variable commission rates for other product categories that aren’t specifically identified. These rates range from 4 to 8.5% and are based on the number of sales that you have during the course of the month. As the number of sales increases, the commission rate also increases. At different times during the year they also offer special promotional rates that may be somewhat higher (I’ve seen up to 12%).
As for your question about better affiliate programs, I think that determination is very much dependent on your niche and the type of product you are promoting. There are thousands of affiliate programs out there that may be suitable for your niche. I would do some searching in Google. If you type in a description of your niche or a product you’re interested in and then add +affiliate to the end of your search, you’ll typically see a lot of choices.
Depending on the product, it’s entirely possible that you can find a better affiliate alternative. You have to do some research on your products. I have affiliate relationships with a number of vendors but for certain products I prefer Amazon. In large part, this is based on positive experiences as an Amazon customer. I shop with them often based on a number of factors including product variety, quality of products, prices, refund policy and shipping terms. I’m comfortable promoting their products because I believe my readers will have a good experience.
Good luck with your site.If you stick with it and continue to publish quality, relevant content, success will come. I hope these responses were helpful and I appreciate your comments!
Hi Linda
Thanks for the useful Information, As a beginner this is more valuable, I agree that experience all sounds louder and perfect, I am following each and every step to became a successful Amazon affiliate
Hi Harish,
Like most things in life, affiliate marketing takes some time and effort but success is achievable. Quality content and persistence is the key I wish you every success in achieving your goal!
Hi, Linda.
Stumbled upon your site and have read a few articles. Good work.
Quick question. Will Amazon approve your account if you have little to no content on your site (e.g. structure with 3 articles)?
Thanks. You have a new reader!
Hi Kelly,
I usually recommend waiting until you have ten to twelve posts on your site before applying for affiliate status. Companies like to assess the quality of your content before they approve you. Additionally, if you don’t have a referral that leads to a sale within the first 120 days, Amazon will cancel your account. So, it’s best to have some traffic first.
I’m pleased to have a new reader ? Thanks for connecting!
Thank you for sharing this very important guide to me. Well, being a newbie marketer, what you have shared here is very great to see and I fancy it a lot. Becoming an affiliate marketer for Amazon is one of the best things that can happen to any marketer and that is really good to see here. Thank you for sharing this here. Really helpful
Hi Nath,
Happy to be of help! There are many excellent affiliate programs out there. But, I believe Amazon is a great addition to the mix regardless of your niche. They really do sell it all!
I’m always thrilled to hear from newbie marketers and I wish you well on your journey. Thanks for chiming in!
Amazon is possibly one of the very best affiliate programs to be a part of because it works really well when one wants to earn something online. I have given it a try and I can endorse the platform to anyone who wants to make money as am affiliate marketer. I’m so happy that you could give some valid points about it. Nice post!
Hi Suz,
I couldn’t agree more that partnering with Amazon is a wise choice. I’m happy to hear it’s working out well for you.
Good luck and thanks for jumping in!
Hi Linda,
Reading your article on how to become an Amazon affiliate marketer is informative and possibly lucrative, I have heard about Amazon’s affiliate program several times and your training make it clear to me how to become an affiliate marketer in the Amazon platform. My experience with your topic has added to my learning.
Thank you.
Aluko.
Hi Aluko,
I’m happy to be able to add to your knowledge base. I’m a big believer that knowledge is power. Good luck as you pursue affiliate marketing. I hope you will consider a starter membership at Wealthy Affiliate to add far more in the way of useful nuggets of information. The more we know the better prepared we are to make informed decisions, right?
Good luck as you pursue affiliate marketing and thanks for stopping by!
Hi Linda, am already an Amazon affiliate but have not yet earned anything as my website is fairly new but I believe with time things will start turning around. The steps that you mentioned are clear and simple enough for everyone to follow, especially newbies in this online business. I get to remember when I started developing interest in online marketing and the stumbling block was how would I go about establishing my own website. Thanks to Wealthy Affiliate and its very helpful community, otherwise I would not be where am right now. It works and its real, no doubt about it, anyone interested should read your block post and go to the WA website. Thanks once again.
Hi Joel,
Yes, I too owe tremendous thanks to Wealthy Affiliate for getting me started on the right path and continuing to support my marketing efforts with fabulous hosting and a helpful community.
I’m glad to hear that you’re an Amazon affiliate. I truly believe it’s a wise choice for most affiliate marketers. If your site is new, don’t be concerned about the lack of affiliate commissions yet. For most of us, the 6th-month mark is an important milestone. By that point, you should have a body of content that appeals to your target market. And Google is starting to see you as a credible source of information which means your rankings will start to improve.
A website that gets traffic will make money. Continue to pump out solution-driven content that meets the need of your ideal visitors and aligns well with their queries. It takes time but it’s a proven formula for affiliate marketing success.
Good luck and thanks for sharing your thoughts!