The Amazon affiliate program is a marketing initiative made available by Amazon, which allows anyone with a blog or website to earn money by promoting and selling products within Amazon itself.
How does this kind of process happen that allows you to become an affiliate, or would-be, generate revenue? In your blog or affiliate site, perhaps inside an article, you need to insert an advertising link: every time a user makes a purchase on Amazon by going through that link, you will receive a commission.
The Amazon affiliate program offers multiple advantages, first of all the authority and reliability of the brand. In addition, it can be an excellent springboard for both beginners and those who are already familiar with affiliations.
If you don’t know where to start, know that in this guide we will explain how the Amazon affiliate program works, how you can join, and, above all, we will give you some practical tips to start promoting products right away. Are you ready? Let’s go!
What is an affiliate program?
Usually, when you open and manage a blog or a website, one of the objectives is certainly to earn, to monetize your blog.
It is possible to earn money through a blog by implementing Google Adsense and managing to generate interesting amounts of traffic. However, this requires time, SEO skills, or huge advertising investments which, if you are in your first experience, we advise you to avoid.
A structured affiliate program, such as the Amazon one, could be the ideal solution to start generating revenue by sponsoring and promoting products that you know, interest you and that could arouse curiosity even in your reference niche.
In fact, as already mentioned in the introduction, an affiliate program is nothing more than an initiative that allows you to earn a percentage of the sales generated through your site.
Obviously, it’s not all plain sailing: the percentages are not always very high and, especially if the user does not have confidence in the products you are sponsoring, they will hardly make a purchase.
That’s why using an affiliate program like Amazon, a well-known brand in which people trust, where everyone can find confirmation of their doubts (through reviews), can be an ideal starting point to start working with affiliations. Plus, it’s totally free.
Surely now you are wondering what are the requirements to join and how the program works in detail, let’s see it together in the next paragraph!
Requirements for joining an affiliate program
Generally, in order to join an affiliate program, you will need some requirements and tools, a sort of “starter kit”, including:
- Your website or blog where you can post content, such as, for example, articles about the products you have decided to sponsor;
- A choice of such products made available by the affiliate program;
- Sales links or text links, generated through a specific interface, which you will need to insert within the articles relating to the products to be promoted.
This is the basis for you to sign up for an affiliate program and start working. If you are just starting out, terms such as “text link” and “interface” may sound unfamiliar to you, therefore, let’s now see in practice what are all the steps to take to join the Amazon affiliate program.
Before proceeding with the next steps, we want to make it clear that creating a site is essential for most affiliate programs and is a required requirement. Not having it could prevent your membership or strongly question it.
How to join the Amazon affiliate program
You have created your blog and you are ready to discover the Amazon affiliate program, to join you will need to:
- Register for the program via this link https://affiliate-program.amazon.comand follow the guided steps;
- Click on “Register now for free”;
- Provide login credentials, they can be the ones you use for your Amazon account or you can create new ones by leaving your email or your mobile number;
- Enter the required account information;
- Click on “Next” and enter the details related to your website, such as: name, url and main topic covered.
Once these steps have been completed, you will be prompted to read the “Amazon Affiliate Program Agreement”, a step to which we advise you to pay attention and not to skip. You can then click on “Finish”. At this point, you just have to wait for the confirmation email from Amazon.
If your registration is not approved, perhaps because you have not taken care of the contents of the site sufficiently, you can make changes and try again. As already written, the Amazon affiliate program is free, but at the base, there is a selection process to guarantee standard users are compliant and in line with Amazon’s criteria.
For this reason, in fact, before registering, it is better that within your site there are at least between six and ten articles that are well written, reasoned, not too short, and, above all, not copied. Even the graphics have their importance and affect your possible approval, therefore, we suggest you pay attention to the choice of the theme and template. If you want to learn more, you can read the practical guide on “How to create a blog on WordPress from scratch”.
What is an affiliate ID?
As soon as they approve your membership, you will receive a unique Affiliate ID (a code in alphanumeric format): keep it and do not share it with anyone. Once you have logged into your Amazon affiliate account, you will still find the unique code at the top left.
After logging in, therefore, you will have in front of the dashboard or the page from which you can start operating, a sort of control panel. First of all, we recommend that you read the Operating Agreement, to better understand:
- The functioning of the program;
- Advertising commissions (which are between 5% and 10%);
- Which products you can sponsor and which ones are excluded.
You are almost ready to start sponsoring your chosen products, but first, let’s understand how the Amazon affiliate program works and what are affiliate links to insert in the articles.
How the Amazon Affiliate Program Works
I’m about to list the next steps to start promoting products: remember that a few lines ago we mentioned the importance of your affiliate ID? This unique code is central for you to be able to use the program correctly.
This code, in fact, will be used to generate the links to be included in the articles.
One of your articles, for example, could be a review of a book that you liked and that concerns topics consistent with the theme of the blog. If the book is included among the products provided by the affiliate program, you can insert its text link in the article. If a user, after reading this or another of your articles, clicks on the affiliate link entered and makes a purchase on Amazon, then you will be awarded a percentage. You can decide whether to get paid with money or Amazon vouchers.
Hold on tight: it will not be necessary for the user to purchase the product to which the link you entered referred (in the specific case of the book you reviewed), it will be sufficient for him or her to arrive on Amazon through your link and then make a purchase, even if the latter has nothing to do with the link you entered. A nice advantage, don’t you think?
What types of affiliate links can you generate on Amazon?
You will have understood, therefore, how fundamental the links to be included in the articles are, as well as being much more effective than the banners that were used some time ago and we do not recommend using them because they are quite invasive. Thanks to the affiliate links, Amazon will know that the sale took place thanks to you and will recognize you as a percentage.
It is possible to generate different types of affiliate links, depending on your needs. Once you are in the dashboard or control panel, after logging in, in the central section you can search to find the product you want to promote, by entering keywords or Amazon identification codes.
Text link, iFrame code, or banner?
Once you have selected the product, you have various options among the links to create and share:
Simple link: this is a URL to be inserted into a text or image. If you want to copy it, all you have to do is click the arrow to the right of the “Get link” button.
Iframe code for text and image: this alternative allows you to insert a box that contains the image of the chosen product, the name, the price, and the affiliate link.
Text only: to take advantage of this option, after clicking “Get link”, you will notice the presence of the “Text only” tab. In the “Link text” field, write the text you have chosen and copy the corresponding HTML code so you can paste it into your site.
Banners: as we mentioned, it is possible to insert promotional banners by generating iframe codes. We do not recommend it, we believe the text links to be inserted within an article that has value for the user who reads it are more effective, however, if you have decided to use a banner, we will explain how to do it. Click on “Link banner” in the menu on the left and select the banner you prefer, choosing its characteristics, such as the size. At this point, you just have to copy and paste the code into your site.
How much do you earn with the Amazon affiliate program?
The next question we want to answer concerns the economic part: how much do you earn with the Amazon affiliate program? It depends. As already mentioned, the advertising commissions for now generally range from 5% to 10%, but let’s see in detail the specific cases.
The percentages change, mainly, depending on the type of purchase made by the user and the category to which the products belong. First of all, a distinction must be made between:
- Direct eligible purchase: the user purchases the product you have decided to promote or in any case a product belonging to the category to which the link you shared refers.
- Indirect eligible purchase: the user, in this case, accesses Amazon through the link you shared and makes a purchase, but the product belongs to a different category than the link.
To take up the example of the book, perhaps the reader reads your review, clicks on the affiliate link you have included in the article, but once you get to Amazon, buy a pair of jeans.
Starting from these assumptions, to know the exact commissions of every single category you can read the Operating Agreement. Currently, the percentages are:
- 1.5% on eligible indirect purchases relating to clothing and accessories. In the same category, in the case of direct eligible purchases, the percentages reach up to 11% if the revenues do not exceed € 2,500 per month and, if this amount were to be exceeded, the commissions would be 12%.
- 1.5% on indirect eligible purchases relating to homes, furniture, and appliances. The percentage figure rises to 7% for direct eligible purchases that do not exceed € 40,000 per month. Once this ceiling is exceeded, the percentages reach 8%.
- 7% on direct and indirect eligible purchases involving books and stationery, personal care, cars and motorcycles, accessories for pets, and products for children.
- 10% on purchases related to the handmade category, whether they are direct or indirect eligible purchases.
These percentages may be subject to changes in the future, so periodically keep an eye on any changes made by the program.
