Making Money With Amazon Affiliate: How To Get Started?

Making Money With Amazon Affiliate : Getting into an affiliate can be a smart way to supplement income. Of course, all this is not done in a snap of the fingers. It is even rather long-term work. There’s a good chance that the niche (or a more general theme) on which you want to set up your affiliate site have products that are linked to it on Amazon. 

The good news is that Amazon gives you the opportunity to partner with them to get affiliate links! Find out how to become an affiliate with Amazon, how much all this can bring you but also the different flaws of the platform.

What Is Affiliation? Definition

Before you get started with Amazon, a little reminder of what affiliation is.

It is simply a process in which a merchant site offers other sites (or profiles on social networks) to promote their products / services, in exchange for a counterpart. In general, affiliation is paid for by performance. That is to say, you will receive a commission for each sale that will be made from your link, which is of course tracked.

This is a very common process, which novices do not necessarily see when they click on it. Most blogs that have a minimum of visibility use this process to create a source of passive income. On average, it was estimated in 2020 that $ 1 invested by a company in affiliation brought it $ 18  (in ready-to-wear). The commissions paid in France in 2020 amounted to about 177 million euros, which is not nothing.

How To Affiliate On Amazon And Become A Partner?

In fact, Amazon has already been in the affiliate market for years. Indeed, their partnership program was created in 1996, making it one of the first on the market. They had already understood at the time. Today, more than 500,000 sites are affiliated with Amazon, you have to realize. when you know what affiliation can bring for an e-commerce site, it’s very impressive.

Finally, the affiliation starts from a very simple principle: you connect 2 people (your reader and Amazon) and you take your commission. It’s very simple! Everyone wins in this story:

• The customer finds the product he likes
• Amazon (or at least the seller) sells its product
• You receive a commission on the sale

Everyone stands out from this winning story. But, as explained in the introduction, it is not easy to make money through affiliation. But, before even talking about a website to maintain and optimize, you must already register for Amazon’s partner program, and be accepted.

What is the registration process?

There is a certain process to follow to sign up and be able to get affiliate links from Amazon. We will detail the different steps to follow to be able to start making money.

First of all, the basis is to create an account on Amazon’s affiliate program site. It’s pretty well signposted when you go to the site with the “Start Here” call to action. In this first step, the goal is simply to inform the platform of the essential information that concerns you and your company. At first, they logically ask you for your name, your email address, and a password. Nothing extraordinary so far. 

You will arrive on a new screen where you will have to enter other basic information such as your physical address with postal code and everything you need, as well as your phone number. You must then choose who is the person to contact in relation to this account. The last question is whether you are American, in relation to certain taxes.

So far, so good, it’s pretty simple. This second step is just as important. You are simply asked which site you want to monetize through the affiliate program. If you have a mobile application, you will have to enter the URL in the dedicated field on the right of the screen.

Then, we stay on information that is relatively simple to find. This is more specific information about your website. Indeed, Amazon wants to know what are the sources of traffic to your website. You have several options to choose from such as SEO, social media, advertising displays, sponsored search results, and much more. Once you have completed this, the different questions concern:

• Your sources of income (if you have several websites)
• Building your links on your site
• The number of visitors
• The reason you want to become an Amazon affiliate
• How you heard about it

The purpose of all this is to find out if you can be a quality and trusted partner for Amazon. Once this step is completed, it can be said that you have applied for the affiliate program.

The fourth step takes place when you receive the answer, positive we wish you, from Amazon. In reality, if your website is a serious minimum, there is no real reason why your application should be refused.

How Much Does The Amazon Affiliate Program Earn? Commission Percentages

To be completely honest, commission rates are not exceptional. On a large scale, this can still be interesting. Depending on the product category, the commission will not be the same. This remuneration grid of the partner program is also quite simple to understand: the more the product comes from a category with competition, the higher the commission will be. We can illustrate this sentence with the highest paid product categories: video games and fashion. There are only Amazon gift certificates or you won’t get a commission.

There are 3 types of commissions in the Amazon Associates program:

• Direct purchases giving entitlement: this corresponds to the highest commissions. These are those from purchases in the same category of products as that of the product of your link.
• Indirect purchases giving entitlement: these are very low commissions. They come from purchases of a different category than the affiliate link product.
• Amazon influencer page for those who are part of the platform’s Influencer program.

How To Make Money With Affiliation?

Do you want to embark on the adventure of affiliation to make money? First of all, as we have seen, you must succeed in registering for the Amazon Associates club.

Create a website

The registration conditions therefore imply that you absolutely need a website. Even if you do not have skills in the field, today there are CMS and platforms to create sites easily. The most important and difficult thing is to manage the content well, maintain it, etc.

We advise you when to make a site on WordPress. It’s the number 1 CMS in the world, and there are good reasons for that. It is very effective, quite simple to handle, and has a huge community. This community allows you to have access to an impressive number of extensions to integrate all the features you are looking for on your site.

Produce quality content

As we said, the essential aspect of the site to make the affiliation is going to be the content. The classic scheme is to position yourself in a more or less niche market and redirect readers from your blog posts to products. This is the “classic” method, but there are other ways that may be more suitable for you: a YouTube channel or another site where you have good basic traffic to convert.

In any case, as for the blog method, the goal will be to optimize your content and your strategy for SEO in order to position yourself well in the search engine results. The results will not be immediate. In natural referencing, we rather aim for a long-term presence, ideal for generating passive income. Nothing prevents you from doing a Google Ads campaign, but you have to make sure that it is profitable compared to the low commission you will earn.

Income can really become passive after several years. When your income is sufficient, you can hire a web writer / content creator, have more and more content created and potentially make even more turnover. Little extra advice, it is imperative that you transmit added value in your blog. Do it to be of service to people who are looking for a product or who are asking a particular question. If you make soulless content, just for the money, it won’t work. You have to add value to your readers. You will see that you will be able to place your affiliation more naturally.

Integrate the famous affiliate links

There are different ways to get your affiliate links on Amazon:

• Via your Partner dashboard: on the homepage, you can quickly search for a product and get several link formats (text, image or all 2).
• Via the Partners toolbar: If you activate this feature from your account settings, you will have a bar at the top of your screen when you browse Amazon. You can get a link just by clicking on one of the link types listed on it.

Before publishing the page on which there will be the link, do not forget to test the link. On the Partners interface, Amazon offers you the possibility to do it with a tool.

How To Become An Affiliate Without A Site?

Maybe you’d like to take advantage of the affiliate program but don’t have a website, or you don’t want to bother with it. Is this possible?

Not really. You can’t sign up for the affiliate program without owning a website. Nevertheless, if you register (with a website), you will be able to use your affiliate links on your social networks without worries.