If you enjoy promoting physical products, we have good news for you. You can enjoy doing what you do best, promoting products for potential customers, and Amazon will take care of the rest while you take your fair share of the pie without any risks. All of this is possible because of Amazon Associates Program, Amazon's own affiliate marketing program.
What are the requirements to start Affiliate Marketing with Amazon?
First, we should understand the review process. Once you signup, you can get your affiliate links and start promoting right away. However, your request to be finally accepted as a paid Affiliate only gets reviewed when you bring your first 3 sales in the following 180 days of signing up, but there are some requirements to get accepted in the review phase.
Amazon has set a low barrier of entry for its affiliate program. Basically, all that is required is having an online presence, be it a website, a considerable social media following, a YouTube channel ...etc. If you have a website you should have a good amount of content with some traffic. Amazon doesn't specify exactly what is the amount of content or traffic you need to have for your joining request to be accepted. Of course, the more traffic the higher the chance of getting accepted, but it's generally estimated that around 1000 page views per month will most likely get you accepted
How to start Affiliate Marketing with Amazon?
Amazon launched its own affiliate marketing program called Amazon Associate Program. This program allows you to promote any product listed for sale on amazon and earn, as a commission, a percentage of the cost of every purchase a customer that you have referred to amazon makes.
You can join their affiliate program by going to the Amazon Associate Program page and signup. A request to join the affiliate program will be sent to Amazon on signup. Amazon Associate team will review your request after you bring in 3 sales in the next 180 days.
What are the commissions of the Amazon Associate Program?
| Product Category | Commission Rate |
|---|---|
| Amazon Games | 20.00% |
| Luxury Beauty, Luxury Stores Beauty, Amazon Explore | 10.00% |
| Digital Music, Physical Music, Handmade, Digital Videos | 5.00% |
| Physical Books, Kitchen, Automotive | 4.50% |
| Amazon Fire Tablet Devices, Amazon Kindle Devices, Amazon Fashion Women's, Men's & Kids Private Label, Luxury Stores Fashion, Apparel, Amazon Cloud Cam Devices, Fire TV Edition Smart TVs, Amazon Fire TV Devices, Amazon Echo Devices, Ring Devices, Watches, Jewelry, Luggage, Shoes, and Handbags & Accessories | 4.00% |
| Toys, Furniture, Home, Home Improvement, Lawn & Garden, Pets Products, Headphones, Beauty, Musical Instruments, Business & Industrial Supplies, Outdoors, Tools, Sports, Baby Products, Amazon Coins | 3.00% |
| PC, PC Components, DVD & Blu-Ray | 2.50% |
| Televisions, Digital Video Games | 2.00% |
| Amazon Fresh, Physical Video Games & Video Game Consoles, Grocery, Health & Personal Care | 1.00% |
| Gift Cards; Wireless Service Plans; Alcoholic Beverages; Digital Kindle Products purchased as a subscription; Food prepared and delivered from a restaurant; Amazon Appstore, Prime Now, or Amazon Pay Places | 0.00% |
| All Other Categories | 4.00% |
There is another factor in determining the commission rate that Amazon introduced for their associate program in early 2021. The new factor states that you will earn a higher commission rate if the customers you send to Amazon buy products that resonate with the content that you have delivered where the user clicked on the affiliate link, and the affiliate will earn lower commission rates for the products that the customers buy that aren't related to the content that you have sent them to Amazon from.
Pros of Affiliate Marketing with Amazon.
The store offers a great variety of products for sale, which gives you an almost 100% chance of finding a product that fits your content niche that you can be passionate about, promote, and make money no matter how narrow is your niche.
You don't have to worry about product sourcing, inventory, product delivery, or refunds. You can focus on doing what you do best which is marketing while Amazon takes care of the rest leaving you with a risk-free business model.
Cons of Affiliate Marketing with Amazon.
Just like any other program, as affiliate marketing with Amazon has its pros, it has some cons too.
1. Low commission rates.
Why does Amazon Associate Program have low commission rates?
I find that these commission rates are perfectly reasonable because of the amount of quality control that Amazon does on its products which ensures that the refund rate is as low as possible. Refunds can be a big hurdle for online stores that don't implement good quality control and promoting products from these stores as an affiliate can do you more harm than good.
Promoting a product from a sketching website that promises you 80% commissions can be very tempting, but be aware that if the product quality is bad, there will be a very high refund rate and you will lose your commission along with the trust of your followers that you have referred to these products, so you may end up earning more with Amazon's relatively low commissions that those flashy high commissions for selling sketchy products.
2. Short cookie length.
With only 24 hours in cookie length, the Amazon Associate program has one of the shortest cookie lengths in affiliate marketing. This means that you only earn a commission if the purchase was made in the next 24 hours after the customer clicked on your affiliate link while the average cookie length of affiliate programs is around 30 days.
Conclusion.
I hope that you have enjoyed my article on The Amazon Associate Program, which is one of my favorite affiliate marketing programs out there considering the credibility of the business that you are promoting and the very high percentage of customer satisfaction resulting in a very low refund rate compared to other online stores. This means that you can refer your followers to buy an Amazon product without the worry that they will have a bad experience or even be scammed, which could have led them to lose trust in you and your brand.
Relevant: Read How to Grow your Email List with a Lead Magnet.
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