In this age of the “side hustle,” everyone’s looking at ways to make extra income. Signing up for Amazon Affiliate Marketing is one of the easiest and most time-effective ways to do that.
Read on to learn more about the “whys” and, more importantly, the “hows” of making money online through Amazon Affiliate Marketing.
The process for signing up as an Amazon Affiliate is actually reasonably straightforward. There are a few simple steps to take to sign up, and then it will be up to you to find creative ways to drive traffic from your site.
How to Sign Up
- To become an Affiliate, you must have an active website, blog, or youtube channel. This will be the first step if you don’t already have one.
- You will need to create an Amazon account at: https://www.amazon.com
- Sign up via the Amazon Associates homepage at: https://affiliate-program.amazon.com
- Create links to drive traffic to your site.
Now, let’s get into the nitty-gritty details of the signup process and how to maximize income from your affiliate account.
Why Choose Amazon Affiliate Marketing?
The answer is simple. amazon is one of the most recognizable names in the world. And there is a way to earn commissions (that’s actual dollars!) when people purchase items from them via your affiliate link.
The money that you earn will be in the form of a percentage of sales that is determined by the product’s department, as well as your total sales record.
Joining the Amazon affiliate marketing program costs you nothing – the membership and the application are both free.
Additionally, it allows you to provide valuable content to your audience in the form of product recommendations and reviews that are related to their interests. It’s a win-win!
As a new affiliate, you can expect to earn around 4% in commission on purchases that are made through your links… Items from specific departments carry a higher commission, which tops out at 10% for purchases from Luxury Beauty, as well as Amazon coins.
The second highest commission is for items from their Furniture, Home, Lawn and Garden, Home Improvement, Pet Supplies, and Pantry departments.
While these numbers and departments are subject to change, the point stands that it is essential to understand that the system will favor individual sales from specific departments with a higher commission.
You will need Amazon’s current affiliate commission chart to get the exact percentages on departments and use that information to help you make marketing choices.
You can receive “bumps” to earn a higher percentage according to the number of items that are sold and shipped via your affiliate links, which can really add up.
There are also periodic “bounty events” during which Amazon offers specific dollar-amount bonuses when your audience members purchase particular memberships, offers or products. For example, a current bounty event offers a $2.50 bonus for every Prime membership signup.
Hopefully, you are beginning to see how reviewing or advertising Amazon’s products works. Referring your audience to purchase through them can generate a passive income that will continue long after you have put in the effort to set up your affiliate links.
The Signup Process In-Depth
As we mentioned earlier, all you need to get started in the signup process is an Amazon account. Once you have this, you can enter the Amazon Affiliate homepage where you will be asked for the following information:
- Your Amazon Account Information: If you have an organization or partnership, you will need to choose a primary contact. The personal Amazon account for that person will be linked to the affiliate account.
- Note that this person will also serve as the payee and must be 18 years of age or older.
- Your website or app information: You will enter the web addresses that will be linked to the affiliate account. For mobile apps, simply enter the URL
.
Choo se a preferred store ID and set your categories. You will choose a preferred store ID name to use for your affiliate account. You’ll also select the topics that best describe your website’s interests/purpose.
- Traffic and Monetization: This page will ask you several questions about your website or app to get a better idea of how you drive traffic to your site.
- You will need to have information such as the total monthly number of visitors on hand for this section. You will also indicate how you use advertising or links on your site.
- Verify your account: Amazon will ask for a cell phone number to call with an account verification code. You will receive the call immediately and be given a code to enter.
- Be sure to take care of this quickly, as your code will expire within a short time period.
- Payment Details (the good stuff!): You’ll be asked to enter your tax information (business EIB or social security number).
- You also have the option of skipping this step until later. However, you will need to complete the tax information after approval, as you will not receive any payments until you do so.
- Amazon will send you year-end tax statements for any earnings.
If any of this sounds a little overwhelming, don’t panic! Amazon has created a very straightforward process that will prompt you as you complete each step.
Before you set up your affiliate account, there are a few tips and tidbits to consider:
First of all, as we mentioned above, to create an Amazon Affiliate account, you must have a valid and active website to link from.
Amazon has a verification and approval process. They will confirm your website contains actual content, is maintained and active, and does not violate their content policy.
There is always a small chance that Amazon will turn down your application based on low user views. However, if this happens, you can simply re-apply later.
The “About Your Website” section of the application (see Step 4, Traffic and Monetization, above) is the most crucial part, and you should take your time to consider the questions carefully.
Amazon wants to know how you fit into its framework and how you plan to send traffic – and purchases to its website.
When filling out the website information, consider what categories of products your audience will be interested in.
There is a fill-in-the-blank “About Your Website” form in which you will explain the content and purpose of your site. There’s also a dropdown menu for you to choose departments and categories of items fit that content.
These two questions should match up well. For example, if you indicate that you are a beauty site. It would make sense for you to choose product categories related to beauty, such as fashion, cosmetics, luxury beauty goods, skincare, etcetera.
As part of the signup process, you will need to have general information about your website on hand, channel, or app, such as the unique number of monthly visitors.
Also, keep in mind that the Amazon Affiliate program does have content restrictions. They will not approve your account if your site contains material that violates its content policy.
This is including violent or pornographic material and discriminatory content or anything that would violate intellectual policy laws. When you sign up, you will be asked to read and agree to the complete content and user agreement.
Because the Amazon Affiliate application process is not automatic, you will not be approved instantly. provided that you have accurately filled out your application.
owever, and your website meets content guidelines, you can expect to be approved within a day or two. You will receive an email notification with more information about completing your profile and getting started.
And one more word of advice from the experts. While it does sound very tempting, do not attempt to purchase products on Amazon through your own affiliate links. The Affiliate user agreement strictly forbids this practice, and your account will be closed if you are discovered.
That’s it! You are signed up now and, once you are approved, you can go to your homepage and begin to create your affiliate links. This is where the fun stuff really begins!
Driving Traffic to Maximize Income
Before we sign off, just a few quick words about driving traffic to your Amazon affiliate links:
Whenever you are designing ways to market on your website, it is paramount not to get lost in details. Nor distracted from the primary purpose of your website, blog, or channel.
After all, the number one goal for any website should be to create helpful or entertaining content about a given topic. Even if that topic is reviewing products, it still needs to be presented in a way that makes people want to spend time on your site.
The number one tip for increasing your Amazon Affiliate Marketing income is; to create engaging content that relates to the links that you are using to drive traffic.
Beyond that, however, there are numerous educational resources to help you get started and maximize your earning potential with the Amazon Affiliate Marketing program.
Following the steps above, and with the list of tips and tricks in mind, you can be signed up and on your way to generating passive income within a matter of just a few days.
While there is no such thing as a get-rich-quick-scheme. Amazon Affiliate Marketing allows you to set your existing site up to generate income for you with just a small front-end time investment.
It doesn’t get much better than that! Happy selling!
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