After you’ve poured hours into crafting a thoughtful, niche website, how can you profit from it?
One method is affiliate marketing, where you post product or service links throughout your website and promote them to your audience. For each sale completed through your affiliate link, you’ll earn a percentage commission.
Percentages vary depending on the types of products you promote. But if you advertise Amazon marketplace items through Amazon Associates, you can earn up to 20 percent commission for up to $121,000 a year1.
We’ve put together a four-step process to maximize your earning potential as an Amazon affiliate and cash in on your website content.
How to Know You’re Ready to Be an Amazon Affiliate
Before you sign up to become an Amazon affiliate, check that your website meets the program’s guidelines. Ensure that you:
- Post regularly (preferably a few times a week) and publicly, with most content aimed at a specific audience. Websites that jump around between markets (from hunting to health and beauty, for example) won’t generate as many clicks as a trusted content creator in one niche.
- Don’t post unsuitable content as described in Amazon’s Participation Requirements.
Once you’ve shown that your website is active and authentic with lots of content, head to the affiliate program’s sign-up page.
1. How to Sign Up For Amazon’s Affiliate Program
When you access the Amazon Associates homepage, it will ask you to log in or sign-up for an Amazon account. You can either use your existing account or create a new one for your business. If you start a new account, remember to use a new phone number.
Then, Amazon will redirect you to the application page and fill in your personal information directly from your account (name, address, phone number, etc.).
Here’s what you’ll need to do, specifically:
- Add your website. Once you confirm your personal information, Amazon will ask for the link to your website or mobile app. You can add up to 50 websites. However, you’ll have to discuss each website’s purpose or goal when you set up your profile.
- Create your ID. On the profile page, fill in your preferred Associates Store ID (usually with your website or business’s name). Your ID acts as your account number, and Amazon will use it to track your website visitors’ actions if they click on an affiliate link.
- Describe your content. The following section asks what your website content focuses on. Provide a short description of your website’s purpose, whether it’s sharing healthy recipes, reviewing recent films, or sharing updates about the tech industry.
- Choose your products. Below that box, you’ll also have to check off the types of Amazon products you wish to promote. Explore categories such as Sports & Outdoors, Home & Garden, Health & Beauty, Movies, Music & Games, and so on.
- Select your traffic source. The final profile section asks how you drive traffic to your website. Choose from options like paid search, email, social media, etc.
- Miscellaneous information. Next, answer the final list of questions asking how many visitors you receive per month, your ways of generating income, and your reasons for joining Amazon’s affiliate program.
- Confirm your payment and tax information on the final page. Now you’re ready to start building affiliate links.
2. How to Build and Use Amazon Affiliate Links
Amazon wants to know that your website will attract customers and lead to as many purchases as possible, so they’ll assess your content to see if it’s engaging, insightful, and original. To test your sales skills, Amazon gives you six months to make three separate sales before approval.
Approved applicants can continue building links and earning commissions from completed purchases. If Amazon doesn’t approve your website, don’t worry. You can sign up again after adjusting your content and proving that you’re a value-adding partner.
Once you’re approved, it’s time to increase the number of affiliate links on your website and earn some commission.
Build Amazon Affiliate Links via Desktop With SiteStripe
SiteStripe allows you to build links directly from the product page. It saves you time and energy by providing shortcuts to three different link types (a text link, an image link, or a text + image link). Rather than hunt down products through the Associates’ central homepage, you can immediately find the product you want to promote, link from that site, and paste it into your website copy.
Not sure whether to use a text, image, or text + image link? Here are some common uses:
- Text links work well if you want to seamlessly integrate your product promotion into corresponding text. For example, you can include a text link to a pair of gardening gloves as you explain how to weed your garden in a blog post.
- Images are good for visually appealing products. Say you write about the best flower-patterned smartphone cases. Using image links helps capture customers’ eyes and showcases exactly what you’re writing about.
- Text + images help to break up pieces of content while providing bare-bones information to customers. The info includes the product name, image, and current price on Amazon. It also features Amazon’s logo and a “Buy” button to encourage clicks.
To find SiteStripe, ensure you’re logged into the Amazon account connected to the affiliate program. Then, look for the SiteStripe toolbar at the top of the page.
Creating Links on Your Phone? Build Affiliate Links With Mobile GetLink
SiteStripe is only available on Amazon’s desktop page. So, if you want to create affiliate links from your phone or tablet, you must use the Mobile GetLink feature.
Log in to your account on the Amazon Shopping app. Once there, find the product page you want to promote, click the “Share” button, and then select “Copy Associates Link.” Like SiteStripe’s text link, you can paste this short URL into your copy.
Promote Fresh Products With the Idea Hub
The Idea Hub is an all-in-one center to inspire affiliates with recent additions to the marketplace, seasonal promotions, and new content ideas to explore. You can use the Idea Hub to expand your website’s content and offer fresh, relevant products to entice your audience.
Say you run a camping blog. Your initial focus might be to promote standard camping gear like tents, lanterns, coolers, etc. To expand your audience while retaining your initial customers, use the Idea Hub to find items in a related market, like the best hiking shoes, sticks, backpacks, and so on. Then, create new content on your website to connect the two markets.
Access the Idea Hub by logging in to your Associates’ account and going to the Associates’ central homepage. Select “Promotions” from the banner at the top of the page and click “Idea Hub” from the drop-down menu. From there, filter and sort through different products or browse the page at leisure. You’ll see a list of product names, the product image, and a bright yellow button that says “Get Link.” Copy the affiliate link and add it to your content to generate clicks.
3. How to Create High-Converting Affiliate Content
As an affiliate, you earn commissions when people follow through on purchases, not when they click on your links. Your percentage will vary depending on the product category, which you can see in the fixed commission rates chart below.
Amazon Associates’ fixed commission rates for different product categories, via Shopify2.
When choosing a category, don’t just look at the highest percentages. Consider whether you’re qualified to create content about that topic on your website. Affiliates might earn a 20 percent commission for advertising Amazon Games, but it’s harder to persuade your audience to purchase those games if you run a beauty blog.
The more passionate and knowledgeable you are about your chosen product category, the more likely you are to encourage sales. Focus on the type and quality of content you produce to convert more people into paying customers and earn a larger profit over time.
Below, we’ve listed examples of high-converting content that’ll help you persuade website visitors to buy.
Provide Answers to Common Customer Questions
Customers go to the internet for answers. If your recommended product provides the answer, then you’ve made an easy sale once you explain what it does.
For example, if someone’s searching how to jump-start a car, write content that answers that question and link to product pages on Amazon for jumper cables and power banks. The more immediate their need for the answer (and its corresponding products), the more likely they are to convert to paying customers.
Review and Recommend Products
Potential buyers are more likely to trust an authentic, honest review from another shopper than a cold corporate ad when considering a product. By creating reviews for Amazon products, you can show others how useful or entertaining they were to you. Book bloggers, for instance, can review a book and then link to its product page on Amazon.
Comparing different products can also generate clicks on your affiliate links. Pit two similar products from different brands against each other and include links to both. The comparison should showcase the pros and cons of each model so viewers can make educated decisions without feeling coerced into buying.
Convince People to Buy Before It’s Too Late
Once a website visitor clicks on your affiliate link, you only have 24 hours to gain commission from their purchases4. If they leave the website and re-enter it through another affiliate’s link, you’ve lost your chance.
Ensure that doesn’t happen by creating thoughtful, original content that nudges them to buy quickly. Try to relate to your audience on their level so that they’ll trust your recommendations and product referrals.
Encourage Customers to Move Items from the Cart to the Checkout
Any items added to the cart through your affiliate link will count towards revenue for you, even if the items don’t belong to your primary product category. But to earn commissions from those purchases, customers must checkout before the products expire from the cart in 90 days3.
Revamp and repost previous blogs or other content to remind your audience about those abandoned carts. Ninety days gives you plenty of time to put a new, original spin on those products to push people to purchase.
4. How to Profit From Multiple Affiliate Content Platforms
If you profit well off one site, you can and should explore other platforms to increase your revenue. Remember, Amazon’s affiliate program allows you to add up to 50 websites or mobile apps to your profile.
Perhaps you run a hair styling blog and a makeup tutorial YouTube channel. You can link relevant products to both platforms to reach bigger audiences across multiple markets. Just make sure you curate content carefully for all websites or apps you run. Your goal is still to convert people into paying customers, so post product comparisons, testimonials, and industry tips across all of your platforms.
If you want to focus on social media affiliate programs specifically, Amazon’s Influencer Program is a subset of Amazon Associates. The tools in the Influencer Program differ slightly from the standard Associates program.
With the Influencer Program, you can post shoppable photos that link to product pages with the press of a finger. Also, you can try live-streaming product reviews for thousands of followers to tune in to. And run your own Amazon storefront where followers can browse the very products you’re promoting.
Where to Sell Your Affiliate Website
You’ve learned how to earn revenue as an Amazon affiliate by adjusting your website’s content and spreading your influence across multiple platforms. If you want to take your success a step further and consider selling your brand, try using a founder-friendly platform like Acquire.
With Acquire, you can sell your startup at any point, so long as you’ve built a revenue stream. Interact with global, verified buyers and receive in-house assistance with legal, due diligence, M&A, and more. Explore our seller page to find out how you can list your monetized website and quickly strike a deal.
Sources:
1 Amazon Affiliate Salary ($58,620) ZipRecruiter
2 Amazon Affiliate Program: How To Join and Earn More (2022) (shopify.com)
3 Amazon.com Associates Central
The content on this site is not intended to provide legal, financial or M&A advice. It is for information purposes only, and any links provided are for your convenience. Please seek the services of an M&A professional before entering into any M&A transaction. It is not Acquire’s intention to solicit or interfere with any established relationship you may have with any M&A professional.
