Let’s face it; Google Adsense isn’t a great option to monetize your website. Instead, affiliate marketing is becoming the go-to method for bloggers and website owners to make extra money.
Within affiliate marketing, Amazon Associates Affiliate Program is the best option for you. Most online shoppers prefer Amazon because of its credibility and the number of people shopping on Amazon.
In this article, you will discover the Amazon associate program, its rules, and how to set up an account step by step.
What is Amazon Associate Program?
Amazon Associates Affiliate Program is an affiliate marketing program that allows bloggers and website owners to create affiliate links for all products on Amazon.
Whenever a reader or visitor clicks the affiliate link and buys the product, the creator of the link gets up to 10% of the commission. The buyer doesn’t get any specific benefits, but these affiliate links are highly beneficial for the link creator and merchant.
For instance, Amazon rewards its affiliates with a percentage of the sale. Whereas the merchant gets cheap, performance-based sales outreach digitally. Some other highly desired benefits of this program are:
- It’s one of the best ways to monetize a website
- The program is reliable and reputed because Amazon (the biggest e-commerce brand) offers it
- Diverse compensation methods where you can get the payment via a cheque, gift card, or direct deposit
- Widest range of products to choose from with almost everything available
- Extremely easy to generate affiliate links and analyze each link’s performance
The extreme popularity of Amazon Affiliate Marketing has completely outpaced Google Adsense and proves to be the better solution to make money off of a blog or website. There are no forced ads on the page, and the reader is informed about the affiliate links to maintain transparency.
When it comes to setting up Amazon associates for your website, it’s easy. But, before we look at the signup guide, you need to be aware of this program’s rules.
Amazon Associate Program Rules to Keep In Mind
The exact rules and terms of the agreement while becoming an Amazon affiliate are always shown by Amazon before you sign up.
Or you can visit Amazon’s agreement page and look at them.
Regardless, here’s a tl;dr of the rules to remember before signing up to become an Amazon affiliate.
#1. Don’t Take Transparency Lightly
Amazon takes transparency very seriously. What it means is that you need to let your visitors know that the links you have posted are affiliate links.
You must also convey that completing the purchase from your link will give you a small percentage of the sales.
This way, your reader knows that they are supporting you by doing their online shopping from your referral/affiliate links.
Having a disclaimer page on your website is always a good idea. Like Homegrounds – a coffee-selling amazon affiliate site does.
#2. Stay Away from Technical Manipulations
What do we mean by technical manipulations? It means tinkering with technical things like cookies, links, or hidden texts to mask the requirements.
First, you can’t use hidden text to tell your visitors that you’re an affiliate, and it shows that your message is only written to fool the AI instead of being written for the readers.
Lastly, the Amazon cookie should also not be messed with or manipulated to extend the duration.
Note: Amazon cookie is a small file that contains data about the original owner of the affiliate link, which is used to register the purchase under your affiliation. The cookie lasts for 24 hours and can be replaced if the reader/user clicks on someone else’s affiliate link.
#3. You have a Time Limit for Your First Sale
The Amazon Associates Affiliate Program allows you a period of 6 months to get your first sale. If you fail to get at least one sale within that timeframe, you will be removed from the program, and you’ll have to sign up again.
#4. You Can Only Promote Products Within Appropriate Guidelines
As an affiliate, you can not promote obscene, violent, sexually explicit, discriminatory products or include any fake material. Additionally, don’t promote products that have an age limit for underage readers.
#5. There are Different Commission Percentages for Different Categories
It’s worth noting that not all product categories offer the same commission on a successful purchase. The percentage varies from 0-10% for a list of categories that changes from time to time.
Here’s the list of categories and their respective commission rates:
There is also a list of the type of products sold by Amazon which are not eligible for the affiliate program. Here’s a list of those products:
- Flight Bookings, Gift Cards, Bill Payments & Recharges
- Video Gaming Consoles & Hardware
- Prime Membership
- Amazon Fresh orders
- Amazon Pay Balance
- Apple: All iPhones
- Redmi: Redmi 9A Sport, Redmi Note 10 Pro
- OnePlus: OnePlus 9RT, OnePlus 9, OnePlus Nord 2 5G
- Realme: realme narzo 50A, realme narzo 50i
- iQOO: iQOO 7 5G
- Samsung: Samsung M32, Samsung M12
The list of these non-eligible products and commission rates varies for different countries or regions.
#6. Payment Methods & Cycles
Currently, Amazon has three payment methods:
- Get direct deposits to your bank account
- Receive a cheque at your address
- Get an Amazon gift card
Note: You need a minimum of $10 earnings to claim the payment.
The payment cycle defined by Amazon is monthly, and your due payment is processed after 60 days.
For example, whatever your earnings for January are, you will get paid for it in March, i.e., after two months. The cycle remains the same for each month.
Now that you understand Amazon Associates Affiliate Program, let’s get to the actual procedure to sign up for the program.
How to Sign Up for the Amazon Associate Program: A Step by Step Guide
Signing up for the Amazon Associates Affiliate Program is a straightforward process to complete. To begin the registration, head to http://affiliate-program.amazon.com/ and click on Sign up.
Step 1: Login and Add Account Information
Login from your Amazon account if you haven’t already, and select the personal information associated with your account. You can also add another address if you wish to do so.
Once done, mention the person who will be the main contact for the account you create, and click on Next.
Step 2: Add Website/Mobile App Information
In this step, you need to provide the details about your preferred platform to post affiliate links. Choose any/all websites and mobile apps where you want to display the links and review them.
You must also clarify if any of these platforms directly targets viewers under the age of 13. Choose either Yes or No and click on Confirm.
Step 3: Create Your Amazon Associates Account
In this step, you must create your Amazon Associates account by selecting an account ID.
You will also have to add all relevant information about your platforms, like an overview of your website/app, topics covered on the website, what kind of products you want to promote, etc.
Apart from this, you will also have to mention your current monetary status of the website and details about the monthly traffic. You need to cite the sources you get your traffic from, a range of monthly visitors, and how you’ll build your links.
Here, you also need to state your current monetization status of the website. Suppose it’s monetized; which method you are using. Lastly, you need to state your reason for joining the program and where you heard about it.
Once you fill in all the relevant details, read the terms and conditions, and proceed if you agree to them by clicking on Finish.
Congratulations, you have successfully registered for the Amazon Associates Affiliate Program.
Now, you can add your payment details and tax information and move on to creating affiliate links.
How to Generate Amazon Affiliate Links
There are two methods of generating Amazon affiliate links – from the Amazon Associates dashboard or using SiteStripe. Let’s check out the procedures for both.
#1. Generating Affiliate Links From Amazon Associates Dashboard
On your Amazon Associates dashboard, there is a section called Product Linking where you can access the Product Links option. Clicking on that will take you to the product search section.
In the product search section, you can look for specific products for which you want to create an affiliate link. All you need to do is add the keyword and click on Go.
A list of matching products will appear, and you can choose any of them by clicking on Get Link.
This will take you to the link generation section, where you can specifically create an affiliate link code for just the product text, image, or image text.
Here, all you need to do is select which type of link you want and copy the code for it, which can be entered on your website.
That’s all there is to add an affiliate link for an Amazon product on your website. Want to know how this can be easier?
#2. Generating Affiliate Links Using SiteStripe
SiteStripe is a straightforward and simplified method of creating Amazon affiliate links. You can access SiteStripe directly from the Amazon Associates dashboard under the Tools section.
On the SiteStripe section, you can enable it to appear on the Amazon website, just above the website header. It will look something like this:
Here you can get the affiliate link for the product you click on. You can also share the product on social media and access SiteStripe settings and earnings from the toolbar.
There it is, the simplest way to run affiliate marketing on your website.
Wrapping Up
Amazon Associates Affiliate Program is massively popular as one of the easiest ways to monetize your website.
To make the best of it, you need to implement a set of highly effective strategies and tactics to get the most amount of affiliate sales.
Regardless of how you go about it, Amazon affiliate marketing is not something you should miss out on.
