Amazon Affiliate Program Review

Amazon Affiliate Program Review

The Amazon Affiliate Program caters to various groups of people. Whether you are an aspiring entrepreneur, someone who wants to have their own business or even just someone who wants to add a bit more bucks to their current income, the Amazon Affiliate Program is one of the most popular income generating ventures you can try.

What Is the Amazon Affiliate Program?

The Amazon Affiliates Program, also dubbed as Amazon Associates is an affiliate marketing program. This program is free for bloggers and website owners. By generating links, they advertise Amazon.com products on their sites. When a customer visits the link, and purchase products from Amazon.com, referral fees are earned.

How Does It Work?

It starts off by creating a website or blog. It must either be an active website, an active blog, an app or even a YouTube channel. It would be beneficial if the site had already been pre-populated with some content. This will give it an authentic look both for the audience and for Amazon. Also, Amazon might not accept the site that has none or too little content.

Part of the application process involves describing the purpose of the website. Hence, a website description, the target audience and an explanation as to how traffic will be brought in must be established.

Next, visit the Amazon Associates homepage and create an account. By clicking the “Join Now for Free” button you will be prompted either to log in to an existing account or to create a new one.

Then, build an Amazon Associates profile. After signing in to your account, click the “New Customer” button and start building your Associate account. Enter your account information, which includes your name, address and phone number. Next, enter your website’s URL, your app or your YouTube channel where you would want to advertise Amazon products.

Then enter your chosen store ID. This is usually similar to your primary website name. After which, explain the prospective accomplishments of your website then choose Amazon topics that your links will target on.

Explain the plans of how you would be able to drive traffic to your website. Explain how you would use your website or apps to produce income, how you typically build links and the amount of visitors the website brings for every month.

After doing that, you can then input your phone number and click “The Call Me Now” button, then wait for Amazon to make a call. You will be asked to input a four-digit code and after that your account will be approved.

Then, after account approval, choose your payment method. You could either enter your credit card number and tax ID information now or later. You will then be directed to your dashboard.

Now you can start to create your affiliate links. How do you that?

First, select “Quick Links: Search for Product” or “Browse for Product”. By choosing “Quick Links: Search for Product” you could choose a specific product keyword. On the other hand, if you choose “Browse for Product” you can start searching for products through categories such as “Health and Beauty”, “Books” or “Videos”. When you find the product of your choice, click the “Get Link” button.

Second, customize your link by selecting ad with a text and an image, a text only, an image only or a widget.

Third, customize the background color, title color and the image size depending on the link type. Then, before adding the link to your site, preview it.

Fourth, copy the link and place it on your website, blog or YouTube channel. Now, you are good to go, just wait to purchase and respond promptly to make the sale.

Popularity of the Amazon Affiliate Program

The Amazon Affiliate Program is widely known in the world of affiliate marketing, many even claim that it is their first choice in the field. What makes it so popular?

Easy and free entry, that’s why many opt for the Amazon Affiliate Program. One of the hardest obstacles to hurdle for new affiliate marketers in the field is getting the approval for some affiliate networks. This is mainly because, startups have just made their website and not much traffic has been driven in yet.

With Amazon Affiliate Program, you still get the approval to join even with minimal traffic. By being in line with the Amazon terms and services you will have no problem getting in.

You’ll be approved initially for six months, and you must refer at least one sale during this period. If you don’t your account will be closed, and you’ll need to re-apply.

Who Can Join?

Amazon has several sites in a few countries around the world. Since it operates on a global scale, anyone can join just about anywhere. As long as Amazon is available in the country one is in and has come in line with their terms and services, it is good to go.

How Much Can You Earn?

Much depends on the product’s category. The commission percentage is not the same for different product categories. For example, for video games or consoles category, the commission rate is just around 1%. On the other hand, if you choose digital video games, luxury beauty, you can earn as much as 10%.

Amazon, is known to change the commission percentage whenever they want to. This is the problem with the Amazon Affiliate Program, your income might suddenly go down, because they lowered the commissions.

Another thing to consider is the availability of the products you are recommending. When making reviews on your website, it is necessary to consider product availability since it could affect your earnings basing on the products you are recommending.

For instance, if you recommend a product that could easily be purchased at dollar stores, big stores and gas stations you would likely to get minimal to no sales. Since there is no significant difference in the price, website visitors would likely choose to pick up that product at a local store.

However, if you create a review and recommend a rare product, one that is not easily found in local stores, your visitors would be more likely to be interested in the product and be more willing to purchase online.

Being able to discern what niches and products to promote, and writing reviews about these are essential factors to consider that would make a huge impact on your overall earning potential. The good thing is, that there is no ceiling on how much you could earn in this business model. Many Amazon affiliates have been able to earn as much as 6 or 7 figures per year.

Pros and Cons

Before driving in to make that account and start the business, it is also noteworthy to check for the pros and cons in order to be able to weigh matters out more reasonably.

The Pros:

• Easy to sign up – Amazon would not require you to have an established, high-traffic website, app or YouTube channel. You can quickly make an account and after approval start your business.
• Credible platform – Amazon affiliate program has been for a long time. Amazon’s credibility has been proven and tested throughout the years of its existence.
• Wide variety of niches to choose from – Amazon offers a wide range of niches and products. Any niche you choose, there is an Amazon product you could offer to your audience.
• Sell branded products – earnings are not just limited to basic products offered by Amazon. You can also generate income by signing people up for services like Kindle Unlimited, Twitch Prime and Amazon Prime.

The Cons:

• Low commission structure – almost all Amazon product categories pay 5% or less. However, you could still offset lower percentages since Amazon would render compensation for all products purchased and many will end up purchasing other products as they look around.
• 24 hour cookie – creating content is hard work, added to that is generating traffic and guiding your website audience to Amazon. By the time someone opens the link you provided in your website, you only get a 24-hour window to earn a commission for the products purchased. Because of this, revenue opportunities are greatly reduced, especially if you are promoting and making content for high-ticket products that the audience don’t usually purchase on their first visit.
• Unstable income – Google algorithm changes and potential Amazon commission cuts could happen anytime. There is uncertainty if Amazon pulls the plug anytime or excludes product category or worse, reduce the already low commission rates.

Conclusion

Clicke Here to Learn Affiliate Marketing

By putting up a website or channel and going in line with product terms, you could easily join the Amazon Affiliate Program and benefit from the wide range of products they offer. Added to that is the credibility of the website itself with its years of existence.

However, also worthy to note is the low commission structure. Through hard work and good strategy, that could be offset. Added to that is the 24-hour cookie, which you always have to be alert for if you want to close the commission earnings and the possibility of further commission rate reduction.

Overall though, the Amazon Affiliate Program is a good way to monetize your website reviews and blogs. Simply sign up and you’ll most likely receive an immediate approval if you have enough content on your website.

When someone makes a purchase, you earn for yourself. It will require effort, however, once you get the hang out if and also be able to flex for commission adjustments, it could work very well for you. There’s no harm in giving it a try.

You don’t have to, and should not limit yourself to Amazon only. Amazon could be and should just one of your income streams.

The main problem for the new affiliate marketers is to get enough targeted traffic to make money.

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