Make Money Online with the Amazon Affiliate Program

by Travis F.posted on 19.12.2023

The internet is filled with stories of people making money from Amazon businesses. However, not everyone has the time and resources to create or import their own product to sell on the platform. Luckily, there’s an easy way for virtually anyone to start an Amazon business.

The Amazon Affiliate Program actually lets you make money off of other people’s products. By simply linking to Amazon on your website or social media page you can actually start earning commissions from Amazon sales. When someone clicks on your link and makes a purchase, you can earn anywhere from 1% to 10% of the sale.

Of course, there’s more to making money as an Amazon Affiliate than just placing a link. That’s why we created this comprehensive guide. We’ll teach you everything you need to know about this exciting business opportunity, including:

How the Amazon Affiliate Program works
How to choose the right niche and products
How to make money as an Amazon Affiliate
How much money you can make as an Amazon Affiliate
And more

If you’ve been wondering about starting an Amazon Affiliate business, you’ve come to the right place. Keep reading to learn how to get started.

How Does the Amazon Affiliate Program Work?

So, you’re probably wondering how you can earn money from Amazon links. Here’s how the program works.

When you join you’ll be able to use their link generator to create special affiliate links that are associated with your account. You can use these links to send people to Amazon’s website and if someone who followed your link makes a purchase you’ll receive a percentage of the sale. How long do Amazon affiliate cookies last? 24 hours, so if someone buys anything on Amazon within a day of using your link you’ll get paid.

You’re essentially providing advertising for Amazon and their products, and for doing that the company pays you a small commission.

How to get started with Amazon Affiliate program to make money

The idea is known as affiliate marketing, and while there are other affiliate programs out there Amazon’s is by far the most profitable.

How to Become an Amazon Affiliate

Becoming an Amazon Affiliate is actually pretty easy. You’ll need to login to your Amazon account, or if you don’t already have an account you’ll be prompted to create one before signing up.

The process is fairly simple. You’ll be required to:

Provide your name and address
Provide links to the websites and mobile apps you plan to place your affiliate links on
Create your profile
Verify your ID
Choose your payment method

You won’t have to wait for your account to be approved, you’ll be able to start creating affiliate links as soon as you finish the process. Just note that your account will initially only be approved for 180 days. If you don’t make a sale during that time your account will be closed.

Rules and Regulations

If you’re going to be an Amazon Affiliate there are a few rules you’ll need to follow. You can find a complete list of all of the program’s policies on the Amazon website.

Here’s a quick rundown of some of the most important rules:

You can’t use your affiliate links for your own purchases on Amazon
You can’t use affiliate links in emails, e-books, or PDFs
You can’t have more than one account
You can’t offer people an incentive to click on your affiliate links
You can’t use affiliate links on sites that have violent or sexually explicit content
You can’t promote your affiliate links by using paid search ads

Make sure to be aware of all of the rules and requirements that go along with being an Amazon Affiliate. If you violate any of their policies you risk having your account closed and being banned from the program.

How to Choose the Right Niche and Product Category

As we mentioned before, it’s not enough to simply place some affiliate links on your website or social media account. There’s a lot of research you need to do to ensure you’re promoting the right products.

There are two keys to finding the right products to promote on your channels:

Find a niche that people are interested in and that isn’t overly competitive: You may already have a website with a lot of traffic, or a large social media following. If so, you can simply start promoting products that are related to the type of content you produce. However, if you don’t currently have any channels to promote products on, the first step is finding a niche that has a lot of interest. You’ll also want to choose a niche that doesn’t have a lot of competition.
Find products that are profitable: Commissions vary between Amazon categories. Also, remember that the more expensive an item is the more commission you’ll receive. So you’ll want to keep these factors in mind when choosing which products you want to promote.

Referral Fees by Category

Referral fees differ between the various Amazon categories. Some categories pay more than others, so try to choose niches and products that have higher referral frees.

Here’s a breakdown of the referral fees for each category on Amazon:

0% for Amazon gift cards
0% for wine
1% for video games and game consoles
2% for televisions and digital download games
2.5% for computers, computer components, DVD and Blu-Ray
3% for toys
4% for Amazon tablets and Kindle devices
4.5% for paper books, healthcare, personal care, sports, kitchen, car, and baby products:
5% for digital music and video downloads; grocery items, handmade items or musical instrument
6% for headphones, beauty products, musical instruments, business, and industrial supplies
7% for clothes and accessories, Amazon TVs, Amazon Echo products and jewelry
8% for furniture, lawn, and garden, home improvement, pantry and pet products
10% for Amazon fashion items and Amazon Coins
4% for all other categories

We recommend choosing a niche that has a number of products that offer higher Amazon Affiliate commission rates in order to maximize your revenue.

How to Find the Right Niche Through Keyword Research

It doesn’t matter what type of business you run. It’s always better to be a specialist rather than a generalist. If you’re planning to create a website, YouTube Channel, or Facebook page to promote Amazon products, it’s best to find a good niche to focus on.

By becoming an expert on a certain topic, people who are interested in that topic will come to you for advice and information. Once you build up your audience you can start promoting products related to your niche on your channels.

So, how do you find a profitable niche? The most convenient way is by using the AMZScout Web App.

Once you’ve signed up and installed the app it’s time to start looking for the perfect niche and keywords.

Use the product database tool within the web app and select the categories you’re interested in. Choose categories that have high referral fee percentages.
Within the product database, you can also use the filters to narrow your search. You can enter things like minimum price, maximum ranking, estimated sales, and more.
When you’re happy with your filters perform your search. You’ll be presented with a number of products that meet your specifications. Review the list and select the products that you’re most interested in.
AMZScout’s Keyword Search and Reverse ASIN Lookup allow you to see Amazon search data by entering a seed keyword or an ASIN number. With these tools, you’ll see how many searches keywords get on Amazon, the search volume history of each term, where products rank for certain keywords, what page products are listed on for certain terms, and how relevant each keyword is to a product.
Finally, use tools such as SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Long Tail Pro to see how many searches your keywords are getting on Google. You’ll also be able to measure the level of competition for these keywords on Google for these terms.

Keyword Research Tips

Consider the following tips when trying to find the keywords you want to target:

Find long tail keywords: The best way to find low competition keywords is to target what are known as “long tail keywords.” These are longer keywords that are made up of multiple words and are more specific. For example, “television” would be extremely hard to rank for. However, something like “best cheap hd televisions” will have much less competition.
Find related keywords: You’ll need more than one keyword in order to build your business. Look for high-potential keywords that also have a number of related keywords that you can build content around.
Consider search volume: Ideally, you’ll be able to find a few keywords with over 1000 searches per month, and then a number of related keywords with over 100 searches per month. This is a sign of a strong niche.
Consider the level of competition: Target keywords with low competition. Tools like SEMrush and Long Tail Pro can help you identify keywords that have weak sites currently ranking for them. This means they will be easier to rank for.
Look for “best” and “review” keywords: Keywords like “best hunting knives” or “headphone reviews” are really great for affiliate marketers. When people search these types of keywords it means they’re close to buying. These keywords are also easy to build content around.
Look for keywords related to expensive products: When looking for a niche, you want to find one with a number of expensive products, ideally over $100. Remember, most sales will only give a 4% commission, so the more expensive the product the more money you’ll make.

Verify Your Niche Idea and Find Products to Link To

Before settling on a niche, you’ll want to verify that’s it’s profitable. To do this, you can use the AMZScout Pro Chrome Extension. Once the extension is installed, go to Amazon and enter your keywords in the search field. Then click on the AMZScout icon in the top right corner of your browser to analyze the niche.

Review all the products within the niche and see how many are actually successful.
Check the niche history to ensure it’s been selling consistently.
Check the product history of any product you’re interested in linking to. You can see historical data of its sales, ranks, and prices.
Review keyword trends to see how many searches they’ve received over the last few years.

This information will help you identify a profitable niche in a few clicks. Historical data of sales, rankings, and prices will be useful in building a successful sales strategy.

Find an Amazon Product That Will Make You $3,000/Mo or More

TRY FOR FREE

How to Make Money as an Amazon Affiliate

In order to make money with the Amazon Associates program, you’ll need a platform where you can grow an audience and attract users. This is where you’ll create content around the keywords you’ve found and place your links in order to direct people to Amazon.

If you’re lucky, you’ll already have a popular website or social media following. But if not, you’ll need to decide which strategy you’d like to utilize.

You have two choices when it comes to creating a platform: You can build a website or utilize existing channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Youtube.

Choose a platform for Amazon Affiliate Marketing

How to Make Money with an Affiliate Website

While building a website may sound daunting, in this day and age it’s actually quite easy. There are a number of ways to quickly and easily build a website for little or no money and without any knowledge of code. These include free WordPress themes or website builders like Squarespace and Wix.

Once you have your website ready, you’ll need to start creating content. Work through your list of keywords and create an article for each keyword you found.

Product reviews are a great way to make money through affiliate links. By educating your readers about the product, you’re also selling it to them and providing them with all the information they need to make an informed decision. That way, when you include your affiliate link in the content they’ll be much more likely to click on it.

Product rankings are another excellent form of content for affiliate sites. For example, you can rank your top 10 favorite products in your niche, detailing what you like about each one. By including affiliate links for each product within the article you should get a lot of people clicking through to Amazon.

You can also set up an Amazon Affiliate store. This is essentially an online store but when people want to actually buy a product you’ll simply use your affiliate links to direct them to Amazon.

Websites are a great choice for people who:

Enjoy creating longer-form content
Prefer writing to making videos
Are knowledgeable about SEO

How to Make Money with Amazon Affiliate Without a Website

Of course, you don’t need a website to be an affiliate marketer. You can post affiliate links on your social media channels and promote products there.

The idea is relatively the same as using a website, but the type of content you’ll be creating will be a little different. Social media posts are generally shorter than blog posts and articles. Many platforms also heavily rely on video.

Like websites though, you’ll want to create content around your keywords, and posting product reviews or rankings are effective strategies. Once you build up a large social media following, people will start to trust your opinion. If you create content around how to use products and tell people why you like them, there’s a good chance a large portion of your audience will click the affiliate links within your content.

Using established channels provides an added benefit in that they have a lot of credibility with Google. So, if you can create great content you may get it ranked on Google quicker than if you were using your own website.

Social media is a great choice for people who:

Prefer creating shorter content pieces
Prefer creating videos to writing
Know how to build a following or already have a large social media following

How Much Money Can You Make from the Amazon Affiliate Program?

You’re probably asking yourself “How much money do Amazon Affiliates make?” There’s no limit to how much money you can make if you’re willing to put in the work. Some people have reported affiliate earnings of up to $25,000 per year from a single website, so there’s definitely potential.

The amount you’ll be able to earn will depend on a number of factors, including:

The amount of traffic your website or social media channel receives.
The number of searches your keywords receive.
The number of visitors you’re able to get to click on your affiliate links.
The average price of the products people buy after clicking your links
The average referral rate you receive from sales

Assuming you know the figures above, you should be able to add everything up with a calculator and come up with a rough estimate of your potential earnings.

If you’re interested in making more income than what’s available through Amazon’s Affiliate program, consider becoming an Amazon FBA seller.

Amazon Affiliate Program Tips and Tricks

If you’re serious about building an Amazon Affiliate business here are a few tips and tricks you can employ to give you a better chance of success:

Use product images in your content: Images have been proven to help conversion rates, so make sure to include them within your content. It’s also a good idea to make your images clickable affiliate links. That way when users click on your images they’ll be taken to Amazon.
Write lots of product reviews: Product reviews generally produce the most link clicks and conversions. So, if possible try to write and publish as many product reviews as possible.
Build an email list: Use your website or social media channel to create an email list of people who are interested in your content. That way when you have new posts or articles you can let your followers know and drive more traffic to your channels.
Include multiple links within your content: The more links you include in your content the more opportunities people have to find them and click them. Don’t overdo it of course, but for a longer article it’s not unreasonable to have 5-10 links within the content.

Conclusion

The Amazon Affiliate program is a great opportunity for people looking for ideas for their first online business. It’s fairly simple to start and requires only a small initial investment. If you follow the strategies above and are willing to put in the time and effort it won’t be long before you have a successful venture.

Find an Amazon Product That Will Make You $3,000/Mo or More

TRY FOR FREE