What are Amazon Associates?

What are Amazon Associates?

Amazon Associates, can be an easy way to monetize your website or blog.

amazon associates,  program

All you need to do is sign up, receive immediate approval, and place Amazon affiliate links on your site. When someone makes an Amazon purchase via one of your links, you get the commission — it's that simple.

But how do you get started? Below, you'll find a step-by-step guide to becoming an Amazon Affiliate, with screenshots.

Affiliate Marketing Templates

Whether you're hoping to become an entrepreneur, or starting your own business, or just looking to start a small business, hopefully you'll find this guide a helpful place to start.

How much does the Amazon Affiliate program pay?

Eligibility Guidelines for the Amazon Associates Program

Amazon Program Requirements and Rules

How to Become an Amazon Affiliate

How to Create an Amazon Affiliate Link

How to Make Money with the Amazon Affiliate Program

Amazon Affiliate Marketing Program FAQs

What is the Amazon Affiliate program?

The Amazon Affiliate program, or Amazon Associates, is an affiliate marketing program. It's free for website owners and bloggers to become Amazon Associates. They advertise products from Amazon.com on their sites by creating links. When customers click the links and buy products from Amazon, they earn referral fees.

Still not sure what affiliate marketing is or what it’s all about? Or unsure whether it’s right for you?

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a marketing tactic where an online retailer gives niche website owners the ability to create unique product links (called affiliate links). The website owners must promote the link; in exchange, when someone visits the link and makes a purchase, the website owner automatically receives commission. As an affiliate, you only make money once the link is used in a transaction.

Affiliate marketing is right for you if you already own a website or blog and your content offers opportunities for product mentions. For instance, if you own a recipe blog, you can create links for product ingredients.

It’s not the best fit for you if you sell products directly on your website, although you can use a mixture of product selling and affiliate selling to earn money.

How does the Amazon Affiliate program work?

In the Amazon Affiliate program, associates earn commission by creating unique product links, promoting the links on their website, and driving referral traffic back to Amazon. Here’s how it works:

Website owners create an Amazon Affiliate account on the platform.

Amazon gives each website owner a unique Associate ID.

Once the application has been approved, associates can begin creating affiliate links in their Amazon portal.

Associates then place the links in blog posts or other parts of their website.

Once someone clicks the link and makes a purchase, the associate earns commission.

How much does the Amazon Affiliate program pay

You can earn, on average, from $100 to $20,000 from the Amazon Affiliate program, depending on how many referrals you generate for Amazon. The Amazon Affiliate program operates on a commission basis, meaning you’ll make a percentage per sale.

The commission rate differs depending on the product category. For instance, if you run an automotive blog, you can earn 4.50% from each sale. If you sell three car parts at $1,000 each in one day, you’d make $135 from those three transactions. If you sell the same product 30 times per month, you’d make $1,350 every month.

At the beginning of your Amazon Associate journey, the numbers can skew on the low side, so be sure to have another form of income in addition to being an Amazon Associate.

Before signing up on the platform, it’s important to review the Amazon Affiliate program’s commission rate per product category. That way, you can calculate how much you can potentially earn depending on your website’s niche.

Eligibility Guidelines for the Amazon Associates Program

Although it is free to join the Amazon Associates program, you need to meet certain criteria in order to be eligible. Primarily, you must have a valid Amazon account and be able to promote Amazon products through an active website, mobile app, or social media account.

Let’s dive into the eligibility guidelines for each medium.

Website

Most Amazon Affiliates promote Amazon products through their website or blog. To be eligible, websites must:

Be owned by the applicant

Have a minimum of 10 original blog posts, with the most recent one published within the last 60 days

Be publicly available (no closed groups or paywalls)

Mobile App

App versions of websites are also eligible for the Amazon Associates program. However, your app must:

Be available for free in the Google Play, Apple, or Amazon app stores

Provide original content

Look and function differently from Amazon’s shopping app

Social Media

Influencers are also eligible to participate in the Amazon Associates program.

Influencers aren’t required to have a website to qualify for the program. Instead, they can earn commission by promoting Amazon products through their social media accounts.

To qualify for this part of the program, you must have:

An active and public Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, or Twitch.tv account (Note: Applicants using Facebook and Instagram are required to use a business account)

An established following with substantive engagement

At least 500 organic followers

It‘s important to note that Amazon Associates’ eligibility requirements may vary by country. So, make sure to check the specific requirements for your region.

Amazon Program Requirements and Rules

Being an Amazon Associate is a great way to monetize passion projects or make supplemental income from your brand. However, Amazon has requirements for associates to follow once you are accepted into the affiliate program, so it's best to understand those before you dive in.

After you sign up, you’ll need to think about the requirements for the application review process. Amazon requires new affiliates to make a minimum of three sales during their first 180 days. If you fail to do this, your account will be closed. However, you can reapply for the Amazon Associate program after you've made adjustments to your site.

The Associates team also reviews websites, mobile apps, and social network accounts. They’re looking for consistent, fresh, and original content that brings value to Amazon customers.

Amazon affiliate program requirements example: Original content

Other requirements are in place for ethical promotion as well as preventing associates from gaming the system. Noncompliance may result in being banned from the program. Here are some of the big ones to keep in mind:

You must disclose on your site or in your communication that you may be eligible to earn from your recommendations.

You must not make false or deceptive claims in your recommendations.

Your website must not contain unsuitable, explicit, or harmful content.

Avoid referring to prices (with some exceptions) since prices frequently change.

Do not use Amazon affiliate links in offline promotions, eBooks, or email.

Do not use link shorteners on affiliate links.

Do not use unapproved Amazon trademarked materials that may misrepresent your relationship with Amazon.

You can read Amazon's full policy here. It’s also a good idea to review the operating agreement for associates for other requirements.

Note: Amazon’s affiliate program is one of the most popular programs. As of 2021, it’s the top affiliate marketing network in the world, with over 900,000 affiliates. But it isn’t the only one. There are other affiliate programs out there that are worth trying if you don’t qualify to become an Amazon Associate.

How to Become an Amazon Affiliate

Create a website or blog.

Navigate to the Amazon Associates homepage and click Sign Up.

Enter your account information.

Enter your website address.

Enter your preferred store ID.

Explain how you drive traffic to your site.

Choose your payment method.

Create Amazon Affiliate links.

1. Create a website or blog.

To become an Amazon Associate, you must have an active website, blog, app, or YouTube channel. It‘s also helpful if you’ve pre-populated that site with content, so it appears active and authentic to both users and Amazon.

Remember, you must be able to describe the purpose of your website as part of the application process. So, have a firm idea of why you‘re creating your site, the audience you’ll target, and how you'll bring in traffic.

To create a website for free, check out HubSpot’s CMS Hub. With its drag-and-drop website builder, customizable themes, and blog capabilities, you’ll be able to publish original content in no time.

If you’re still figuring it out, these resources can help you make these important decisions:

Affiliate marketing for beginners

What to sell on Amazon

Amazon marketing strategy

2. Navigate to the Amazon Associates homepage and click “Sign Up.”

In order to become an Amazon affiliate, you'll need to create your Amazon Associates account. To do that, visit the Amazon Associates homepage and click Sign Up. From there, you'll be prompted to log in to your existing Amazon account or create one.