Guide to Become an Associate in Amazon Affiliate Program

If you own a blog or business website, the affiliate program for Amazon is a great way to monetize it. It is one of the easiest ways to boost your income passively.

Moreover, the Amazon affiliate program is straightforward and convenient to use. This makes it a perfect side hustle for entrepreneurs, bloggers, website owners, etc.

All you need is to sign up and get approved by the affiliate program for Amazon. Then, you place Amazon’s affiliate links on your blog or website. The catch is when someone purchases a product through one of your links, you earn a commission.

However, if you’re still wondering how to start! In this article, we’ll show you how to join the affiliate program for Amazon and become an associate!

The Amazon affiliate program

The Affiliate program for Amazon or Amazon associates is an affiliate marketing program. It allows website owners and bloggers to promote products from Amazon through affiliate links.

In exchange, they earn commissions or referral fees whenever a purchase is made through one of their links.

Let’s say you’re a blogger! Being an Amazon associate enables you to advertise Amazon’s products on your blog freely.

In return, you earn a commission for each purchase made through one of your links. However, Commissions vary depending on your niche and what type of products you advertise on your website.

How does Amazon affiliate program function?

As an Amazon Associate, your main task is to generate referral traffic and drive it to Amazon. You do this by creating links for products that you advertise on your blog or website. Then, you earn a commission or percentage for each purchase made through your referral links.

Here’s how it works in detail:

• As a blogger/website owner, you create an Amazon affiliate program account.
• Amazon provides you with a personal associate ID.
• When your application is approved by Amazon, you can start generating affiliate links in your Amazon portal.
• Then, you begin advertising Amazon’s products by placing those links on your blog or website.
• When someone clicks on your links and makes a purchase, you get a commission in return.

How much do I get paid as an Amazon associate?

Your commission rates vary depending on the product category and your website niche. However, at the start of your Amazon affiliate hustle, your commission rates will be low. In fact, you must always have another source of income to rely on! Apart from the affiliate program for Amazon. That’s why you should take it as a side hustle while simultaneously scaling it into a business.

To understand how much you would earn as an associate, you need to calculate your commission rates based on your product category & niche. So, make sure you review the Associates Program Standard Commission Income Statement. It will give you a good idea of how much you would earn.

Amazon affiliate program: Requirements

Now I bet you agree! That the affiliate program for Amazon is a great way to monetize your website and boost your income. Still, there is a set of rules and requirements that you should follow to become an eligible Amazon associate. Otherwise, if you don’t comply with Amazon’s guidelines, you may face issues or get banned from the platform.

It is important to note that most guidelines ensure ethical & transparent advertising. At the same time, they protect the platform from potential scamming and misuse.

Main requirements

• You have to disclose on your website that you’re eligible to earn from your product recommendations
• You must not include misinformation or false claims in your product descriptions. Ensure your product descriptions provide accurate information.
• Don’t mention product prices because they constantly change. Most products on Amazon don’t have a fixed price.
• Don’t place your affiliate links offline such as in E-books, Gmail, etc.
• Avoid using link shorteners on your affiliate links.

To understand Amazon’s guidelines, you can read its full policy.

How to join Amazon affiliate program & become an associate

Build a website or a blog

In order to become an associate and sell on Amazon, having a website, blog, YouTube channel, or app is a must.

Let’s say you own a website, you should ensure that it delivers content. This helps you demonstrate that you’re active and authentic to both visitors & Amazon.

When building your website, you should have a clear idea about your target audience, niche, and how you’ll drive traffic to it. Remember! An essential part of joining Amazon requires describing the purpose of your website or brand.

Sign up for the Amazon associates program

• Go to the Amazon associates homepage.
• Click on sign up to create your Amazon account.
• In case, you have an already existing account, you can log in with it.

Enter your information

During your registration, you will have to enter your account information including:

• Your full name
• Address
• Phone number

Enter your blog/website address

Also, you’ll need to enter your website address or addresses if you own multiple websites. This applies to youtube channels, apps, and so on.

Choose your store ID

Your preferred store ID is the name of your store. It is usually similar to or exactly like the initial name of your website. Once you enter your store ID, you should choose Amazon preferences & topics that are relevant to your website niche.

Demonstrate how you drive traffic

In this step of your application process, you will have to explain how you drive traffic to your website. Also, you will provide information about:

• How you generate income
• How you build affiliate links
• And how much traffic your websites or apps get every month.

Select your preferred payment method

After explaining how you drive traffic, you can choose your preferred payment method. In the application process, Amazon gives you a choice to enter your credit card & tax ID information instantly or later.

Moreover, Amazon payment operates on a monthly basis. 60 days after the end of each month, you will receive a cheque or a direct deposit into your bank account from Amazon.

Start creating affiliate links

When you successfully sign up and create an account, you will be directed to your personal associate homepage. There, you’ll be presented with a dashboard where you can review your entire performance. This gives you information & analytics related to your monthly earnings, clicks, etc.

How to generate affiliate links

Log in to your associate account

You need to log in to your Amazon associate account. This will make sure your affiliate links are associated between your account and the products you advertise on your website.

Go to product linking

In the top banner, click on product-linking and choose product links. This will redirect you to another page wherein you can create affiliate links.

Search Amazon for products or enter the ASIN of a specific product.

ASIN stands for Amazon Standard Identification Number. Basically, It is a code that consists of 10 alphanumeric characters. It is used by Amazon to identify each specific product in its catalog. You can get the ASIN code of a product within the product description.

In other words, each product on Amazon is assigned an ASIN code. And you can find it in the description section of the product. However, if you cannot find the ASIN of the product, Amazon enables you to search for your target product in the catalog.

Verify your target product & click on the Go button

Once you find the product you want to promote, click on the Go button. This will generate the affiliate link for the specified product you intend to promote. However, always ensure that the product you select is the right product before generating a link for it.

Click on the Get Link button

On the right side, click on the Get link button to copy the affiliate link to your clipboard. And here you go! Now you can use that link for promotions on your website, blog, youtube channel, or app.

Reminder!

Ensure that all your promotions respect Amazon guidelines to avoid any issues. Don’t use your affiliate links on offline promotions like Gmail, PDFs, E-books, etc.

Remember! The best way to succeed as an Amazon associate is to deliver value to your audience. You can do this by consistently delivering high-quality content that adds value to your visitors. When you do this, you showcase your credibility & authenticity to Amazon while improving your traffic.

Also, make sure you promote products that are relevant to your audience & visitors. Put differently, the type of products you promote must reflect your website’s niche and brand.

For instance, if you have a website about fitness, it would be ineffective to promote products related to landscaping or solar energy!

Things you shouldn’t do as an Amazon associate

Using your affiliate links for offline promotions

Avoid sharing your links on offline promotions. Don’t use them on your newsletters, E-books, or PDFs. Moreover, you shouldn’t share affiliate links on your personal Facebook, Gmail, or Facebook groups.

Ensure that your links are placed in a visible part of your website where they can be easily seen by visitors.

Shortening your affiliate links

Another thing you shouldn’t do is shorten your affiliate links. Amazon makes it clear that using a link shortener for your affiliate links isn’t allowed. That is because Amazon wants its links to be clear and easily recognizable.

Above that, you must avoid link shortening because Amazon wants your visitors to know that you’re linking to it. However, you can shorten your affiliate links using Amazon’s shortening service. This way you’ll ensure that your links are 100% legit!

Not having a privacy policy

Not surprisingly! Amazon necessitates that you have a privacy policy for your website or blog. It should contain information about what type of data your website collects. And how data is collected, used, and disclosed.

Including product prices

Most products’ prices change frequently on Amazon depending on different variables. So, including product prices in your promotions isn’t a wise thing to do. In fact, the majority of sellers on Amazon will change their prices based on trends, events, etc.

So, when you don’t mention product prices, you avoid the risk of providing outdated or false information to your visitors.

Not providing a disclosure

As an associate, you should always provide a disclosure that you’re eligible to earn commissions from your product recommendations. Moreover, you should include your disclosure on your terms of service or policy page.

You don’t make any sales for 6 months

From the day you sign up, you can generate affiliate links to promote on your website. However, even Amazon has a limit! When you don’t make any sales for 6 months, your affiliate program will shut down. In fact, you should make at least 3 sales within the period of 6 months to prevent your account from being closed.

There is another downside!

Let’s say you’ve been generating links, writing blog posts, looking for products, and publishing consistently on your blog for 6 months! But you don’t manage to make any sales. Imagine how much time & effort is gone for nothing.

What’s worse! Your blog will be filled with broken links and content that don’t have any relevance or use. It kinda sucks!

So, the best way to pull this off is to work hard to earn those three sales. It may seem hard, but it can be easily done even if you own a small website or blog.

This will help you avoid many problems and pave the way toward being a successful Amazon associate.

Final thoughts

Joining the affiliate program for Amazon is one of the best methods to monetize your website or social networks. It offers a great source of income as a side hustle. So it doesn’t matter if you are a content creator, blogger, or entrepreneur, becoming an associate is worth a shot.

It could be your side hustle to gain extra income. Or, you can turn it into a full-time business using multiple websites/blogs and social networks. All it takes is consistently providing high-quality content, as content is king!