Amazon Associates: What you need to know to start making money
Starting an online business is one of the best decisions you can make to improve your finances, especially since the ecommerce sector has great programs like Amazon Affiliates , with which you could earn up to 6 figures a year.
Can you imagine working from home and still earning enough earnings to think about retiring anytime soon?
This is entirely possible, as long as you understand very well how Affiliate Marketing works.
Consequently, it is essential that you know which are the main programs in the world to create profitable online businesses, although this time we will focus on one of the largest: Amazon Affiliates.
Learn more about Affiliate Marketing:
Before delving into the Amazon program, you need to know what Affiliate Marketing is , or else you may not fully grasp its essence.
In very simple words: this is a branch of Digital Marketing that includes two main parts:
- To the affiliate: which could be a company, a blog, or a website.
- To the merchant: which can be a store or advertiser.
Both benefit from programs such as Amazon Affiliates, since they work together to achieve the desired actions, and in this way their businesses are constantly climbing towards success.
How Affiliate Marketing works:
To illustrate a little more the essence of Affiliate Marketing, and how it represents one of the best ways to earn money online , we will give you a hypothetical example:
Suppose you have a website about electronic equipment and you decide to join an affiliate program to increase your commission earnings.
All you have to do is promote these products by including affiliate links in your page posts, with which your users will be redirected to the official site where they are for sale (Amazon, eBay, etc).
This means that you will receive a commission every time one of your website visitors buys the sponsored products through your affiliate links.
What is the Amazon Affiliate program:
The Amazon Affiliate program helps you earn money through the content and promotions you run on your website.
It is basically designed so that you can earn money from home in an easy, safe and reliable way.
Your job will be to advertise on your blog or page the Amazon products that are part of the program to increase their sales, with the purpose of receiving a commission for each of them, as long as they are made through your tagged links.
These links are provided by Amazon, and if you learn to use them wisely you could earn up to 12% of the sale made by advertising.
Before explaining in depth how this program works, here are the steps to create a blog from scratch , since the idea is to have a website where you can recommend these products and services.
How to make money with Amazon Affiliates:
To start earning money with a blog , or with a web page through the Amazon Affiliate program, you must follow a few steps:
- Access the official portal of Amazon Affiliates.
- Register on the site.
- Request to join the program.
- Wait for Amazon to review and approve your request (only then will you be ready to start generating your affiliate links).
- Choose the types of links that best match the content of your site and start generating advertising revenue.
Now, Amazon is an online store that has a worldwide presence, so there are several affiliate programs depending on the location. Here are some that may interest you:
Amazon Affiliate Program in the United States:
The Amazon Associates program in the United States allows you to join it without paying a penny, and in this section we will tell you how much it can pay you in commissions, and even which are the most popular categories that could help you generate more income with your page.
Affiliate Program Features:
– The process of joining the program is quite simple: you access its portal, register and complete your formal application to become an affiliate.
– You could earn up to 10% of each sale made on Amazon, by using your affiliate links, and all for advertising commission.
– The best paid categories are luxury beauty items – it offers you a 10% commission – and furniture, home and garden – it offers you an 8% commission per sale.
– It offers you very valuable tools to increase sales from your affiliate links. The one that allows you to know what the best-selling products are and the one that offers you information on what Amazon users are looking for the most on the site, are just some of the most practical and functional.
– You can give your promotions a more attractive appearance by simply deciding what type of links you want to use on your page. There are 3 options:
- Product link with an enhanced image,
- Product link with improved text and,
- Text banners.
Amazon Spain Affiliate Program:
The Amazon Spain affiliate program does not charge you to become an affiliate either, and in general it operates in the same way as Amazon Affiliates in the United States, Mexico, or any other country where it has a presence.
Characteristics of the program in Spain:
– You can create your affiliate links in a matter of seconds.
– You have the possibility to choose millions of products to advertise on your own blog or website.
– You can make your website profitable easily and reliably, but for this you must fully understand how the program works.
– You can receive commissions of up to 12% for each sale generated on Amazon after redirecting your users to the site from your own website.
– It offers you the opportunity to generate advertising revenue for all the purchases that your visitors make, and not only for the products that you decide to advertise in your online store or website.
– The best positioned categories today are: Amazon Fashion (offers up to 12% for clothing, shoes, watches, luggage, bags, jewelry, accessories and the private brands of this ecommerce), followed by Home (with it you could earn up to 8% for kitchens, furniture, DIY and more)
Learn about Amazon Affiliates in Mexico:
The Amazon affiliate program in Mexico does not differ in almost anything from the other two programs that we have just presented to you, the only thing that changes is the commissions.
The highest commissions you could receive would be for 10% of each sale made by your users, and the categories that will allow you to earn the most money are Music and Books, Watches, and Sports – Outdoors.
Amazon affiliate program commissions:
In this section we will break down the commissions that you could receive in Amazon Affiliates United States, Spain and Mexico, according to their three most profitable categories:
Commissions in the United States:
- Luxurious beauty products: it can generate 10% commission for each sale made.
- Furniture, home, home improvement, garden, pet products: 8% commission.
- Hearing aids, beauty, musical instruments, businesses, industrial supplies: 6% commission for each sale made on Amazon.
Commissions in Spain:
- Amazon Fashion: This category includes Amazon's own clothing brands for men, women and children, as well as watches, shoes, clothing, handbags, luggage, etc., and can generate up to 12% commission.
- “Handmade” products: they offer you up to 10% commission.
- Home: The sale of power tools, kitchen or furniture can earn you up to 8% commission.
Commissions in Mexico:
- Music and books: you can receive a 10% commission per sale.
- Watches: offers you a 9% commission.
- Various products: it offers you an 8% commission, but you should know that electronic, health, beauty, sports and outdoor activities products are excluded from this category.
See: What is Airbnb and how much extra money could you earn as an owner
Amazon Affiliate success stories:
At the beginning of this article we told you that there are those who earn thousands of dollars a month as Amazon affiliates.
In this sense, we want to share with you the stories of two young people who have had a very good financial experience after joining the program.
Chris Guthry
He is a young entrepreneur who has dedicated himself to making Internet businesses profitable thanks to Amazon Affiliates, so much so that in 2010 he obtained almost USD $100,000 promoting products with his links.
Basically, he was in charge of promoting his own websites and advertising Amazon products that were completely attractive to his users, so that they did not hesitate to make their purchases, and consequently, Chris received his commission.
He is currently dedicated to helping others start profitable digital businesses through the generation of content that combines very well with Amazon Affiliates.
You can read more about his story at this link .
Ryan Robinson:
He is a blogger and writer who teaches his 400,000 monthly readers how to successfully start a blog and monetize it.
His work has been highly valued, and in fact, it has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, or Business Insider publications, to name a few of the most relevant.
In 2018 Ryan managed to generate more than USD $12,000 in commissions from Amazon Affiliates, and everything indicates that this year and those to come will continue to add zeros to that figure, thanks to his excellent work as an affiliate.
Here you can read the articles he has written about making money on Forbes .
Mistakes to avoid as an affiliate:
To earn money through Amazon Associates you must respect its conditions of use, as well as other general provisions that will prevent you from being banned or excluded from the program.
Below we will list the mistakes that you cannot make as an affiliate if you want to keep your account and continue generating significant income with your links, and why not, achieve your financial independence .
Disrespect the rules that govern the program:
If you do, Amazon will proceed to exclude you from it and will also retain all your pending payments.
Send your affiliate links via email:
Amazon prohibits the use of their links in any offline media, and believe it or not, for them email is considered as such.
In any case, you should make sure to send traffic to a landing page or intermediate landing page , instead of placing the link to Amazon directly from an email.
Other means considered as offline are PDF documents and eBooks, so you will not be able to include your links in them under any circumstances.
Omit information as an affiliate:
You are required to include information about your affiliate status on each of the pages that belong to the website where you will include your links to advertise Amazon products.
This means that you must make it very clear that you will earn a commission for each product sold in this global e- commerce giant.
Position your links in Google:
In no way will you be able to receive commissions from Amazon after positioning your affiliate links in a search engine like Google.
You also cannot rank a URL on Google and redirect it to your Amazon affiliate links. The brand will detect this fraudulent practice quickly and automatically, and therefore, you could be banned for breaking its rules.
Shorten URLs:
You should not use link shorteners to improve the appearance of your own affiliate links.
This is because Amazon requires that your users clearly know where they will be redirected to once they use your page, and this is because your reputation largely depends on how your affiliates send you traffic.
Use your links for own purchases:
Amazon prohibits you from using your affiliate links to make your own purchases, and in fact this condition also applies to your friends, family or affiliates who try to buy products that you will use, resell, or have any commercial use for yourself.
Recommended books:
Courses to learn affiliate marketing:
1. Create an Amazon Affiliate Website Using WordPress:
This course is available on Udemy and will basically teach you how to create a WordPress website so you can take advantage of the Amazon affiliate program.
Throughout his lessons you will learn the steps to follow to sell Amazon products online successfully and without incurring in faults that harm you as an affiliate.
You will also know how to find niche markets for your affiliate website, how to use SEO tools to improve your page, and how to use various plugins to advertise Amazon products on your own site.
Link: Access the course
2. Create an Amazon Affiliate Store with WordPress:
With this online entrepreneurship course you will learn to identify exactly which products are most interesting to the market niche in which you decide to start your digital business.
You will also get to know some Amazon configurations and how to create the API you need to establish the connection between WordPress and Amazon.
In the same way, you will understand how to get key categories for your affiliate store and how to use WordPress plugins to enhance your store.
Link: Access the course
3. Earn money with Affiliate Marketing:
With this online course you will get to know Affiliate Marketing in depth, and even better, you will understand why it can become your best ally if you want to generate thousands of additional dollars a year.
To do this, you will study platforms such as Amazon, Udemy or Clickbank, and you will also learn to design strategies that allow you to successfully monetize your blog or website.
Link: Access the course
Start making money with Amazon:
At this point you should be very interested in joining Amazon Associates to start generating money from home and significantly stabilize your finances.
If you learn to use it efficiently, you will be able to take advantage of it impressively for advertising, while making your digital business profitable like a professional.
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