In 2013, I quit my job and became a full-time business owner. I had just started my ecommerce career. Before leaving my job, I sold products on Amazon, specifically sunscreen. I sold out of stock constantly using a Word document as an email list because we were “budget-conscious” and did not want to pay for a professional email service.
I could see how to sell Amazon items and knew I wanted to do it more but by myself. In the past, it was harder to find things to sell than today. I became an Amazon Affiliate.
What is an Amazon affiliate?
Amazon Affiliates are people who make money from Amazon’s products. You can add Amazon Affiliate Links to your blog or your online store to direct traffic to Amazon.
Amazon sellers find products at wholesalers, purchase them in bulk, and ship them directly to customers or have Amazon do it for them. The seller is responsible for setting their price and earning the majority of sales.
Amazon affiliates earn a small commission, up to 10% of the sale price of a product. However, they do not set their prices.
Amazon Affiliate: My Experience
Amazon Affiliate was one of the most exciting aspects of my career. As I said earlier, I quit my job and embarked on my first entrepreneurial adventure. I made some errors back then, and I see many new store owners make similar mistakes today.
What was my biggest mistake? Launching four Amazon Affiliate online stores simultaneously.
I didn’t realize it then, but you must be hyper-focused to become a successful Amazon Affiliate. Because I was so indecisive, I could not choose just one niche. Then, I filled those stores with hundreds and hundreds of products. I ran an online bridal store and spent one week writing descriptions of over 600 products. What was I thinking?!
It was great to rank in the search results and drive a large traffic volume. (Okay, it wasn’t high, but I thought it was).
Google penalized one of my stores, a board games store, for “thin content.” In other words, my product pages did not have enough content.
This is due to my lack of focus. Writing hundreds of product descriptions per store won’t result in a thoughtful strategy.
The ease of doing it as an Amazon Affiliate was my favorite part. I could import Amazon products using the tool I used at that time. I was able to sell products in any niche from the top brands.
There was one huge downside of being an Amazon affiliate, which completely caught me by surprise. We’ll talk about that in a moment.
Amazon Affiliate Marketing: How to Get Started
Want to become an Amazon affiliate? First, you’ll need to be accepted into the Amazon Associates Program.
What are the things you should know before becoming an Amazon Affiliate?
You can create a niche on your website that doesn’t violate Amazon’s policies.
A website with content of high quality (such as a weblog).
Before applying, ensure you do not violate the Amazon Affiliate Program policies.
Privacy policy, Legal notice, About Us page, Contact page, and disclosure that your income is earned through affiliate commissions.
Traffic from reputable sources only (organic, social, referral).
Amazon Affiliate Program Perks
You can earn a commission of up to 10% by joining the Amazon affiliate program. Here, you can see a breakdown of commissions based on the niche.
Select from thousands of Amazon products by top brands to sell in your store.
You can promote almost any product by getting into their program without seeking approval from the brand.
How to increase your Amazon affiliate earnings
You can increase your Amazon affiliate income by keeping your costs as low as possible and your sales volume high.
It is easiest to increase Amazon affiliate earnings if you already have an audience.
And I did precisely the opposite. The consequences of my actions were terrible.
If you want to earn money as an Amazon affiliate, having a large audience is best.
You can undoubtedly start initially, but that won’t guarantee success. It could take months or even years to earn enough passive revenue for you to be proud of.
SEO will result in your biggest wins
My SEO strategy was the key to my most considerable Amazon affiliate earnings.
Organic traffic is expensive in terms of time, not money.
You can also make money from the traffic to that page if your position is at the top. This is the most cost-effective way for people to click on your affiliate links.
You can increase your Amazon affiliate income by embedding links in your articles. Cha-ching! You can also do what I did and write product descriptions for many products to increase your chances of being found by search engines.
Don’t ever make the mistake of not writing enough text. Google does not like that.
Create content
YouTube videos are the source of many Amazon affiliate links I have accidentally clicked on.
I’ll click the link after watching a video on YouTube to learn about the product that a YouTuber is using to make her hair look flawless. She earns her commission.
Focusing on platforms such as YouTube or Instagram will help you build your audience and create a community that is more willing to purchase.
Amazon affiliates can also benefit from product reviews or comparison articles.
Amazon Checkout
I used a plug-in for Amazon that is no longer available to automatically add my affiliate links and send customers to the Amazon checkout.
My website layout was designed to look exactly like an ecommerce site. After adding multiple items to their shopping cart and proceeding to check out, customers were sent automatically to Amazon’s payment page. It helped me increase my Amazon affiliate earnings because not only was Amazon a reputable company, but it also sent Amazon affiliate traffic.
Even if the customer doesn’t buy the product from the initial purchase, they will likely make a second order from Amazon.