How to Promote Amazon Products and Get Paid

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing model. A business or company that operates an affiliate programme works with affiliates (the “marketers” in this instance) so that when a visitor or customer is brought to the company’s website or purchases the company’s product as a result of the affiliate’s marketing efforts, the affiliate receives a business reward or compensation.

Today, affiliate marketing has become exceedingly popular. According to Statista, the affiliate marketing industry in the US alone will be worth 8.2 billion in 2022—a staggering 10% increase compared to 2021. It is one of the most effective marketing models because the rewards and compensations incentivise affiliates to push for the best promotion of the companies and their products. Thus, millions of people flock into the industry every year and companies take on at least hundreds of thousands of affiliates.

Amazon is one of those companies.

What Is Amazon’s Affiliate Scheme?

With over 900,000 affiliates worldwide, Amazon has one of the largest affiliate marketing programmes in the world. The Amazon Associates Program is an affiliate programme run by Amazon to help content creators, publishers, and bloggers monetize their traffic.

Amazon has millions of products and programs available on its platform. This gives affiliates, or in Amazon’s case, associates a wide variety of options. Using easy link-building tools, Amazon UK affiliates can make recommendations and direct their audiences to buy products on Amazon. This is how to promote Amazon products and get paid, earning from purchases and programs that qualify under the Associates Program.

How to Become an Amazon Affiliate UK.

To become an Amazon UK affiliate, all you have to do is sign up for the programme on the Amazon Associates website. Amazon will review your application and approve it if you meet the qualifying criteria.

Before you sign up, it is important to note that Amazon is looking for Amazon UK affiliates who can truly add value to Amazon customers—both existing and potential. So to be the right fit for the programme, you have to be a passionate reviewer, stylist, content creator or curator who would like to refer your audience to products on Amazon.

Following your sign-up, here is how the application review process for the Amazon Affiliate Program typically goes:

• The Amazon Associates team will check through your application. You must have driven qualified sales to the platform—at least 3 within the first 180 days. (Note that personal orders do NOT qualify).
• Amazon will review all of the sites you have provided in your application (websites, mobile apps, and social media pages) to ensure that you meet their customer experience bar.
• All sites provided must be publicly available. So no, your private Facebook group will not count.
• Amazon will be looking out for potential affiliates with robust, original content on their personal sites. So it’s a good idea to have at least 10 posts on your media platforms that are original, engaging, and user-relevant.
• If you provide a website in your application, ensure that you own the website and you have recent content (posted within the last 60 days at most).
• If you provide a mobile app in your application, your app must comply with Amazon’s Mobile Application Policy requirements.
• For social media accounts, the programme only accepts accounts on Facebook (including open group pages and fan pages, but excluding personal pages), Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Tik Tok and Twitch.tv.
• You must provide the exact URL of your social media pages in your application. Do not list the social network URL only: e.g. ‘facebook.com’ or ‘instagram.com’.
• Your social media page or group must be established, with a substantive number of organic followers and/or likes (in most cases, at least 500).
• You cannot apply with a social media page where either your posts or the number of followers/subscribers are hidden from non-followers.
• Applications that do not meet these standards will be rejected by Amazon and will not be re-assessed.

More application FAQs and recommendations can be found on the Amazon Associates website.

How the Amazon Associates Program Works.

As an Amazon UK affiliate, you can recommend and share products and available programmes on Amazon with your audience through customized linking tools and earn money on qualifying purchases and customer actions such as a customer simply signing up for a free trial program.

Amazon has customized linking tools for large publishers, individual bloggers, and social media influencers. For example, Amazon’s Site Stripe toolbar can be used to easily create and add links, and for a quick view of what you have earned from link clicks so far. There are also tools to create hyperlinks to specific Amazon products or to create stylish graphical banners to link to Amazon product categories and promotions from your website.

Amazon also provides a product advertising API so advanced users and developers can integrate Amazon products directly into their websites.

What Are the Commission Percentages?

You earn from qualifying purchases and programs through the traffic you drive to Amazon. These commissions you earn can be as high as 10%! However, commission incomes for qualifying purchases and programs do differ based on the product category.

Amazon also offers competitive conversion rates to help Amazon UK affiliates maximize their earnings.

Is the Affiliate Program the Only Way to Promote Amazon Products and Get Paid?

No, it isn’t. Amazon also has an Amazon Influencer Program through which influencers with an established social media following can promote Amazon products and get paid. Under this programme, Amazon provides eligible influencers with the tools they need to select the best of Amazon’s products and services, easily recommend them to their social media followers, and earn commissions on qualifying purchases.

Influencers can also inspire sales by curating their personalized pages on Amazon where they can publish livestreams, shoppable photos, and videos. Amazon will also feature qualified members of this programme across their site! Not only do you get to earn income in commissions, but you also receive immense exposure on a platform like Amazon. These options make it easier than ever to engage with Amazon customers and monetize your content.

This programme is only open to influencers on YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook with a substantial following and engagement metrics. If you are a media company or a brand that wants to earn money by driving traffic to Amazon, you should apply to the Amazon Associates Program instead.