Make money with your blog? That would be great, wouldn’t it? At the same time, if you’re here, that’s good! I’m going to explain how to make the most of Amazon affiliate marketing! All the benefits, limitations, but also some unknown tips to finally monetize your blog without stressing out!
To start, what is Amazon affiliate?
Affiliate marketing is probably the most common method alongside advertising to generate revenue on your site. The principle is simple: recommend one or more products (found on Amazon in this case) in one of your articles, and you will receive a commission on each sale! Imagine promoting a camera for €300 and selling 100 per month at a 3% fee. Result? You would earn €900! Not bad, right?
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Why use Amazon Affiliate?
Yeah, who doesn’t know Amazon? Not only is it the number 1 e-commerce site in France, but it also has a solid reputation in its commercial department!
Of course, if you recommend a product on Amazon, people will have no doubts about the seller, and you won’t lose sales like that!
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Plus, Amazon has invested a fortune to convert as many visitors as possible into buyers! All you have to do to benefit is send visitors to them. No customer management, no sales to handle, and it’s super easy to set up!
And then, of course, with this affiliate program, don’t worry about paying commissions…
What is expected in terms of commissions?
The commission system is quite simple as it is based on the product category. It ranges from 3% to 10%.
Here are the different possible commissions in France:
Just to say, the result won’t be the same if you sell watches (10% on fairly high amounts) or if you sell iPhone cases (3% on ridiculous sums…).
It is also important to note that Amazon offers promotional deals to its affiliates. For example, if you promote their premium service, you can receive €3 per subscription for the 30-day Amazon Prime trial. The latest offers can be found here: https://partenaires.amazon.fr/offers
When are commissions paid?
Commissions are received 2 months after the order of the items. If you sell 5 products in November 2016, you will only receive commissions in January 2017.
Why the delay? Simply because if the product is returned by the buyer, you won’t earn anything! Amazon allows 30 days for returns.
So, you understand, you only receive commissions on shipped and non-returned products!
There is also a minimum for Amazon to pay fees.
If you have chosen payment by bank transfer or Amazon gift card, the minimum amount is €25.
If you have chosen to be paid by check, the minimum amount is €50.
How can I join the Amazon Partner Club?
I haven’t mentioned it before, but this step is very simple, I won’t dwell on it.
To sign up and become an “Amazon affiliate,” go to https://partenaires.amazon.fr/ and follow the instructions, which are well explained! (well, normally 🙂)
How to find products to recommend?
Once logged in to https://partenaires.amazon.fr, you will arrive at your personal interface that will directly offer you to search for products.
Once you have found the product, click on “Get links.”
Another way to find much better is the Amazon Partner Toolbar. It’s on all pages of the Amazon site if you are logged into your partner account:
The great advantage is that you walk directly on the Amazon site to find the products that interest you and in an instant, you can generate your affiliate link.
How to promote Amazon products on your site?
Once you have identified the products to offer to your audience, you need to highlight them on your site. This is an essential step to optimize affiliate sales and increase revenue.
Amazon offers many ways to showcase its products on your blog or site, but you will see that some are clearly to be avoided!
For every possibility, the result will be HTML code that you just need to copy into your articles to see them.
4 ways to link to an Amazon product
- Create a link to an image, all in Amazon colors. For example:
- A simple link that you can insert into your content.
For example, I could recommend this book on SEO. (affiliate link 🙂, I enjoyed reading the 2013 and 2015 editions)
You might think that this kind of affiliate link isn’t very effective, but I actually found a better conversion rate with well-placed links in the content rather than with images or banners.
- A simple clickable image
****5
- Amazon Widget
You can assemble several products into a sort of widget that can be embedded on your site or even offer products in a slideshow format.
Of these 4 methods, only 2 should be used! The simple link and the clickable image. Why ignore the other two? Simply because they are blocked by ad blockers like “Adblock”… It’s amazing because I’ve never seen this information mentioned anywhere, and yet it is crucial!
If the display of your products is blocked, you won’t earn anything, and given the popularity of extensions like Adblock, this can quickly represent a huge loss of revenue.
Amazon Banner: Crafting to Plan
You can use banners offered by Amazon on specific categories, but again these are blocked by AdBlock…
On the other hand, what you can do is save the image provided by Amazon, which is often well done, and put it on your site by applying a classic affiliate link to the desired category. This allows you to benefit from Amazon banners without blocks.
Create an affiliate link for an Amazon search
In some cases, it may be useful to provide a link to a search where specific filters have been applied to the best products of interest to readers.
All you need to do is go to the Amazon site, perform the search you want to share, and once you have it set up correctly, simply click on the “text” link in the Amazon Partner Toolbar.
For example, here are the best books on SEO.
What is an Amazon Cookie? How does it work?
What is a cookie? No, it can’t be eaten… it’s just a small file that is created on your computer when you perform certain actions on a website. This file can contain various information that allows, for example, to remember the user when accessing the mailbox without having to log in again each time.
In the case of Amazon, when someone clicks on one of your affiliate links. And it is thanks to this cookie that Amazon can know who to give the commission to. Basically, as long as this cookie is present on someone’s computer, anything they buy on Amazon will count for you. Cool, right?
The problem is that this cookie doesn’t live long. After 24 hours, it is automatically deleted, so you won’t earn anything on what they buy next.
Otherwise, if someone clicks on one of your affiliate links and within 24 hours the same person clicks on another person’s affiliate link, your cookie will be replaced by the new one.
The famous 90-day rule
There is a case where the 24-hour limit can be extended to 90 days. This rule applies when someone adds a product to their cart while the cookie is still active. In this case, even if they don’t buy the product right away, the commission will be yours as long as they complete their purchase within 90 days.
But that’s not all, you should know that you can directly create links on your site that automatically add the product to your visitors’ cart. Which, of course, will extend the period to 90 days.
Don’t jump for joy just yet, as this isn’t necessarily interesting. Why? This way, you will only earn a commission on the product added to the cart this way. If other products are added, they won’t count for you.
The “add to cart” button can be useful if you offer expensive products that sometimes take time to think about. Personally, I don’t use it!
How to create an “add to cart” link
I had a hard time finding an explanation on how to create an “add to cart” button directly on your site, so I’m giving you the solution here:
You need to replace “Product ID” with the ASIN of the product or the ISBN-10, depending on the products, but only one of the two is present on the Amazon card. Also replace “Your_Partner_ID” with your affiliate tag (tracking ID).
Some examples of how commissions and cookies work
Let’s imagine offering this book as an affiliate: Living Without Boss. Paul walks around your site, clicks on your affiliate link.
Case #1: decides to immediately buy the book. The commission calculation is simple, you will receive 7% (book category) which will earn you about €1.40 (yay!)
Case #2: He arrives on the page, adds the book to the cart, and continues his walk on Amazon. Decides to buy even a camera worth €1000 (well, yes, a sudden impulse 🙂) the commission calculation will be done in 2 steps: 7% on the book (€1.40) – 3% on the camera, which will give you €30.
Update on Amazon rules
For a period, fees were capped at €10 per product, except for the following categories: Books, Music, Downloads, MP3, DVDs, Games, and Toys. In my example, you would have received €10 for the camera and not €30.
This rule no longer exists as you can see on this page (as of October 1, 2016): Attachment Ads Compensation EU Partner Program. I asked Amazon to be sure, and they confirmed the disappearance of this rule (it took me 8 email exchanges to get the answer…). Unfortunately, I’m not able to personally verify this information as I don’t sell products that allow me to earn more than €10 on a sale… If anyone can confirm this information, it would be interesting 🙂
Case #3: Paul adds the book to the cart but doesn’t complete his purchase right away. A week later, he returns to Amazon (the book is still in the cart) and decides to add that great camera for €1000 to the cart (yes again). Then finalize his purchases – the 90-day rule applies, then you get 7% on the book (€1.40) – if you followed correctly, understand that you won’t earn anything for the camera since it was added to the cart 7 days later (your cookie is no longer active) Result, €1.40 in commission.
Example with the Add to Cart Button
Let’s say instead of offering a classic affiliate link, you put a button that directly adds the product to the cart:
This time Paul clicks on the button and the book can be found directly in his cart. At the same time, he decides to take 3 additional books to help him start entrepreneurship (good idea!) and finalizes his purchases.
In this situation, you will earn 7% on the book “Living Without Boss,” but nothing for the others…
Yes, that’s why the Add to Cart button isn’t always a good idea. You benefit from 90 days on the product added to the cart but lose commissions on all additional sales even if they are made within 24 hours! (in fact, the cookie is not created in this case)
Essentials for making money with affiliate marketing
Have traffic! 3 basic foundations must be present to actually make money with Amazon affiliate:
So, yes, it’s obvious, if you don’t have enough visitors, you won’t make small sales… To attract people to your site, there are mainly 2 solutions: SEO and social networks.
For visitors to be inclined to buy the products you offer, they need to trust you. So forget about irrelevant content with affiliate links everywhere, it won’t work!
Offer targeted products
Finally, if they don’t specifically target the products they offer to the public, the conversion rate could be very low.
Take the time to think about what your readers are looking for. What problems do they want to solve? And then you can offer them the ideal product!
7 tips to boost sales and conversions
- Send a free eBook
You might say: “Why would I offer a free eBook on Amazon, it won’t do anything…” Yet, I disagree 🙂 You certainly won’t earn anything on the “sale” of the eBook, but it will have several positive consequences. You will set your cookie since Amazon is well done, when someone comes to pick up a simple free eBook, there is a good chance they will pick up something else. Also, it’s free, it attracts many more people than affiliate links on paid products! In fact, this technique is so effective that Amazon has added limits! If you sell more than 10,000 free eBooks in a month (leave some margin 🙂) and that represents at least 80% of the eBooks sold, you won’t earn any commission.
- Target long-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords are keywords with low search volume and less competition. The fact is that you will be able to rank easily and the conversion rate is much better on these keywords because they are very specific. For example, “cheap proplan dog food” will be much less competitive than “dog food” and the intent to buy is much stronger!
- Turn all your images into affiliate links
Always include photos in your articles, and that’s normal! Keep in mind that many visitors click on these images, so take advantage of it and add affiliate links.
- Product comparisons or tests
Internet users love to make comparisons, tests, or top lists, “the top 5 cheap dog food,” “iPhone 7 vs Galaxy Note 7, which is better?” With this type of article, readers will often click on your links to see the product details. Conversion rates on these types of articles are excellent!
- Use your email list to send promotions to your visitors
Amazon often has promotions, and if you have subscribers, it’s time to talk to them! An email per month with the best promotions directly related to your niche, and you will get additional and regular income. This method is very effective during sales periods or holidays. Be careful! Do not put affiliate links directly in your emails, this is prohibited by Amazon. However, you can send your subscribers to an article with the best promotions.
- Highlight the “Learn More” buttons under featured product photos
- Don’t hesitate to add some Amazon testimonials, social proof, it works! (especially on high-priced products)
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Some rules to avoid losing your account
- It is imperative that you mention your participation in the Amazon affiliate program on your site.
“[Enter your name] participates in the Amazon EU Partner Program, an affiliate program designed to allow sites to earn compensation via a link to [enter the name of the relevant site (amazon.co.uk/amazon.de/de.buyvip.com/amazon.com/amazon.fr/fr.buyvip.com/amazon.es/es.buyvip.com)].”
- You cannot have multiple Amazon partner accounts
- All your links must be placed on sites that you own.
- No affiliate links should be present in your emails, PDFs, eBooks,…
- You do not need to use a URL shortener other than Amazon’s
- Your site must of course be legal and not offer adult content
The list is not exhaustive, and I strongly recommend that you read the terms and conditions and annexes [/et_pb_text] [et_pb_text admin_label=”Conclusion” _builder_version=”3.0.47″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” use_border_color=”off” border_style=”solid”]
Do it!
I’m not going to sell a dream, many people use Amazon affiliate marketing, but few actually make big profits (even a few hundred euros).
Yet, it is entirely possible! You can also earn tens of thousands of euros like the famous Pat Flynn who manages to sell over a million dollars worth of Amazon products per year passively…
Another point often mentioned, “affiliate marketing is fake!” etc Amazon affiliate marketing is not fake when you offer good products and inform visitors that they are affiliate links.
After that, if you launch many small niche sites, it is not necessary to inform visitors of every affiliate link, possibly, put a page where you mention your affiliation.
Better yet, if you have a good reputation and explain your affiliation to your audience, some will use your links before buying products on Amazon 🙂
In short, stop hesitating! Start offering affiliate products now (even if you have a small audience) and don’t give up at the first obstacles!
Passionate about WordPress and traffic acquisition methods, I share with you topics that are close to my heart and that I hope will improve your daily life in the wonderful world of the web!
Tag: amazon affiliate