How To Start Earning With the Amazon Affiliate Program (2024) – Shopify Canada

If you’re aiming to increase earnings from your online content, implementing an affiliate marketing strategy can be a good idea.

Amazon hosts one of the most popular affiliate marketing programs, occupying nearly half of the entire affiliate network market. With more than 900,000 affiliate partners, the Amazon Associates program helps content creators, publishers, and bloggers monetize their traffic.

Research shows that Amazon is the first destination for most shoppers. With such a strong brand presence, sending people from your content to Amazon products could result in higher conversion rates.

Ahead, learn how to become an Amazon Associate, featuring tips, steps, and real examples.

What is the Amazon Associates program?

The Amazon Associates program is one of the world’s largest affiliate marketing programs. Like the Shopify Affiliate Program, it allows creators, publishers, and bloggers to monetize web traffic by promoting products in their content.

After acceptance to this free program, you’ll be able to generate affiliate links to promote to your audience. When someone clicks an affiliate link and buys a product, you’ll receive a commission.

Amazon commissions range from 1% to 20% depending on the product category.

Amazon has few requirements on how affiliate links are promoted, meaning they can be used by a variety of creators and businesses. Amazon Associates include YouTubers, bloggers, and TikTok influencers—as well as online stores and product review websites.

How much do Amazon affiliates make?

Amazon affiliate program earnings depend on the commission rates of the products partners choose to promote, and the volume of clicks affiliates generate from relevant traffic.

That means Amazon affiliates can make as little as a hundred dollars a month, or as much as six figures per year. 

Hugo Guerreiro, founder of men’s fashion affiliate website The Men Hero, shares his site’s initial earnings. 

“I started my men’s lifestyle blog at the end of April 2021. In November, we made $963.69 from Amazon Associates, and the number keeps growing.”

According to ZipRecruiter, the national average salary for an Amazon affiliate is $77,893 per year. Top earners make up to $126,500, while the lowest 13% earn between $35,000 and $43,499.

If you’re looking for ways to boost your affiliate income with fewer sales, try joining high-ticket affiliate programs.

Amazon affiliate program requirements

To become a partner in the Amazon Associates program, you must meet the program’s rules and requirements. The main participation criteria are outlined in Amazon’s program policies, which prohibit things like stolen content and websites aimed at children.

Once you’ve signed up, Amazon will also review your initial activity and reject your account if you don’t meet its performance standards.

Amazon requires that your channel contains recent, original content and receives a certain amount of traffic, as a way of showing that it’s well-established and capable of driving sales.

Here are the main requirements to keep in mind:

• Websites must be public and contain at least 10 original, accurate, up-to-date posts published within the past 60 days.
• Mobile apps must be freely available in the Google Play, Apple, or Amazon app stores.
• Supported social media channels are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch, provided accounts have at least 500 followers.

In addition, you must make at least three qualified sales within your first 180 days as an affiliate. While Amazon doesn’t specify performance conditions beyond this, active engagement such as clicks, likes, and shares may enhance your application.

Common reasons for rejection

If your Associate application fails at either stage of the process, it’s likely to be for one of the following reasons:

• Fewer than three qualifying sales during the first 180 days.
• Insufficient original content that does not give customers a “unique experience or insight that is not available anywhere else.”
• Incorrect usage of affiliate links.
• Non-compliant content or practices.

How to become an Amazon affiliate

1. Go to the Amazon Associates center and click the “Sign up” button
2. Fill in your information
3. Add your website, mobile app, or YouTube channel
4. Set up your profile
5. Explain how you drive traffic to your site or app
6. Add your tax and payment information
7. Create your Amazon affiliate links
8. Integrate with Shopify using a Connector app

Because most of the review process happens after sign-up, joining the Amazon affiliate program is easy.

Before you head to Amazon, make sure your website or content channel is live, public, and already populated with content. From there, you can apply for an Amazon Associates account.

1. Go to the Amazon Associates center and click the “Sign up” button

To start the process of signing up for the Amazon affiliate program, you’ll be asked to either sign in with an existing Amazon account or create a new one. If you only have a personal account, it’s best to create a new one to separate your business.

However, if you have a phone number linked to your personal account (and no business phone number), you won’t be able to create a new account.

2. Fill in your information

Next, provide personal information and details about your affiliate channel, so Amazon can track and reward your earnings.

3. Add your website, mobile app, or YouTube channel

You can add up to 50 websites or mobile apps. If you have more than one digital home, feel free to add them. These are all places where you could place an affiliate link.

Once you’ve added a website and hit the Next button, you’ll also be asked if your site or app is targeted toward children under 13 (these sites aren’t eligible for the program).

4. Set up your profile

This section asks for additional information about your website and allows you to create a store ID—the unique identifier that will associate your account with sales made through your affiliate links.

5. Explain how you drive traffic to your site or app

The next section of the Amazon affiliate account process asks you to explain how you drive traffic to your site (you can choose more than one option).

You’ll need to share how your website or app currently generates income, how you build affiliate links, your total unique visitors, and why you want to join the program.

After that, you’ll need to complete the security CAPTCHA and agree to the operating agreement.

6. Add your tax and payment information

Once you’ve completed the application, you’ll be prompted to add your payment and tax information so that you can receive your earnings.

As an Amazon Associate, you have several options for getting paid: direct deposit, Amazon gift card, or check. Payments are issued monthly, but 60 days from the end of the month in which earnings were made. So, for example, earnings made in January should be paid at the end of March.

From here, you’ll be able to start using Associates Central to create affiliate links.

7. Create your Amazon affiliate links

Once you’re accepted into the Amazon Associates program, you can start creating affiliate links to place in your content and earn commission.

First, log into your Associate account so all links created will be tagged with your unique Associate ID.

Then, navigate to the product linking menu in the Associates Central dashboard. Here, you can search for Amazon products and generate custom links containing your Associate ID, with an optional tracking ID, so you can monitor which of your affiliate links are most successful at driving traffic.

Alternatively, try these two tools to quickly generate links from any device:

SiteStripe toolbar (for desktop)

Another way to create Amazon affiliate links is with the SiteStripe browser extension. When you’re logged in, the tool appears at the top of Amazon.com product pages, so you can quickly generate links as you browse the catalog and research your options.

GetLink (for mobile)

GetLink lets you generate an affiliate link by clicking the share icon of a product page from your mobile device. You can then share a shortened link with your Associate ID embedded.

Make sure every link you promote has the potential to generate earnings by including your Associate ID.

8. Integrate with Shopify using a connector app

If your website runs on Shopify, use the Amazon Associate Connector app to quickly import your chosen Amazon products into your Shopify store.

This is a fast way to create a high-quality Amazon affiliate website. After linking your Amazon Associates account, you can import specific products using the product URL.

Once you’ve added the product through the connector app, it will be displayed in your Shopify store, where people can click through to make a purchase.

Becoming an Amazon affiliate: pros and cons

While there are a lot of great reasons to join the Amazon affiliate program, it’s not for everyone. Let’s look at the pros and cons to decide whether Amazon affiliate marketing is right for you.

Pros

Partnering with Amazon gives you access to a global marketplace of millions of products, meaning you’ll almost always be able to find relevant recommendations for your audience.

Amazon is also highly trusted by consumers, who may be more likely to make a purchase with Amazon versus other, less well-known affiliates.

Another benefit of Amazon’s affiliate program is that links can be promoted on ecommerce stores, meaning you can add affiliate products to your online store.

Cons

Compared to some affiliate programs, Amazon’s cookie window is short. Referrals must add items to their cart within 24 hours of clicking your link for you to be eligible to receive a commission. That said, referrals can check out at a later date, as long as the item remains in their cart.

Commissions are also only officially earned when the product is shipped—not at the moment of sale. So, if a customer cancels their order before shipping, your commission will be revoked.

In terms of commission rates, Amazon’s program offers substantially lower percentage rewards than many direct brand programs. For some, access to virtually unlimited products is enough reason to accept a lower commission per sale, while others may find it difficult to generate sufficient income.

Affiliate marketing tips to boost income

To make the Amazon affiliate program work, you’ll need to strategize.

Here are some tips and strategies for boosting your affiliate income and building a stream of passive income after you’ve set up your Amazon affiliate account.

Find a niche

As with any brand strategy, establishing yourself in a niche is a good way to target a specific segment of customers. A niche is a segment of the larger market defined by its own needs and knowledge. It becomes your specialty as an affiliate marketer.

“Dive into your niche and really know the ins and outs of it to be able to solve the problem someone might have with a particular product,” advises Arun Grewal, founder of affiliate niche site Coffee Brewing Pro.

“Affiliate marketing is about adding your own insight and perspective and becoming an authority for a particular niche or problem.”

Focus on a particular product category you’re genuinely interested in. That way, it’ll be easier to stay engaged with building the business. For example, Amazon Associate Elise Dopson founded Sprocker Lovers, a pet care site for advice, tips, and product reviews.

According to Elise, “Amazon Associates has been a critical factor for monetizing blog traffic and providing readers with reputable, quality product options.”

Elise includes Amazon affiliate links in her niche blog posts, directing readers to the marketplace to purchase a variety of pet-related products.

So, how can you find your own niche? Consider the following criteria:

• It’s a topic you’re interested in. Good affiliate marketers become experts in their industry over time. Stay on top of trends, take part in events, and constantly be learning.
• You can solve the niche’s problems. People will follow you because they enjoy your insight and you add value by helping them solve problems.
• The niche is profitable. Run a Google Trends search to see how popular your niche is. Look at market research reports and check how often people search for your niche topics. This can signal whether or not people are ready to buy.

Create original content on different platforms

As an online entrepreneur, you already know the value of original content. It helps you stand out, build credibility, and foster trust with followers—all things you need for successful affiliate marketing.

But creating original content isn’t sufficient. You also need to distribute content across multiple platforms, considering omnichannel customers shop 1.7 times more, and spend more than single-channel customers.

Let’s look at the socially responsible company Package Free, for example. Package Free is the storefront for the blog and YouTube channel Trash is for Tossers, a zero- to low-waste lifestyle brand.

The YouTube channel is full of content designed to help people live a more sustainable lifestyle. By creating this content and showing expertise, it’s able to attract the type of people who are likely to trust and eventually buy. That way, when it places Amazon affiliate links in the content, it seems trustworthy.

Another reason to create original content elsewhere is to target long-tail keywords in multiple formats. In the image above, you can see some of those long-tail phrases on playlists such as “easy zero waste alternatives” and “zero waste shopping.”

Keep in mind that building a content library is a long-term process. Like any affiliate marketing strategy, time and dedication will lead to significant results down the road.

Invest in SEO

If you want people to come to your website through Google or any other search engine, you’ll also need to think about search engine optimization (SEO). Making sure your website is optimized for search engines helps you appear in search results.

However, SEO isn’t about keyword stuffing. So how do you make sure your website is optimized for search engines? You create webpages or include content that helps search engines understand your website better.

Product reviews

Including product reviews serves a dual purpose. They help create social proof for potential customers as well as bolster your SEO. This is because they keep your content fresh and up to date.

An affiliate that posts honest, unbiased product reviews, either their own or that of customers, can build loyalty with followers—and turn reviews into sales. In fact, according to one McKinsey study, products with a star rating of 3.5 or higher made up 95% of products sold.

“Share your experience with the product to customers and always give the best and the worst points about it with examples,” says Hugo Guerreiro of The Men Hero. 

“Customers want to know what you like about it and what you didn’t, because they have a particular fear of buying the product that can disappear after reading your experience, making them purchase it faster.”

You can also create buying and gift guides for products you recommend as an affiliate. Affiliate marketers frequently create gift guides as part of their content strategy and post recommendations with affiliate links like Amazon.

If a reader wants to make a purchase, they can click the link and buy it on Amazon. For example, The Everyday Farmhouse is an Amazon affiliate with a homesteading gift guide.

Whether created as blog posts or dedicated webpages, product comparisons are also a great way to boost SEO, since data shows 60% of customers start their product search on Amazon. Offering comparisons to similar products helps customers with their research.

Homepage

It can be easy to forget about SEO for your homepage. Some easy ways to optimize your homepage include having your target keyword in your homepage title, optimizing the page meta description, making it mobile-friendly, adding SSL, and keeping the loading speed fast.

“The best way to drive organic traffic to your blog and generate a sufficient amount of revenue is to combine high-quality content with SEO,” says Nicholas Martin, founder of the affiliate site Pest Control Hacks. “If you invest in SEO, you will gain more exposure and drive affiliate sales naturally.”

These are just a few areas you can look at for SEO, but another way to get to the top of Google is by building a blog. When you post high-quality blog content consistently, you build credibility about a specific topic, which can help you rank higher for related keywords.

Start a blog

Building a blog is similar to creating content on other platforms. The main reason to post content on your blog is to help build your subject matter expertise, help with SEO, and direct people to your products.

Resources:

Other Amazon revenue streams

Aside from becoming an Amazon affiliate, there are other ways to make money on Amazon besides listing products on its standard marketplace:

Use these tools and platforms to monetize your creativity and reach Amazon’s vast, built-in audience.

Earn more with Amazon

Entering the world of affiliate marketing is easy with the Amazon Associates program. All it takes is a website, app, or YouTube channel, signing up to Amazon, and creating content to which you can add affiliate links.

However, take things a step further by connecting your Amazon affiliate account to your Shopify store using the Amazon Associate Connector app—allowing you to display full Amazon product listings and affiliate links on your storefront, but with your store’s branding.