This post may contain affiliate links for more info visit my disclosure page.
Are you a blogger wondering if you should use the Amazon affiliate program to monetize your blog? I can tell you that the Amazon affiliate program does work and I will show you how it’s worked for many people.
Amazon is one of the biggest online retail shopping sites out there and really they don’t have much competition.
With their vast availability of products and fast delivery service, they blow their competition out of the water.
I know I’m a big customer of Amazon myself and their success only means that their affiliate program is also a success for their affiliates.
To give you a more detail look at the Amazon affiliate program, I will show you the following:
- How Does It Work?
- How Much Money Can You Make?
- How To Easily Sign Up for the Amazon Affiliate Program.
- Show Me The Money! Success Stories.
- How To Make The Amazon Affiliate Program A Success For You.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
The Amazon affiliate program is called Amazon Associates and their affiliates are referred to as associates.
The Amazon affiliate program works like this:
- You create a website.
- You put affiliate links in your awesome helpful content.
- People visit your website on the web because it came up on the search results when they were searching for a product.
- People click on your affiliate link because they are curious about what you recommended to them and it takes them to the Amazon shopping site.
- People see what they like and buy it.
- You make a commission when that product ships to the customer.
That’s basically how it works and it’s very simple to do as Amazon provides many different types of affiliate links you can use on your website.
The affiliate link tracks the sale to you because the coding of the link only tracks back to you, no one else.
The BEST part of their program is that you make a commission even on products that were not even mentioned on our website!
When visitors click on your affiliate link, it puts a 24 hour cookie on their browsing device.
Whatever they buy on Amazon within that 24 hour period will be all tracked to you and you’ll earn commission on the whole purchase, not just what you promoted on your website.
Now, that’s awesome right?
HOW MUCH MONEY CAN YOU MAKE?
**UPDATE** Amazon announced big changes to their commission structure beginning March 1, 2017, please see updated commission rates here.
The commission structure for majority of their products on Amazon have a variable rate like this schedule:
You can see that the first 6 products have a commission rate of 4% so a $20 item, you’ll earn $0.80.
The more you sell, they more you’ll earn, all the way up to 8.5%. Don’t think this is very low as I’ll show you can make a lot of money with this program below.
They also have other products at fixed commission rates like this:
For their full commission fees, you can see this page here.
HOW TO EASILY SIGN UP FOR THE AMAZON AFFILIATE PROGRAM
To sign up for this program, go HERE and you’ll enter your email address. You’ll then follow the instructions to enter your info.
It’s important to know that you need a website before you can sign up and be prepared to sign up for the right country and tax info if necessary.
Your application does not even get reviewed until you’ve earned your first commission.
This is important to note because I have heard that people have earned commission and then get disapproved.
If you get disapproved, you don’t get that commission you earned.
In order for you not to get disapproved, you will need the proper disclaimer on your website and your website should have some substance to it.
Meaning your website should have some posts on it (not sure how many you’ll need) and look more established than a brand new site.
If you need a disclaimer, just use this one here that’s under the title “Amazon Affiliate Links” and just update it with your website info.
SHOW ME THE MONEY! SUCCESS STORIES
I’m about to show you how much niche Amazon sites can earn that have reach great levels of success. These are people I know who are members of the Wealthy Affiliate community.
As my site is not a niche Amazon site, I don’t personally have anything to show you. I just use it as a side method to monetize my blog.
If you want to make a niche Amazon site, here are the potential earnings using solely the Amazon affiliate program:
#1) Jay (@magistudios) bought himself a Volvo entirely from Amazon commissions he’s earned. Click the image to read his post about it.
#2) Brandon (@bthiel) made almost $9K in December, 2016, this is his graph:
Clicking this graph will take you to his post about his success as well.
#3) Vicky (@veronica.l) also have great success last Dec, the highest month for her case study site at over $4K. It took her 22 months to get there.
And here’s her growth for 2016:
#4) Josh (@Josh From Oz) explains very well why not to disregard Amazon’s affiliate program who sold 257 products in one night.
He made $679 overnight and that doesn’t even count the items that haven’t shipped yet (shipped items is at 211).
Click on the image above to read his story and his explanation on why Amazon has a great affiliate program.
As you can see from these examples, they clearly show that the Amazon affiliate program does work and that there is a lot of potential.
However, one would need the right know-how to build such successful niche sites like theirs.
Keep reading to find out where these people learned how to build these successful websites.
HOW TO MAKE THE AMAZON AFFILIATE PROGRAM A SUCCESS FOR YOU
Keys to making your site a successful one are:
- Full commitment to long term blogging – the successes above didn’t happen overnight, guaranteed. Your hard work will turn into successes if you can just keep going.
- Get the know-how by getting yourself the right training on how to build such a website. Many think it’s easy to do but there’s a certain process to follow if you know it, you won’t get the traffic you need to get the sales like the above sites.
Like me, all the people I’ve mentioned above are members of Wealthy Affiliate where we all learned how to build sites to make money from affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is the process of earning commissions by promoting other people’s products and if this business is built right with patience, you can earn a full time income with it.
At Wealthy Affiliate, they have the best online training for this exact business!
They have high quality hosting, detailed step-by-step training, and a community that’s incredibly helpful so you will always have your questions answered.
I recently blogged about why this is the best place to start a blog and I hope you will check that post out.
For my detailed review of Wealthy Affiliate and see their membership options (Starter [Free] & Premium), I welcome you to click this button below:
Otherwise, if you’re eager to get started for FREE, you can do so with this button here:
Use the free Starter membership to check things out, and test drive most of the Premium privileges for the first 7 days. You can remain a free member after the 7 days.
But if you’re serious about building an affiliate marketing business to the success level you see above, going Premium will get you there much quicker because you’ll then have full access to all the training available.
You’ll also have my full support as well as many others who’ve succeeded before you! I hope to see you on the inside!
Let’s make money online!
Hey, Grace, Amazon has an amazing referral program, it’s a great opportunity and anyone can build an online business around it!
Wealthy Affiliate has an amazing training that will teach you everything I’m a member of it really great stuff!
Thanks for sharing this awesome post Grace and have a great day! 🙂
Anis
Hi Anis,
I totally agree with you and everyone trusts Amazon so there’s no downside on using Amazon as part of your affiliate marketing portfolio. There are some changes coming to their commission rates though, look out for my update on that tomorrow!
Anyone who wants to build an amazon niche site should train at Wealthy Affiliate because it really has the most training I’ve ever seen on any training platform. Everyone is so kind and helpful there too, great community!
Thanks for stopping by again Anis!
Grace
Grace,
When you start out as an Amazon associate the commission rates are pretty low. Is it better to start with low-priced items to build up your commission percentage and then move into high-end items over time?
Or would it be better to start with high priced products because your commission rates are low and you want to earn as much as possible?
Hi Kurtis, If you’re a beginner of the Amazon Associates program, I suggest you start with products that are priced between $19-$50. This price range has been known to be best for impulse buying. You want people to impulse buy for Amazon products because the cookie they leave is only 24 hours.
Once in awhile, do some reviews about higher priced items because as you gain trust from your audience, you’ll likely get them to buy the higher priced items. I wouldn’t go over $1,000 though.
Hope this helps!
Grace
This review gave me all I could need to make an informed choice of affiliate network I want to try out. Thanks for the info. is useful.
Hi Linda, thanks for your comment and so glad my review has helped you decide what to use for an affiliate program. 🙂 Just let me know if you need any further help with it.
Thanks for stopping by,
Grace
Hi,
I was always interested about success stories from amazon. I know it is a good affiliate program but it is also suitable for someone who doesn’t blog full time? How many visitors per day do I need to see some sales from amazon?
Hi David, yes, I think you can still see sales from being an affiliate of Amazon if you blogged part time. It will take you longer to get to achieve the success that I’ve mentioned above but that doesn’t mean you can’t earn an extra few hundred a month from part time blogging.
This online business is all about what you put into it so the more effort, the more money you can make. So just because you’re blogging part time, doesn’t mean you won’t make any money, it just take you a little longer to get there and the amount will be less than someone who does it full time.
Hope this helps you!
Grace
Wow, those success stories are very encouraging! It does seem like the Amazon Associates commission rates are low, but when you take into account the fact that you get paid for products that you didn’t even promote, it all kind of evens out I think.
Amazon seems like a good company to partner with since they have almost every product on the planet, PLUS they are always inventing new things!
Do you think the 24-hour limit on the Amazon cookie is a little short? Or do you think that’s a fair amount of time?
I don’t know about you but when I buy at Amazon, I don’t need to think too much because I know Amazon is reliable, trustworthy place to purchase at so when I’ve made the decision to buy, it’s definitely within the 24 hour period.
That’s another reason Amazon is a great place to partner with because they have brand recognition besides having the lowest prices and excellent shipping. I always shop there myself whenever possible! Lol Probably too much. Just make sure you don’t buy from your own affiliate account or else you’ll be banned and that’s not good! 😉
Thanks Nick for visiting my blog!
Grace
Cool. Been an affiliate for three years and haven’t made a cent. When you do manage to sell something it magically falls into the “exempt” category. What do you think I can do better?
I’ve never heard of anyone not making a cent from Amazon, especially if you’ve been doing it for three years. You may want to take up the training at Wealthy Affiliate to learn how to write the content that convert and also that generates organic traffic to your site. It will be worth your while to learn from them. 🙂
Also, the new commission structure is more clear on what you can earn on, which category earns and which doesn’t. There isn’t much you can’t earn on these days so you should be able to make money as an Amazon Affiliate. See the success stories here.
Best of luck,
Grace
Those Affiliate commission percentages are not up to date. Here’s a guide that has updated rates: https://www.webemployed.com/amazon-affiliate-program-guide-earn-money/
Thanks for the updates! Yeah, I never updated this post when it changed.