Many new affiliate marketers like to use the Amazon Associates Affiliate Program as their first way to start earning a living online. This is actually a great choice! Amazon is trusted by almost everyone and most people you refer to Amazon will already have an account on Amazon. This lowers the barrier to a sale. Many affiliate marketers earn a full-time living just by using the Amazon Associates affiliate program, but it has to be done right. Here are some tips and tricks to earning substantial earnings using the Amazon Associates Program.
What Type Of Commissions Can I Earn From The Amazon Associates Affiliate Program?
The Amazon Associates affiliate program uses a tiered commission structure to pay out to affiliates. The more you sell, the more you will earn. That’s why many affiliates will attempt to promote two different types of products – cheap and expensive. By promoting cheap products under $10, you will likely receive a lot of purchases. For example, many affiliate marketers will promote e-books that may only cost $5. Since Amazon only pays up to 8.5% commissions, you’re not going to earn much by selling a $5 e-book. However, making a lot of sales of smaller items helps to boost your sales count in the, which also boosts the amount of commission you receive. Here is the current Amazon Associates Affiliate Program commission structure:
Also, remember that you are able to receive a commissions on anything your referral purchases over a 24hr period. So, even if you refer someone to purchase an e-book but they also end up buying $400 worth of other stuff, you get a commission on that, too. So really, you’re playing a numbers game here, especially around the holidays. This is why the Amazon Associates affiliate program is so powerful. When people by from Amazon, they tend to load up that cart.
Now that you understand how the commission structure works with the Amazon Associates Affiliate Program, let’s get into some specific methods of promotion…
Start A Review Website
This is one of my favorite methods to earn from the Amazon Associates Affiliate Program and that’s why I personally have a website that reviews products sold on Amazon. To see how I do it, check out my website DogFoodInsider.com.
In order to do this properly, you should find a specific niche to get involved with. You’ll notice on my site, I focus almost exclusively on dog food. If you simply start up a generic review blog and start reviewing every product at Amazon, your site visitors will not see you as an expert, the search engines wont understand what your site is really about, and in the end, you’ll have a tough time earning anything in return. But, if you become the expert in a specific line of products, then you have a real chance of building some authority. At that point, all you need to do is write some honest and detailed reviews with special links you receive through the Amazon Associates affiliate program member login. The more detailed your reviews the better.
Use Paid Advertising
In order to earn a profit by promoting products in the Amazon Associates affiliate program using paid advertising, you’ll need to choose higher priced products. Anything over $100 is a good starting point. There are a couple different ways you can accomplish this in the Amazon Associates affiliate program…
First, you can use Facebook Advertising and link directly to Amazon using your affiliate link. What you need to do here is find something that has extremely high demand, such as halloween costumes in October or the most popular kids toy during the Christmas season. Don’t just choose anything, go with something you KNOW is in demand. Then, you need to be very highly targeted in your advertising. With Facebook ads, you can target very specifically including by profession, age, sex, religion, whether they have kids or pets, own or rent, are in a relationship, etc. Narrow down as much as you can and target your ad to that specific group.
For example, let’s say I want to target people dog owners a few weeks before Halloween and send them into the Amazon using my Amazon Associates affiliate program links. I might write an ad that says something like…
Ad Title: Are You A Dog Owner?
Ad Body: Search hundreds of amazing Halloween costumes for your dog at the lowest prices!
I would also add a very catchy image to the ad.
Now, when I choose who to target for this ad, I would only target dog owners at least 25 years old who have “liked” Amazon.com in the past and live in the United States. Notice in the title I asked, “Are you a dog owner?” Well, I already know that everyone I’m targeting IS a dog owner! This, along with the catchy image, will grab their attention and cause them to read the body of the ad. If the body of the ad sounds interesting to them, they will click the ad and end up on Amazon.com through my Amazon Associates affiliate program link. Once on Amazon, the sky is the limit. Amazon is able to convert visitors like CRAZY. Just get potential buyers through the door and let Amazon handle the rest.
Of course, this method can also be used to link back to your own review site as well, that way, you get traffic AND sales through the Amazon Associates affiliate program at the same time. Score!
Email Marketing
I only have one regret about my email marketing strategy… I didn’t start soon enough. Email marketing can be insanely profitable when used in conjunction with your Amazon Associates affiliate program partnership. Now, there’s a saying in the internet marketing community that says, “the money is in the list!”
I think that saying is wrong. The saying really should be, “the money is in your RELATIONSHIP with your list!”
If you have 10,000 people on your email list but only 1% of your list bothers to even open your email, you’re not doing so great. You’d be better off with a list of 1,000 people and having 75% of them open it because they know that every email you send is phenomenal.
How do you accomplish this? Use the 80/20 rule.
About 80% of the emails you send to your list should be more helpful than any other email they received that day. You must provide exceptional quality and figure out how to make peoples lives easier or better through the emails you send them. This is the perfect setup for the other 20% of your emails – sales emails! Now, you don’t have to give a hard sell. For example, in October, you could send an email with “The Top 10 Dog Halloween Costumes Of The Year!” Include goofy pictures of dogs wearing ridiculous looking costumes and link to Amazon where people can buy those costumes if they want to. See how easy it is to “sell” through email marketing? You don’t actually have to SELL at all!
Start A Video Blog
Anyone can start a video blog absolutely free on YouTube, assuming you have access to a web cam or other digital camcorder. Youtube is a great place to promote your Amazon Associates affiliate program links. You don’t need anything fancy. Simply review products or you can just start a video blog about any niche topic you want. I guarantee you there will come a time when you can recommend products to your audience. When you do, tell your audience you have put a link in the video description to the product you’re referencing.
Use Social Media
Start a new Facebook group in niche area and start recruiting people through paid advertising on Facebook to “like” your page. Paying Facebook for followers can be extremely cheap. I grew my Facebook following on DogFoodInsider.com to 25,000 followers at under 1 cent per like. The trick is, you have to be super targeted. My ad for DogFoodInsider.com simply said this…
Ad Title: Are You A Dog Owner?
Ad Body: Click “LIKE” if you rescued your dog from a shelter!
And of course I had an adorable picture of a puppy as the image. I also only targeted people over the age of 25 who live in the United States that own a dog and also “like” an animal shelter (I chose about 50 different shelters to target). And that’s how I got 25,000 followers at under 1 cent per like. Those 25,000 people can be marketed to over and over and over again with my Amazon Associates affiliate program link.
Now, most of the stuff I post on Facebook is just entertainment or information that helps dog owners. But remember that 80 / 20 rule? Sometimes, I post about helpful products and services that dog owners would enjoy. That, of course, includes my Amazon Associates affiliate program link.
….Cha-Ching! 🙂
You don’t even need a website to do this, but it sure does help.
A Few Final Pointers
Amazon doesn’t mess around. If you break the terms and conditions of the Amazon Associates affiliate program, you WILL be booted forever. No doubt about that. So please, please, please, before you start promoting Amazon, read the Amazon Associates Terms & Conditions. This is a REQUIREMENT – as boring as it might seem.
And remember, whether you decide to use paid advertising or a free blog to promote Amazon products through the Amazon Associates affiliate program, there will be a learning curve involved. Don’t expect success right away. But if you stick with it, you’ll find the exact formula that works for you and your target audience. After that, it’s like a cash machine pumping money into your bank account 24/7/365. So have fun and enjoy the process!!