Most people cut their teeth in affiliate marketing by becoming Amazon affiliates. This is because Amazon sells almost [sc name=”amazon_affiliate” asin=”B00BWQW73E” text=”everything“] and makes it easy to be an affiliate.
I am new to Amazon affiliate marketing, but I will share what I know. This topic will eventually span several blogs. Like so many other things it is both a simple and endless topic at the same time.
For example, this post was to be much shorter and cover more topics. It just exploded. I cannot do each topic justice in one blog, so I narrowed the scope of this blog drastically. There will be many more follow-up blogs on Amazon affiliate marketing.
The first thing to do is buy, read, and follow the advice in this book:
There. My work is done. On to my next blog post….
Seriously, the book is good. Although it is a few years old, Chris Guthrie lays out principles that are timeless.
Our affiliate site, wtfamazing.com, is mostly Amazon products. This is because Amazon makes their affiliate programs so easy to use.
One feature of Amazon I like is that they approve you immediately and you have 180 days to make three qualified sales. This means you can get started right away.
If you don’t make your three qualified sales in the 180 days, you are removed as an Amazon affiliate. You simply reapply to become one again.
Study Amazon’s rules and learn Amazon. This will take a while, so make it part of running your business to get to know Amazon. It is important ot keep them happy.
One rule they have is that you must tell people in a prominent place on your website that you are an affiliate site. My solution to this was originally to add a simple statement about this on every page.
As a side note, Amazon recently changed their commission rates. This will not likely affect me or you because we are both so new as Amazon affiliates.
A few sensible precautions. Don’t try to game the system. Amazon’s software programmers are top notch and Amazon can detect this. Follow their rules.
Amazon uses tracking cookies to know who should get a commission.
If someone goes to Amazon by clicking on your affiliate link, a special cookie is stored on their computer. You get a commission on anything they purchase in the next 24 hours.
Amazon wants organic sales. Organic sales are sales that happen naturally, without any rigging of the system. Organic sales can be increased by promoting your site on social media platforms and getting traffic to your website. This includes good SEO practices, using compelling copywriting, and good images. These will be covered in future blogs as I learn about them.
A big rule is never to purchase an Amazon product using your affiliate ID or your affiliate store. Some people do this thinking that they will get a commission on products that they are buying “from themselves”.
Amazon hates this and will ban you for life if you attempt this. So don’t do it.
This can happen accidentally if you test an affiliate link in your store by clicking on it. I did this several times when first setting up my store.
My friend who owns WTF Take My Money told me a simple way of avoiding this problem. Use another computer. One the second computer, never click on one of your affiliate links. Avoid them completely so that you don’t accidentally get your affiliate cookie and upset Amazon.
Use the second computer for all your Amazon purchases.
This works well for me because I have my wife’s old computer right next to the one I use for my store. I use her computer for all my Amazon purchases and I never go to my store on her computer. This keeps things separate for Amazon.
Also, do not try to game the system by having your friends buy from your affiliate store and you are buying from theirs. This is a variation of the “buying from yourself” game rigging. Amazon can detect this, and they don’t like it.
How Do You Get Started?
Become An Amazon Associate
How do you get started? Just go to affiliate-program.amazon.com and click the Sign Up button. Answer their questions.
I don’t know if this is wise or not, but I skipped the questions where I put in my tax and banking information. Amazon cannot pay me until I provide this, which is OK. First, I want to earn some commissions. I want to worry about getting paid later, when there is some money already made.
Notice that I suggested signing up with amazon.com. Have you ever wondered why people seem to always link to amazon.com? There is a reason and that reason is called One Link.
One Link allows you to internationalize your affiliate business. I will go into One Link in detail in another blog. Basically, you sign up as an affiliate with amazon.com and sign up for One Link. Then you sign up with the affiliate programs in any other country you are interested in.
Your affiliate links will point to amazon.com and Amazon will redirect your customers to their respective countries.
You can sign up as a Canadian Amazon associate (the Canadian version of affiliate marketer) at associates.amazon.ca. My friend who owns WTF Take My Money prefers to remain a Canadian only affiliate at this time.
Use Site Stripe
Login your affiliate account at affiliate-program.amazon.com and leave it open in a tab. Open a second browser tab and go to amazon.com.
Find a product you want to sell. At the top left of the Amazon page you will see Site Stripe.
To make a text link, click on Text in the upper left corner. A box opens up that shows you your Store ID and your Affiliate ID.
Copy the link Amazon provides. it is usually highlighted. In this example, I would copy the link https://amzn.to/38JXd8X.
Create the link as you would any normal hyperlink. This one would look something like No B.S. Guide to Direct Response Social Media Marketing.
Similarly, you can click on Custom.
When you paste the highlighted HTML code into your website, it will look like:
You can also use the Site Stripe image link. Pick the size of the image you prefer. I am partial to the large size of the image.
It gives looks lik this on a website:
Last but not least, is Image+Text. I prefer it with no border.
And looks like this on a webpage:
Now, what do you do? Read Chris Guthrie‘s book. In future blogs, I will examine various aspects of this.
Buy this book! Or read it for free with Kindle Unlimited.
