I have, in the past, spoken at length about Commission Junction and the ShareASale affiliate program which helps you monetize your site....
I have, in the past, spoken at length about Commission Junction and the ShareASale affiliate program which helps you monetize your site.
Today, I’m going to talk about the Amazon affiliate program.
Amazon is one of the world’s biggest marketplaces. There are many affiliate marketplaces in the world, but despite that Amazon remains everyone’s first choice to sell their products.
The reason I promote Amazon’s products is they convert incredibly well. Amazon has done well to establish itself as the best e-retailer over the years, and the trust it has with its customers makes customers buy products from them over and over again.
Moreover, in a situation where you direct a user to Amazon, but they end up buying a product different from what you recommended, you still earn a commission.
I had added an Amazon link to a camera on one of my blog posts after joining as an Amazon affiliate but never logged in to my affiliate dashboard to see how many sales I had made.
However, a few months later, when I opened my Amazon affiliate panel, I was surprised to see that I had driven almost a hundred clicks from that one blog post alone and that had converted amazingly well.
Apart from buying a camera from my link, customers had bought several other products, including Levi’s jeans, a book on photography, an Acer Aspire One Netbook, a camera case, and a flash memory card, that gave me a decent commission of about $10 or so.
Though the commission itself wasn’t as much, it gave me the motivation to push harder and made me realize that I could make a lot of money by being an Amazon affiliate in the future. Here is a screenshot that shows the list of some of the sales I made and the earnings as well:
Their affiliate program pays you up to 10% of the sale amount and, depending on what kind of sale you make, it’s an excellent way to make big bucks.
As Amazon offers products in various categories, you can find products for your niche easily. The Amazon commission chart below shows how much commission you will earn for promoting products in various categories:
This is especially true if you are a gadget or mobile blogger. You can write a complete review of a phone and give an Amazon affiliate link. By spending 15 minutes of your time and finding the best mobile deal, you can add substantial extra income.
There are various other ways to make money from the Amazon affiliate program that we will explore ahead. For now, let’s get started with the most crucial part.
You should sign-up for the Amazon affiliate program depending on your geographical location or your target market.
For example, if your target audience is in the U.S., you should sign up for the Amazon U.S. Associate Program using this link. If your target audience is from India, you should sign-up for Amazon India program.
If you plan to promote products from all Amazon geographical location, you should sign up for Amazon affiliate program for all countries like .jp (Japan), .au (Amazon Australia) & so on.
You should also use service like Geni.us or WordPress plugin named EasyAzon to make money from mobile traffic & localize all your affiliate link & make money from all Amazon store in auto-pilot mode.
How to monetize as an Amazon Affiliate?
I assume by now you have signed up for the Amazon Associates program. If not, do it now. (This is for Amazon U.S. Store).
The next step is to get links, banners, or widgets for your site. Depending on your niche, you can select different types of links. For example:
If you have a gadget blog, you can create a page called “Recommended Gadgets”. If you have a movie or music blog, you can add a widget on the sidebar with the movie’s DVD affiliate link. The possibilities are enormous, and depending on your niche, you can add links and monetize your site to a considerable degree using Amazon.
I have posted a detailed tutorial on how to grab links for each product at Amazon and how to place them on your blog. Start linking your products with that ID and make some money!
(Note: Many people ask me if Asian bloggers can join the Amazon affiliate, and the answer is yes.)
To become an affiliate for Amazon, sign up using this link:
Is Amazon Associates Better Than Adsense?
Let us assume your blog gets 1000 visitors a day. Considering an eCPM of about $3 in Google Adsense, which is pretty much the standard, you would make somewhere around $100 per month.
On the other hand, if you have monetized your blog with Amazon affiliate and assuming a safe click-through rate of 5%, you would drive around 50 visitors to Amazon every day. Though I cannot say what your conversion rate will be, let’s assume it is 5%. It means you will make around 2-3 sales every day!
That equals to somewhere between 60-90 sales every month and a commission of anywhere from $200-$2000, depending on the products you promote, which is way better than the income you would have made with Adsense.
There are many Amazon success stories you can find on the Internet, but I would suggest against removing Adsense until you start getting great success with Amazon. Adsense gives you peace of mind with recurring income, whereas Amazon Associates link help you supercharge your income.
Depending on your blog type, you can select which program you want to use for making money. My suggestion? Keep a combination of both and see how they perform.
Amazon links work great within a blog post. You can also add a widget showing related Amazon products below your blog post, which works wonders. You can also take advantage of YouTtube videos and review any product and then link to the Amazon page from the description.
If you have used lots of Amazon links in the past and are looking for easy ways to monetize them, you should try VigLink which will help you convert all links into Amazon associates link. You will also make decent money from it.
I would love to know your story as an Amazon Affiliates. How much money have you made via the Amazon affiliate program thus far?
