You want to make make money with Amazon affiliate marketing but have no idea where to start?
You’re on the right page.
In this Amazon affiliate marketing tutorial, we’re going to cover:
- What Amazon affiliate marketing is: We’ll clear up any misconceptions and break it down into simple terms so you can get started right away.
- Real-life examples: I’ll show you successful Amazon affiliate marketing examples in action to inspire you and give you a clear picture of what’s possible.
- Top strategies for success: I’ll share the three best strategies that are working right now to promote your links and make your first sales. These are actionable steps you can start implementing today.
- Building a reliable revenue stream: Finally, I’ll explain how to turn those initial sales into a consistent and reliable income for months and even years to come.
And whenever you’re ready to launch your $10k+ a month Amazon affiliate marketing business, join Wealthy Affiliate here to get instant access to AI tools, step-by-step courses, and a vibrant community of over 2.9 million affiliates.
Wealthy Affiliate is hands-down the best place to fast-track your success and build a thriving online business so don’t miss out – hit that link below and give yourself the strongest start possible.
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What Is Amazon Affiliate Marketing?
So, first things first, what is Amazon affiliate marketing?
I want to break it down so we’re all on the same page, in a way that’s easy to understand. A lot of people like to overcomplicate it, but it’s actually pretty straightforward.
Amazon affiliate marketing is where you earn money online by promoting any of Amazon’s 350+ million products.
You join the Amazon Associates program for free, which is the name of Amazon’s affiliate program.
They give you a unique referral ID, which you can use to get an affiliate link for any product page.
You then share these links with others, and when someone clicks on them and makes a purchase, Amazon pays you a commission.
Now, you may be wondering:
“What does it mean when Amazon pays you a commission?”
Simply put, it means you get a cut of every product sold.
Amazon commission rates are determined by the product price and a fixed commission rate specific to each product category.
For example, let’s say someone clicked through your affiliate link and bought this fridge:
At a $215 price point with a 4.5% commission rate, you’d make $9.68.
And what you’ll find is, if you apply the strategies I’ll share with you, that it won’t be long before you’re making hundreds or even thousands of commissions like these on a daily, ongoing basis to make a serious online income for yourself.
And what you’ll find is, if you apply the strategies I’ll share with you, it won’t be long before you’re making hundreds or even thousands of commissions like these on a daily, ongoing basis, generating a serious online income for yourself.
And that’s all Amazon affiliate marketing is.
Once you understand this core concept, the rest of the video and the strategies I’ll show you will make a lot more sense.
Why Amazon Affiliate Marketing?
Now, another question that’s extremely important to ask before we get into the actual nuts and bolts strategy of how to start Amazon affiliate marketing is:
Why is Amazon affiliate marketing, and affiliate marketing more generally, such a great business model?
And why would you choose Amazon affiliate marketing over any other online business model?
There’s a few reasons:
Commission rates: While they might seem modest, they add up very quickly, especially with the sheer volume of sales Amazon generates.
High conversion rates: Amazon is a trusted and well-known brand and they’ve got their sales funnel and upsells down. That plus their free same-day delivery means people are far more likely to hit the buy now button.
Commissions on anything: If someone clicks your link to buy a book but ends up buying a TV, a Black & Decker cordless drill and I don’t know… a giant inflatable unicorn – you get commissions on all of it.
Amazon relies heavily on affiliates to drive both new and returning customers to their site. They need us to help bring in sales, and in return, they reward us generously.
Amazon makes more sales, customers get the products they want, and you, as the Amazon affiliate, get a cut of the profits:
It’s a total win-win-win situation, making Amazon affiliate marketing a proven and sustainable business model for many years to come.
Amazon Affiliate Marketing FAQs
Before we jump into the strategies, let’s tackle a few rapid-fire frequently asked questions that are super helpful for anyone just getting started in this business.
How Do You Become An Amazon Affiliate?
The first question many ask is how to become an Amazon affiliate. It’s straightforward:
- Head over to Amazon.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on ‘Become an Affiliate’.
- Fill out the required details.
- You’ll receive an email confirming your approval within 24-48 hours.
Once approved, you can generate your affiliate links by visiting any product page, clicking ‘Get link’ in the top left, and copying your unique affiliate link.
Do You Need Experience To Start Amazon Affiliate Marketing?
The short answer here is no.
There are so many different ways to do affiliate marketing with Amazon, and you don’t need any prior experience or an existing online business to do really well and succeed at this.
You can start today and see results, even if you’re a complete beginner and you’ve never done anything like this before. Plus, you don’t need a large following or social media presence to get started.
And while we’re talking about getting started, you can start Amazon affiliate marketing for free as well. You can join the Amazon Associates program for free and with the marketing strategies I’ll share with you, you’ll be able to get people to click on your links and generate sales without spending a dime.
How Much Time Do You Need To Invest Into Amazon Affiliate Marketing?
One of the best things about affiliate marketing is the ability to invest time upfront where you reap the rewards for years to come.
The affiliate marketing business model allows you to create and publish content online that continues to generate clicks and sales long after you’ve created it.
This means you can earn passive income without constantly updating or publishing new content.
Once you put in the initial work and get your content out there, it can keep making you money for years.
I can personally vouch for this. I’ve been doing affiliate marketing full-time for ten years, and I still earn hundreds or even thousands of dollars each month from content I created 7, 8, or even 9 years ago.
You’ll see what I mean when we discuss the different strategies for affiliate marketing.
How Fast Can You Make Money With Amazon Affiliate Marketing?
Okay, the next question: How soon can you expect to see results and start making money if you start affiliate marketing today?
The speed at which you’ll see money start coming in depends on how quickly you create and share marketing content online.
Unlike other business models where you might have to wait months or even years to see profits, Amazon affiliate marketing can deliver results fairly quickly.
Personally, I made my first sale just two weeks after I started. Some achieve results quicker than that, while others may take a bit longer.
Safe to say, as long as you’re consistently and actively working on your business, you should start making money within the first month.
From there, you can scale by creating more content and expanding your efforts to increase your income.
How Do I Choose What Products To Promote As An Amazon Affiliate?
Picking the right products will make or break your success as an Amazon affiliate.
Don’t make the mistake of promoting random products because you think that’s where all the money is – that’s a rookie mistake.
Instead, pick a target audience and think about what that audience buys online.
How do you do that? Well, by sticking with what you know…
Whether you’re a tech geek, a fashionista or a DIY enthusiast – whatever it is you’re into – choose a niche topic or product category you know a little something about.
This way, you can speak their language and connect more effectively with your target audience. I promise you’ll make more sales and more money as a result.
How Do You Get Paid With Amazon Affiliate Marketing?
A really common question is, how do you get paid?
Once you’ve earned commissions, Amazon will automatically pay you through direct deposit into your bank account or by sending you a check and you can choose how you want to get paid.
Payments are typically sent at the end of the month and you don’t need a business bank account for this; you can use your personal bank account.
Whether you’re getting paid through direct deposit or check, you can do Amazon affiliate marketing from anywhere in the world. You don’t need to be located in the UK or US. This is a business you can run no matter where you are.
Do You Need A Business Entity For Amazon Affiliate Marketing?
Alright, the last question in this rapid-fire round is:
Do you need a business entity, like an LLC, to get started with Amazon affiliate marketing?
We just talked about how you can use your personal bank account to get paid. So, do you need a business entity for Amazon affiliate marketing?
The answer is no, you don’t need to set up a business entity initially.
However, once you start reaching the $50,000 per month mark, it might be a good idea to set up a business entity. This will help you keep your commission payments organized and separate from your personal finances.
Alright, so now that we’ve gone over what Amazon affiliate marketing is and answered a bunch of these common questions, hopefully, we’re on the same page about this business model.
3 Top Amazon Affiliate Marketing Strategies
Alright, you’re an Amazon affiliate with access to all your Amazon affiliate links, so now let’s talk strategy. You’re already an Amazon Associate, you’ve got access to all your links, now how the heck do you start getting clicks and making sales?
I’m going to run you through the three most-effective Amazon affiliate marketing strategies here so you can choose the one that works best for you and you can get started doing it.
Now, this is where my 10 years of experience come into play. What I’m about to share with you isn’t usually presented this way, so I hope you find it really valuable and eye-opening.
The Search Strategy
So the first way to do Amazon affiliate marketing, which I’d say is the most beginner friendly here, is what I call The Search Strategy.
The way this works is whenever someone near the end of the customer buying cycle, meaning they’re thinking about buying something, goes to Google or YouTube and searches about a product they want to buy.
And it’s at this point we want to show up in those search results so we can recommend the best products for them with our affiliate link and nab the sale.
So for example, if we go ahead and type in “Best cookware sets” and scroll past these ads here and look at the actual search results you can see affiliate websites like this come up.
And this is exactly where you want to show up.
So let me just click on this one and show you how they do it. So this website is called SeriousEats.com and this is actually one of the websites I used in my other video where I show the 10 best affiliate marketing website examples.
As you can see, straight away they’re telling you what are the best cookware sets to buy and then here’s their Amazon affiliate link.
You’ll notice they have affiliate links to other online stores too so you can use this strategy for not just Amazon, but for other affiliate programs too.
So if we click on this link, it’s going to redirect us to Amazon.
So for me as a buyer, this looks like I’m just on Amazon, nothing’s different. The prices are the same, everything’s exactly the same, but because I clicked through this site owner’s affiliate link, if I add this to cart and buy this now (or anything else for that matter), then they’re going to get the credit for the sale and earn a commission.
So basically, with the search strategy, you’re creating a website and publishing written content like best of lists and product reviews that show up on Google when people are searching for something they want to buy.
And I really like this strategy because there’s a real intentionality behind it. Search traffic is laser-focused and targeted.
These aren’t people casually scrolling Instagram or TikTok, these are people who, in this case, have already decided they want to buy a cookware set so it’s not a hard sell. We’re simply helping to point them in the right direction.
Google is the single most popular website on the planet and it performs 5.9 million searches every minute. That’s 98,333 times a second! So there’s a ton of traffic going to all of these search result pages.
Now with that said, YouTube is the second most popular website on the internet and it performs 69,444 searches a minute.
So let’s go back to our best cookware sets example and say that, instead of creating written content and posting it to your website, you created a YouTube video and uploaded it to your channel.
And if you’re shy in front of the camera then you don’t even have to be in the video, you can just show the pots and pans sharing your experience using them without ever needing to show your face.
And the great thing about creating YouTube content is that (because remember, Google owns YouTube) you’re going to show up in both YouTube results AND Google results.
So you’re potentially opening yourself up to double the amount of traffic, clicks and commissions.
Now, if we go to YouTube and run a search for “best cookware sets” again, we can click on any one of these videos, go down to the description and yep, you can see right here, these are all his Amazon affiliate links.
So you click on any of these, exactly the same as the website example, it’s going to take you over to the Amazon product page and the person who uploaded this YouTube video is going to make commissions.
And as you can see, this one video alone has over 120,000 views. Now imagine if you had a YouTube channel with 50, 100 or even 500 videos all promoting different products on Amazon.
This just goes to show, you can absolutely build a 5 or 6 figure online income with Amazon affiliate marketing using this search strategy.
The Social Strategy
So that brings us to the second Amazon affiliate marketing strategy I like to call The Social Strategy.
Instead of creating content to show up in search results, we create content on social media sites like TikTok, Facebook, or Instagram to build a following and get eyeballs on our affiliate products.
Let me show you a great example of this in action. This is @TopOnlineFinds on Instagram:
She has 529k followers with 483 posts. And look at this – every post showcases an Amazon affiliate product, whether it’s clothing and accessories, kitchen gadgets, storage solutions, or home furniture.
Basically, she’s just posting her own photos or short videos to showcase the products. If you check out any of her posts, you’ll see she’s telling people to click her link in bio.
So let’s do that, and you’ll see we’re taken straight over to her Amazon storefront where she’s organized all her featured products into neat categories.
If any of her followers come here, find something they like, and purchase any of these products, she’s going to make commissions.
@TopOnlineFinds is clearly aimed at women and mothers. With this social method, the key is to choose a target audience and promote products you know they would be interested in.
Another thing to know is you don’t have to limit yourself to Amazon. You can join as many affiliate programs and promote as many products as you want. If you wanted to promote products from BestBuy, Walmart, or anywhere else, you absolutely can.
The Spend Strategy
Alright, now let’s dive into the third and most advanced strategy for Amazon affiliate marketing – The Spend Strategy.
This approach is all about investing your own money into advertising to put affiliate products in front of potential buyers at the moment they’re ready to make a purchase.
Now, this strategy is not for the faint of heart. It’s like the Formula 1 of affiliate marketing – it’s high risk and high reward and also the most scalable once you know how to create profitable campaigns.
Most affiliate marketers haven’t even implemented this strategy in their own businesses because it’s complex, requires serious skills, and, let’s face it, there’s your own hard-earned cash on the line.
Here’s how it works in real life. Imagine you’re on YouTube searching for “best gaming laptops”.
You’ll immediately spot an ad right at the top. Click on that, and you’re taken to a sleek website selling gaming laptops. Now, this ad might be from the company itself, but guess what? You could be running that ad as an affiliate, too.
Let’s say you earn $30 for every gaming laptop sale. All you’ve gotta do is ensure that your ad spend is less than that $30 to turn a profit.
Another way you’ll see this Spend Strategy in action is with video ads. Click on any of those top-ranked videos, and before your content starts, you’re hit with an ad — maybe one that’s pushing gaming laptops. The person who paid for that ad? They’re hoping you’ll click, check out the laptops, and make a purchase. And, if they’ve got their sums right, they’ll make more on the sale than they spent on the ad.
These video ads pop up on both YouTube and Facebook. On Facebook, it’s the same deal – you’re scrolling through your feed, and boom, there’s a video ad asking you to check out a high-ticket product.
So why is this strategy so advanced? Well, unlike the other methods where you create content and wait for it to rank or build an audience organically, here you’re forking out cash every time someone lays eyes on your ad.
With those other methods, there’s basically zero risk. If someone buys through your link, you get paid. But with the Spend Strategy, you’ve got to shell out upfront and pray your ad hits the mark – that enough people buy what you’re selling to cover your costs and then some.
This is going to take some experimentation, some tweaking to get it right, and there’s no guarantee it will work which is why this advanced strategy isn’t for everyone.
So this won’t work for all products, only high-ticket items where you have enough of a profit margin.
With the search and social strategies, you can do them for free. There’s no risk. You just invest your time to create the content and get traffic and sales organically.
The Spend Strategy is the big leagues of affiliate marketing because it’s about putting your money where your mouth is.
Which Amazon Affiliate Marketing Strategy Is Best?
Now, the big question: which Amazon affiliate marketing strategy should you start with?
Here’s what I’ve learned, and it’s crucial for you to know before diving in:
Each strategy – whether it’s the Search Strategy, the Social Strategy or the Spend Strategy – comes with its own set of pros and cons that will impact your lifestyle.
Let’s break it down:
If you go for the Search Strategy and create content like articles or videos that you publish online, it’s relatively stress-free. You invest time upfront to create the content, but once it’s out there, people can find it organically for months or even years to come.
Plus, it’s risk-free; every commission dollar you earn is pure profit because you’re not spending anything on ads.
Now, as you move into the Social Strategy, things get a bit more demanding.
You need to consistently post and engage your audience to keep them subscribed or following your social accounts. Unlike search traffic, which flows steadily once established, social requires ongoing effort to maintain sales momentum.
Now, the Spend Strategy introduces another level of pressure.
Here, you’re managing ad spend and profit margins closely to ensure you’re getting a positive return. You have to watch your ad spend and profit margins like a hawk to ensure you’re not just burning through money without making a good return.
So there you have the three strategies for doing Amazon affiliate marketing.
If you’ve followed along this far and you’re serious about diving into any of these strategies with a comprehensive step-by-step guide, I highly recommend checking out Wealthy Affiliate.
You can get started for free.
As I mentioned at the beginning, Wealthy Affiliate gives you an all-in-one platform that guides you through everything—from setting up your website or YouTube channel to crafting content that attracts free, buyer-ready traffic, finding winning products to promote to maximising conversions – it’s all there.
Their structured step-by-step courses and AI-powered affiliate tools streamline the entire process, saving you time and cutting out a ton of trial and error as well.
I hope you found this Amazon affiliate marketing guide helpful, and if you have any questions, of course, drop them in the comments section; I’m here to help.