If you have shopped on Amazon before, you will know that there are a ton of products on the online marketplace. Now, what if I tell you that you can leverage this to build your own online business? Would you be interested? In this article, I’ll show you the step-by-step on how to make money on Amazon without selling; only recommending good products to other people online.
What Is Amazon?
To give you a perspective about the potential of this opportunity, it’s worth mentioning some history about Amazon. In 1994, founder Jeff Bezos started the company from a garage to sell books. Sales soared and not long later, they started selling all kinds of household products, electronic gadgets, and designer labels.
Today, Amazon is the largest internet-based retailer in the United States, raking more than 100 billion in net sales (2015) with over 300 million active customers shopping on the site – daily.
How to Make Money on Amazon Without Selling?
The way to do this is through the Amazon Associate Program. It adopts the affiliate marketing business model whereby you earn a sales commission whenever you refer a customer to purchase something online from the Amazon marketplace.
Here’s how it works;
- Sign up for a user account with Amazon by providing some personal information.
- You will receive a call from Amazon for verification purposes.
- You’ll be given a unique associate ID that allows you to access the Associate Central where all your affiliate resources reside.
- Now, you can search for the products that you want to promote, get the product links (which has your unique ID attached) and share them on your website or blog.
How Much Does It Cost to Join The Program?
It’s free to become an Amazon Associate. However, you may come across alleged scammers posing as the company’s representatives, offering you this ‘business opportunity’ for an X amount of fee.
Do not fall for this scam! Remember, Amazon will NEVER ask you for an associate fee.
What Do You Need to Get Started?
(1) Find a Niche
In other words, a group of people searching for stuff online. In a more specific manner, a group of people who wants to BUY something online. Why the emphasis on buying? Well, take a look at this graphic.
People who are ready to buy are usually at the decision stage, which means, they have pretty much made up their mind on a certain product. If you target this group of people, it’s going to be a lot easier to make a sales convert.
Having said that, it doesn’t mean that you are going to push every single product on Amazon. Instead, you are going to pick a product category that you are interested in/ passionate/ knowledgeable about and use that to create awareness, help people to understand their situation and ultimately, recommend a product that can solve their problems.
Let’s have a look at the type of products in Amazon, shall we?
Wow! That’s a long list and it’s not even the entire thing yet. Now you understand why you only need ONE NICHE to get started. So, take your time to study the product categories and then decide which one you want to get involved with.
(2) Get a Domain Name
After selecting a niche, you are going to build a website, but before that, you’ll need to come up with a domain name. A domain is your business name and it usually reflects the niche that you are targeting. If you are thinking about long term growth, I would recommend that you invest in a custom domain because, with a proprietorship, you have more control over your business.
SiteRubix is a great place to buy domain names. It’s affordable and comes with an all-inclusive package. For example, if I am planning to make money with pet products, I may choose a domain name like ‘happydogaccesories.com’. As you can see, it’s still available for only $13.99/year.
(3) Build a Website
After getting the domain name, you’ll need to link it to a website and fortunately, you can do this easily within SiteRubix too. All you need is to wait for a couple of minutes for your domain to be registered and then you can start to create your website on the powerful WordPress platform.
(4) Research Keywords
Now that you have got the basic structures set up, you are going to create content (articles) for your site. Keep in mind that adding content will help in growing traffic to your site so this is something that you need to do regularly.
So, what exactly are keywords? They are merely terms that people type on search engines whenever they are looking for something online. In your case, you are going to search for terms related to your niche and use them to produce articles for your audience. To do this, you’ll need a keyword research tool and my favorite one is Jaaxy.
Your keywords choice should match these 3 criteria for improved online search-ability;
- Phrases must make sense.
- Should contain at least 3 words or more – the more descriptive, the better.
- It has a low competition level.
Using the pet product niche, for example, if you want to recommend a durable dog bed, your keyword choices would be the following;
Notice how descriptive these terms are? They also have higher monthly searches (AVG column) and most importantly, low competition level (QSR column). Read this page for more information on how to create content for a niche.
(5) Write a Product Review
The whole point of doing keyword research is that you can funnel your readers – whether they are in the Awareness, Consideration, or Decision stage – to your product review page where your affiliate links reside. Here’s where you want to promote a particular product and if they are convinced with the recommendation, you’ll be on your way to making a sales commission from Amazon.
How Much Can You Make?
There’s a lot of discussion about how much people can make as an Amazon Associate. Some say that the payout is low while some boast about making a full-time income from it. Well, let’s see where all the figures come from. There are generally two types of commission structures that dictate your earnings as an Amazon Associate. As of 1st March 2017, these are the new commission fees that apply for each product category.
In general, you start with a minimum of 4%, so if an item sells for $100, you earn $4. At a glance, this looks like a very small sum, but they’re something else that beginners usually overlook. This income is potentially recurring.
A good product review can gather hundreds (if not thousands) of online searches per month. If 100 readers convert, you make $400. If 200 converts, you make $800 and so on. And that’s only for one Amazon product review. In the lifespan of your online business, you’ll be writing a lot more than just one product review, so imagine the potential income that you’ll be able to generate.
Plus, Amazon generates over $100 billion in sales per year, so even earning as little as 0.01% as an affiliate can be very lucrative, don’t you think?
So, Is Amazon Associate Worthy of Your Time?
All you do is advertising; no selling and no inventory, so that already saves you a lot of time. And, it gets even better. You see, Amazon has a pretty good funnel system by itself;
- It’s a trusted brand with good customer service that attracts millions of online shoppers every day.
- When shoppers buy more than one item, you earn commissions from other purchases as well.
- You can use the pre-existing customer reviews to enhance your product review page.
- You can leverage from sales promotion to attract more audience to your site.
- If you invest in effort and time, you can expect to see some good earnings within months. Here are the testimonials from some Amazon Associates who are doing quite well as an affiliate.
Do You Want to Make Money from Amazon Too?
Even though many resources out there would offer you success tips to becoming an Amazon Associate, none of them come close to my number one affiliate marketing platform. In their training, you’ll learn about;
- Researching a profitable niche.
- Building a powerful WordPress website.
- Doing proper keyword research for your content.
- And most importantly, growing constant traffic to your site.
The success experienced by Andreas, Nat, and Carlton was the result of doing this training. No matter what niche you are involved in, as long as you follow the step-by-step, you’ll be making money on Amazon without having to sell anything, just like them too. If you are interested to learn more, check out my review on Wealthy Affiliate here.
Do you have any tips or questions on how to become an Amazon Associate? Please leave your comment below and I’ll get back to you.
Cathy–
This is a very detailed overview and an exciting read. I’m one of the Wealthy Affiliate new persons on the block, and I am definitely going this route with Amazon.
I like how you take a person through the basic steps, which alleviates some fear people have. It’s so easy to both sign up for Wealthy Affiliate and Amazon that I am surprised more people haven’t done it yet.
You’ll help lead them there, and so will I! By the way, I think one of the most powerful graphics you have on this page is the Buyer’s Journey. I think that making the reader understand that when we target a niche that is ready to shop that great things can happen.
I am glad this article has benefited you. While it’s easy to sign up for Amazon, do take precaution when using the affiliate links. Try to get a few articles on the first page first and especially to your product review page before implementing the links. That way, you’ll be able to maximize traffic for sales conversion.
Hi Cathy,
Thanks this a great review on how to make money using the Amazon Associate program. I understand promoting products on Amazon is how a lot of affiliate marketing newbies start out. So this should be a great guide to follow for anyone that is new to affiliate marketing.
Hi there Cathy. What a very detailed and informative article. I have been an affiliate for quite a few years now but I have to admit I have never tried Amazon simply due to the fact that the commission rates are lower than many of the alternatives. On the other hand it does seem that there is a lot of scope to find totally unique niches that are pretty low in competition. You have certainly got me thinking about giving Amazon a try! Many thanks.
Hi Cathy, your article was very informative. I will have to review it a few times in order to understand and retain the wealth of information you presented. I think that you made a very good point when you said that although the commission is low, Amazon is a trusted site. I can actually see why the commission is low in a way, because they sell items at much lower prices than most stores and they’re customer services is second to none. I know I trust Amazon a lot. They have always treated me well and with all of the items I buy from Amazon, there are many I could review.
Amazon’s customer review database is a very useful resource if you are wondering how to write a good product review. It’s something that affiliate marketers should utilize if there’s a product worth recommending within their niche.
One of the best, most straightforward explanations I have seen on how to leverage Amazon. I think a lot of people think they have to buy and drop ship physical products in order to make money, but you’ve shown that isn’t true. In your experience, do you find it time consuming to write blogs around these products?
Also, how long does it take to build up a good amount of traffic and start making commissions from Amazon? I like that you pointed out Amazon will never ask for an affiliate fee, so if you find yourself in that situation you know it’s a scam. Valuable information – thanks.
Mara, to answer your questions;
1) Researching what products to promote online can be time consuming for sure because there is so much information to compile and summarize for your readers. In the initial stage, it took me a week just to write a blog post, but over time, I have developed my own strategy and now, I could churn out 3 good quality posts/week – whether they are product reviews or tutorial based articles.
2) Every niche blog has its own traffic pattern and I think it depends on how much effort (and again, time) you are willing to invest into your blog. There are so many factors that determines online traffic such as publishing frequency, keyword research and content engagement so it’s really hard to pin down to a time duration. Some people see conversion as early as 3 months while others could experience longer like 2-3 years.
Hope this helps clarify things for you.
Hey Cathy, this is a great review on making money on Amazon. I am an affiliate and although I am far from being successful I am hopeful it will work in longer terms. Actually what you write about banners and 15% commission is new for me, thank you for this. Thank you for this useful article.
Hi there Jovo,
I just went to check out the banner commission and it looks like they have changed to 10% for banner links. You can read more of this here. I am very sure that if you keep researching and writing good stuff about your niche, you can make some good earnings as an Amazon Associate.
Hi Cathy,
I promote Amazon products too, but because the commission rate is so low, I prefer products from ClickBank or ShareASale.
I am currently promoting Wealthy Affiliate whereby the commission is almost 50% per sale and the cookie is placed for a lifetime. This means that if your reader sign up as member under your affiliate link, they will forever be placed under you if they decide to upgrade to a premium.
Hi there Florence,
Thanks for pointing that out. Wealthy Affiliate University is one of the highest paying affiliate program and as part of their incentives, they send their top earners for a conference in Las Vegas every year. Their training, which includes the latest web tools and support, can also be used to promote other affiliate products from Amazon or ClickBank.
Hi Cathy,
Thank you for writing such an informative article on how to make money from what others sell from Amazon through their affiliate program. How long do you have to be doing this truly see an actual income from it? Look forward to you response on this matter.
Yours Truly,
Carlton
Hi there Carlton,
If you have a very specific niche and use low competition long tail keywords to engage with your readers, it’s not impossible to start earning in less than a month. If you want to know how this works, I highly recommend that you watch this Live Niche Case webinar by Jay from Wealthy Affiliate as he shows you how to build a site and earn as an Amazon Associate.
Hope this helps.
I enjoyed reading your post on Amazon Associates. I’ve been an AA for some time now, but have only recently really started to promote some Amazon products as an affiliate. Your post told my some things I didn’t already know about the Associates program, so I found it very informative.
The low commissions is what sometimes puts me off promoting products on Amazon, but that is offset by their great reputation. People don’t hesitate to make a purchase on Amazon, whereas they may balk at buying something from a site they’ve never heard of before.
Welcome to my blog Darren,
It’s always good to revise the program’s terms and conditions given that you’ve not been doing any promotion for awhile. Commission is a big factor that drives our motivation as affiliate marketers and the good news is, there are actually plenty of ways to search for affiliate products besides limiting to the Amazon marketplace.
I hope the information in this article will be able to help in your online venture going forward.
Very informative page on Amazon affiliation.
I have set up affiliation with both the Amazon UK and Amazon US and have not had any success at all. My site is quite young, though, just 2+ months. I have yet to have a single sale through either site and I’m now worried that if nothing happens soon, my amazon membership will be revoked.
I have the plug in that allows the UK and US sites to show the correct currency but really don’t know how to check if it’s working. I have had 68 clicks on the UK site but only one on the US site which seems strange.
Have you any ideas?
Hi Ches,
There are many reasons why your clicks are not (yet) converting. Given the infancy of your sites, here are something to consider;
1) Are you allowing Google Analytics to track your IP address? It could be your own clicks that you are seeing.
2) How popular is your product niche and how competitive is your keyword research?
3) How frequent are you publishing your blogs?
4) Have you run a checklist of your on-page and off-page SEO factors for each of the blog posts?
Jay from Wealthy Affiliate did a Live Niche Case study recently on how to select a low competition niche and profit from it. Do check it out. If you need anything else, just let me know.
Thanks for this great information Cathy. I learned a lot from your post on making money through Amazon. I have signed up with Amazon and just started to promote their products, however I am using Pretty Link! I had no idea I wasn’t allowed to put their links into Pretty Link.
I am off to go and change my content. Thank you so much for sharing that valuable information.
Hi there Lynne,
Yeah, not many people know about the shortening of Amazon affiliate link. For clarification, here’s an excerpt from the Amazon Help Page;
“While you are welcome to use link shortening services, the link checker will not be able to verify that these links are functioning as intended. Please remember that you must clearly state that the link in question will take the user to the Amazon site when clicked and ensure that the site on which you are posting the links includes the required statement to identify yourself as an Associate. You must also be able to provide detailed information about the site(s) on which your links have been posted if we request it.
We do offer our own link shortening tool that can be used with Product Links. To shorten your links, search for a product from the Associates homepage under ‘Quickly Add Links’ and choose the down arrow next to the item you want to advertise. A message box will appear and you can select ‘Shorten URL with amzn.to’ and copy the short code for your site.”
Hope this helps.
Hello Cathy,
Great write-up, totally agree with you on Amazon being a powerful platform for online marketers to earn money as affiliates.
I really take advantage of beginners who try to take advantage of beginners by telling them that they need to pay in order to become a member. I’ve seen many of those programs myself and I do reviews on them to warn others to avoid these programs if they ever come across.
As an affiliate, we are basically selling others people’s products for them and making them money so why do we need to pay in order to sell right? I love your post. Great read.
Hi there Riaz,
Like I mentioned in the article, there’s always going to be people trying to con others on the internet using big brand names. That’s why we need to educate users on the basics before they venture into their own online marketing. Wealthy Affiliate has got some good training especially for beginners, so I would recommend that you check it out.
Hi Cathy,
Great info on the Amazon program. I have a question though – I heard somewhere that as an Amazon affiliate, if you don’t have a sale in 3 months – you will lose your affiliate membership and your links stop working. Have you heard this also? And do you know if this is still the case?
Hi Karina, a friend who was an ex-associate said that the duration was 6 months during his time. The same situation happened to him and he suggested that you can re-apply for the program when you get more traffic to your website. Hope this helps!
Hi Cathy,
Can you explain better what you mean by “You can shorten the (long) affiliate links using Amazon’s Link Shortener, but not with external tools like Bitly or Pretty Link.”
I’m using Pretty Link for my affiliate links, I was thinking it is just some kind of redirect tools; now I’m quite worried. Thank you!
Hi there Alessio,
According to this blogger shortening links using Bitly is a form of violation to the Amazon’s Affiliate Program Rules. I don’t suppose this has changed, but it’s worth checking out the agreement policies again. Hope this helps.
I often thought about to start promoting products that I have been able to find on Amazon. My problem is that I want to describe the products in my own language. Other restriction is that the people here also have to pay for the shipment. We do not have a culture that fits affiliate blogs.
But Amazon is a great shop to move around and I hope that they will open here a day.
Hi there Steen,
Yeah, it’s unfortunate that Amazon only limits their associates to certain set of countries. But hey, it isn’t the only affiliate program on the internet. There are tons of other affiliate programs that can offer much higher commission rates, some even up to 12% for a single product sale. Check out this post on how you can search for a niche product to sell online (without limiting to just Amazon).
Hi Cathy, this is a very comprehensive post with lots of good information on how to sell on amazon, how it works, how much you can make and so on. But my favorite was for us to pay attention to the scammers. They’re everywhere and their tricks are always surprising.
Hey Ana. That is what’s happening to all the big names. IRS has got scammers, PayPal do too and now is Amazon’s turn. It’s easy to fall for the trap because no one would thought that someone would hide behind these are trustworthy names and steal from them. Therefore, it’s always important to read reviews about a merchant before deciding to work alongside with them.
Hello Cathy
I am an internet entrepreneur like you , a very fresh one , my website published just a week ago and it is a WordPress like yours. I am interested in co-operating with Amazon (and other companies as well) in the future and your article got my attention. You made an extended research on their system and I thank you for that cause now, I have all that valuable information in hand. That means you are saving much of my time right now.
I think that Amazon has a lot of restrictions, but it must worth our time to invest on their products after all. Besides we all have to try something first before we make a conclusion. It is a giant corporation that offers quality products, customer support and service beyond the average level. And I am speaking from my personal experience here because I am an Amazon customer for years now with no problem at all. And it is very important to associate with trusted partners.
Welcome to my blog, Tasos.
Many people don’t really know how Amazon Associate works so I thought it would be great to lay out the steps here. As Amazon customers ourselves, I am sure there are products that we would (or would not) recommend to other shoppers and I think having the opportunity to become an affiliate marketer will enable us to express our opinions clearly.
I hope you’ll gain successful results working with them.
Wow! Super thorough article Cathy. I have been dabbling in Amazon affiliates for a few months now and and am slowly learning the ropes. My advice is to not expect overnight success. This is a business like any other and requires hard work, dedication, patience and some amount of thinking outside the box. Thanks for the great article.
Hi there Chris,
Affiliate marketing in general, can be a steep learning process for those who are not familiar with it. Most people started blindly, jump into programs that promise to give them results only to lose more money before they can earn anything.
That’s why it’s important to get proper training and understand the basics of this marketing modal. It’s not just about promoting a product; it’s about building a profitable online business and good customer relationship over a long-term period.
If you are still wondering about starting an Amazon business, I would encourage you to check out the entrepreneurship training at Wealthy Affiliate. They have some of the most experienced people to help you out.
Hi Cathy, this is another great post. I really like Amazon as they have so many products at prices to suit every pocket. As you said once you are on their site you cannot help buying more than what you were originally wanting and budgeting for.
I have not heard of EasyAzon4 so I will be looking in that to increase cookie life. Thank you so much for the great information.
Hi there Lis,
I know some affiliate marketers who have quite a bit of success using EasyAzon4, so yeah, do check it out.
Thanks, Cathy. I’m pretty new to affiliate marketing and was wondering about Amazon and was going to investigate it further to see if it’s for me. I guess you’ve taken all the work out of that for me now. It’s all here. Great.
Welcome to my blog, Eoin. All of us start from somewhere and I am glad to know that this article has help to speed things up a little for you.