top affiliate programs | Amazon Affiliation: The Best Affiliate Program for Webmasters?

Amazon Affiliation: The Best Affiliate Program for Webmasters?




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Today David, from the site BonjourArgent, who offered me to write an article for Buziness24. He will introduce you to the Amazon Affiliation, and some tips to take advantage of it effectively.

Your site may receive several hundred or thousands of visits per day; Do you think he does not bring you enough? Or you would like to create a niche site to offer content around a specific theme; and you have not yet thought of how to monetize it? Because it's very good to have traffic. But it is not the visits received by your website that will allow you to pay the bills at the end of the month.

The solution? Amazon Affiliation Far from falling asleep on its laurels, the number one e-commerce is constantly looking to rely on new partners; eager to highlight its gargantuan offer of products.



And as we will see, it is not without reason that thousands of sites rely on this advertising network to monetize their traffic. But before I tell you about Amazon's Partner Program, let me introduce how affiliate works.

Article Summary [Show]

Affiliation, what is it?
The principle is simple: you will recommend a product or a service, and receive in return a commission from a company. You may already know this mechanism under another name: sponsorship.

Affiliation involves three actors:



- A publisher, who wishes to highlight his offer of products or services,

- An affiliate, who will promote the publisher's offers on his website,

- A customer, who will order a product or service on the publisher's website, from the affiliate's site.

Today, many sites derive most of their income from membership. This is mainly the case of beauty blogs, or tech blogs, which recommend products relevant to their audience. Some manage to generate several thousand euros per month; sometimes without ever touching any physical product.

You can find more information on this by reading Nathanel's Affiliate Marketing article.

Presentation of the Amazon Affiliate Platform
For the record, it was Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who was the first to imagine the mechanism of affiliation as it exists on the internet. He launched his "Amazon Associates Program" more than 20 years ago, in July 1996.

Today, Amazon is far from the only e-commerce site to offer such partnerships, far from it. But, Amazon's affiliation is one of the most interesting; for those who wish to embark on the recommendation of products.

How much can we win?
Amazon will pay you a percentage of the sales generated by your affiliate links. So, no bad surprise: you know how much you will be able to gain on each of the sales of products that you will promote.

And this percentage will vary depending on the category of items sold. Amazon also communicates very transparently about the proposed rates of pay:

 Potential commissions with Amazon's affiliate program

If you want to know more, I invite you to click here.

How to register on the Amazon Affiliate Program?
Do not know how to sign up and take advantage of Amazon Affiliation? It is very simple. To begin, there is a simple rule that you can not derogate: you will absolutely have to own a blog or a website. If you do not have one but still want to make money on the internet, do not hesitate to read this article from BonjourArgent.

Following your registration request, you will have to wait a few days; the time that Amazon teams can ensure the quality of your site.

Because it is not a question of proposing a site which would comprise only dozens of links of affiliates in all the directions! It will seek to design a site to bring value to Internet users, and not to just list links to Amazon products.

Be aware that payments related to your commissions will be paid after a period of 2 months. This is a way for Amazon to consider potential refund claims - which will not be counted.

You can receive a payment by bank transfer, or ask to receive Amazon gift vouchers. Registration is done by clicking here.

How to highlight Amazon products?
There will be no question of directly adding links to Amazon product pages on your site. Because Amazon will have no way to "track" your affiliates in a specific way.

So that Amazon can know that sales come from clicks made from your site, it will be necessary to set up affiliate links.

And rest assured: Amazon allows you to create these links in a very simple way.

Easy links to create
To start recommending a product with Amazon Affiliation, simply go to a product listing, and click on "Text".

generate an Amazon affiliate link

You will thus obtain a "text link", which you will only have to copy and paste on your site. You will be able to collect a commission on each order made within 24 hours following a click on this link. Easy !

But you can also add "image" links, as well as many widgets:

widgets for Amazon Affiliation

WordPress plugins to add links faster on your site
Do not want to go through the Amazon site? If your site was designed with WordPress, know that there are many plugins that will allow you to add in a few seconds affiliate links in your articles.

And among them is the plugin "Amazon Associates Link Builder" - the official plugin developed by Amazon.

The official plugin to easily add Amazon links on its WordPress site

Thanks to a system of "shortcode", you will be able to rely on a search engine to choose products to promote among the plethoric offer of Amazon:

adding an Amazon affiliate product with a WordPres plugin

There is also the AAWP plugin which is one of the best at the moment. As in the first case, it allows you to insert products in 1 click. It also allows you to present promotional products while putting your links in advance.

Other showcases for your links
If it is mandatory to have a website to apply to the Amazon partner platform, please note that you can also promote products through other media.

For example, if you are a videographer on YouTube, you can add your affiliate links in the description of your videos.

Want to see an example? In a video dedicated to Asus Zenfone3, tech youtupper Leo Duff offers users to order this smartphone through an affiliate link pointing to Amazon:

Amazon affiliate links inserted in the description of a YouTube video

He can monetize his video, and hope to earn more than the only YouTube ad (about 0.80 euros for 1000 views).

The benefits of Amazon Affiliation
No money to invest
With Amazon Affiliation, you can "sell" products without having to invest in a stock.

The only euros you will have to pay will be linked to the costs incurred by your website: hosting, domain name, possible advertising campaigns, ...

The worst that can happen? That you can not generate any sales. But whatever happens, you do not risk ending up with unsold under your arm.

The ability to promote hundreds of thousands of products
From hamster cages to dry hair, to Star Wars mugs, you'll find everything on Amazon!

So, whatever the theme of your site, it's a safe bet that there are a lot of relevant products that you can promote.

You will find a great way to monetize your traffic - even if your site is not intended to become a buying guide.

Want to see an example? The site comment-economiser.com regularly offers its visitors offers of Amazon products consistent with the proposed content.

In an article titled "How to clean the walls of the house," the site teams provide us with advice, but not only. Indeed, we are recommended several products that could be useful to us - products sold on Amazon:

Affiliate links of the site comment-economiser.com

Let's take another example: that of the website thewirecutter.com, a "tech" buying guide sold recently in the New York Times. This site generates the bulk of its revenue from Amazon Affiliation.

Here's what can be seen in his article dedicated to portable hard drives:

example-affiliate-amazon-the-wire-cutter



People trust Amazon
I have no figures to support this statement. Because it is more related to a feeling. I am convinced that if you ask their opinion to the members of your entourage; you will see that the giant e-commerce is perceived positively by a majority of French.

This would have a positive effect on the likelihood of a visitor converting you to Amazon from your site - whereas it would be more complex to push him to buy by redirecting him to an e-commerce site. obscure.

Especially since many Internet users already have an Amazon account, and have certainly been satisfied by their previous orders. Not to mention those who subscribe to Amazon Premium, and who can receive their order from home the next day.

Because selling online is above all a matter of trust. A user pays for a product he can not see or touch - so he can always be afraid of never receiving it, or receiving a product that does not conform to what was presented.

And if Amazon has become the number one online sales in France, it is largely because the site is a point of honor to satisfy its customers.

Amazon knows how to optimize the conversion rate
Web marketing "pros" This is the qualifier that can be used to describe Amazon's teams, who are constantly trying to optimize the conversion rate of the site - with various optimizations and A / B tests.

By "trusting" your valued visitors to Amazon, you know that the site will do its best to push them to purchase.

No need to deal with effective customer service
This is the nightmare of e-merchants: customer service. They must manage claims, satisfy those who have not received their product on time, ...

With Amazon affiliation, you delegate this task entirely. It will then be Amazon who will take care of it (as part of the products "shipped by Amazon"), or the seller himself.

This will help you focus on what you can do - content creation, whether through blog posts or Youtube videos.

Cross-selling to win more
Amazon has become a master in the art of "linked products" - by encouraging users to order other complementary products:

Frequently purchased products together on Amazon

Also known as "Cross Selling", these additional sales will allow you to increase your affiliate earnings.

"Get them all! For 24 hours
Because with Amazon, you do not receive commissions only on the products you have recommended. You will be able to make money with all the products ordered by your "godchildren", from your links.

The operation is simple: a cookie will be created on the computer of your visitors - a cookie with a lifespan of 24 hours.

So, for 24 hours, all the orders that will be placed on Amazon by these visitors will be taken into account to calculate your commissions.

Imagine that you offer a buying guide for LCD monitors on your site.
A user goes to your site, clicks on a link, but does not buy the monitor in question. Three hours later, he goes directly to Amazon, without going through your site. He buys two bluetooth headsets at 300 euros per unit, and allows you to earn commissions on his order.

As a result, you will be able to collect affiliate commissions from products very different from those you promote on your site. You may be able to sell Dora the Explorer books or sleeping bags; even as your site is just putting on laptops.

This is why some youtubers place affiliate links to low-cost items, such as books or DVDs. Watch for example what this young YouTubeuse does:

a youtubeuse who recommends books

She knows perfectly well that the revenues from these sales will be low. It will affect 7% of the sale price, ie 1.4 euros for the sale of a book or DVD at 20 euros). But she also knows that she can potentially earn a lot more; if his audience buys more expensive items, less than 24 hours after clicking on one of these links.

Some disadvantages
And yes, even if Amazon offers one of the most attractive affiliate programs in the world, everything is not perfect.

You do not get the email address of your affiliates
With Amazon Affiliation, you will not be able to retrieve the email address of people who will order from one of your links.

It is therefore impossible to send them later your promotional offers, and capitalize on this first interaction.

Failure to take into account "international clicks"
If your target is international, you risk losing sales.

Indeed, by registering on the Amazon France affiliate program, only orders made on Amazon France will be taken into account.

To be able to monetize international traffic, you will have to register on several Amazon sites (UK, ES, IT, ...) - according to the various nationalities of your visitors.

My recommendations for success
be honest
When recommending products, try to do so honestly.

Because if you will probably insist on the advantages of the products that you put forward, it will also be necessary to speak of their defects.

Remember, if your visitors click on your affiliate links, it's because they trust you. If they realize that you are trying to mislead them to generate more profit, it could eventually turn against you.

In the same vein, it will be necessary to specify on your site that you participate in the program Amazon Partners. This is part of the conditions of access to the program.

No traffic, no sales ... and therefore no commissions
If you want to generate good revenue with Amazon Affiliation, you'll have to be able to send dozens of visitors a day on product listings.

Because the most complex is not adding affiliate links on a site. What is difficult is to get in a first time to get regular traffic on it.

And if people who visit your site every day are counted on the fingers of one hand, it may be complicated. So strive first to offer quality content on your site, and care for its SEO.

Audit your performance
Do you have multiple sites, and would you like to know how much each of them relate to you with Amazon Affiliation?

No problem: it is possible to create "tracking IDs". These will allow you to analyze in detail the performances of your various websites (number of clicks, conversion rate,).

If you have a WordPress site, you can also use the "Pretty Link" plugin, which will allow you to obtain additional information about your affiliate links.

But do not just passively analyze your various statistics. I encourage you to rely on these numbers to see what works best, and put in place a consistent strategy to increase your affiliate earnings each month.

Pamper your conversion rate
Do not go below 1% conversion rate: this is the rule set by Amazon. This is a way for the US giant to prevent a partner from sending untargeted fare "en masse" to his site.

For me, I can get between 2 and 3% conversion rate, a rate that changes depending on the month. But in some niches, we can go up to more than 5% with the Amazon affiliation.

If you realize that you are dangerously close to the red zone, try to understand why; and stop promoting products that plunge your conversion rate. Strive to only offer relevant products, in perfect coherence with your content. Because you will probably have a hard time listening to coffee cups on a site dedicated to new technologies!

Also be sure to select the products you will promote. Like you, your readers want to buy the best product at the best price. So help them to do it.

I suggest you focus on popular products, credited with a score of at least 4/5. Do not hesitate to order the products you could promote yourself, to ensure their quality.

Do not put all your eggs in one basket
This age-old rule of always seeking to diversify its sources of income is also true in the context of internet affiliation.

Because by joining the Amazon Partner Program, you must comply with certain rules. For example, you will not be able to send affiliate links directly to registered subscribers to your email list. And the advertising agency will not hesitate to ban you if you do not respect them scrupulously.

That is why I invite you to read with the greatest attention the general conditions of adhesion to the program of Amazon EU before sending your application.

Some broke their teeth. Because depending on a single platform, there is always a risk: that of being banned overnight, for not having complied with one of the conditions of the program.

Do not hesitate to search for simultaneous recourse to other monetization methods for your website.

To obtain higher repayment rates, you can rely on the affiliation of information products. The leader in France, the platform 1Tpe, allows you to collect up to 70% of commissions by selling the products of trainers. If you want to know more, I invite you to click here.

I highly recommend this article by Nathanael, which presents the main affiliate platforms that can be used in France.

You could also rely on the Adsense ad, the Google ad network. This will take care of selecting relevant advertisements that will be displayed on your website.

To conclude
When it comes to monetizing the traffic of its website, the Amazon affiliation is a formidable weapon. Because even if some affiliates complain about commissions too low, others manage to generate several thousand euros per month; without ever touching any physical product.

So do not hesitate to rely on it, whether to monetize an existing site, or to design a new site dedicated to a specific theme.