Amazon Affiliate links are in theory an easy way to make some commissions here and there from your content. I use them on here every time I share a link to a product that is mentioned within the context of the article. You can easily grab Amazon Affiliate links off Amazon, but links were difficult to grab from mobile devices. That made things more difficult for some of us content creators. But, good news: Mobile links are now easier to grab. I’ll tell you how below. Let’s discuss some of the basics of affiliate marketing first in case you are just getting started.
What is affiliate marketing?
This episode of the Business Storytelling Podcast dives into:
- what affiliate marketing is
- how companies can make use of it
- how people can become affiliate marketers
- and more
In a nutshell, affiliate marketing means a creator drives traffic for a brand that then converts into sales. The creator gets paid if there is a sale. And only if there’s a sale.
Example of Amazon Affiliate marketing on my blog
I share affiliate links to products that are mentioned in the content.
Good lighting during livestreams helps us look better. I use two different lights to make that work for me.
This sentence is within the context of the story. I link to something that people can buy in reference to something mentioned in the article. This example is the lighting products that I use.
The biggest difference from marketing in a direct sale marketing program is that people aren’t buying your products but another company’s.
When people order something directly on my site – including services – I get most of that revenue minus cost of course but if it’s affiliate marketing another site fulfills the order and I get much smaller cut of the revenue. On Amazon it’s usually anywhere from 1 to 4 percent.
Amazon Affiliate Marketing On-Site
There are a couple of ways you can drive Amazon Affiliate revenue on Amazon.com directly.
You can broadcast Amazon Lives and create your own storefront with additional videos and links to earn Amazon Affiliate commissions.
Amazon Affiliate link and code on desktop Amazon
To make sure that Amazon knows you are sending affiliate traffic from off-site campaigns and content, you have to use the correct links. Those are called affiliate links.
On desktop, just go to the top of your page. (Make sure the affiliates strip is turned on). There you can pick which type of link you want to use:
Text only
Image
Image and text
Or custom (native ad)
Affiliate link on mobile
To grab your Amazon Affiliate link from mobile devices used to be almost impossible as the experience was designed for desktop. In May 2021, Amazon delighted me with adding the functionality to the mobile app. Once in a product, I clicked share and since I have an affiliate account setup, a new popup gave me the affiliate link.
Now I can use that directly from my mobile. I can also use the non-associates link if I prefer.
Amazon Affiliate Marketing Wrap
It’s possible to make money but you do have to sell a lot of stuff – pass a lot of leads that convert. For example, if you want to make US$60,000 through affiliate marketing in a year you have to sell approximately $1.5 million in products on Amazon.
Amazon gives you credit for 24 hours after you sent leads over. So anything they buy in those 24 hours you get credit for whether it’s the exact product that you mentioned or not. Then the customer has a chance to return items for 30 days, then you’ll get paid about two months after the end of the month. So January sales get paid out end of March.
If it makes sense for your brand to link to products that your readers might want to buy it absolutely makes sense to make those affiliate links. Why not try to bring in some revenue when it aligns with the mission and vision of a site.
But the one thing that’s important to remember is that affiliate marketing like most digital marketing strategies, is not an overnight success. It takes work. As one piece of an overarching digital revenue strategy, however, I would certainly recommend it.
You also never know when it might take off and work better than expected or when a product that you wrote about all of sudden is in demand. Might as well get paid for passing the customer to the third-party site.
