With the emerging new online spaces, people are getting dragged to earn with some side hustles. Nowadays, passive income becomes a buzzword.

Why?

As it did not compromise your 9-5 job and you can easily earn dollars by starting a blog or joining an affiliate program.   

That is where Amazon Associates catches our eye. I mean, who does not know about the elephant in the room, a.k.a. Amazon?

Amazon, the heart of the global e-commerce market, is for sure the fastest way to fill your pockets with some additional six-figure income. After promoting Amazon products with its affiliate links, you can earn a commission on every single purchase.   
Thus, keep reading this further and learn those ten ways to Still Profit as an Amazon Associates Affiliate. 

What is ‘Amazon Associates’? 

Amazon Affiliate Program, alias “Amazon Associates,” was uncloaked in 1998. Before this, budding entrepreneurs worked like a trojan to make money online. But after the entry of Amazon Associates, the entire scenario changed dramatically.   

For now, it becomes a way of monetizing your site just by a simple sign-up. You, as an Amazon Associate, can promote Amazon products by placing a link on your site. 

Whenever a shopper clicks your given tracking link and buys that stuff, you earn a referral fee. In this agreement, amazon is paying you because you can attract a pool of traffic/sales to their site.

You can earn by pay-per-sale, pay-per-click, or pay-per-lead. So, this performance-based earning is a win-win for both the merchant and affiliates. 

The best part is that affiliates can join this program for free and get involved in online marketing without launching their very own store. And do not worry if you did not get credits, as cookie durations may vary for each brand.   

How Can I Still Make Money with Amazon Associates After the Payout Cuts? 

If you are wondering about the payout cuts, then do not brood! Comparably, Amazon has the lowest _ 1-10% depending on the product category. For instance, payout cuts on April 21, 2020, were,

- Furniture, home improvement, lawn and garden, home, pet products, pantry: 3% (was 8%)
- Beauty, headphones, musical instruments, business, and industrial supplies: 3% (was 6%)
- Outdoors, tools: 3% (was 5.5%)
- Grocery: 1% (was 5%)
- Sports: 3% (was 4.5%)
- Baby products: 3% (was 4.5%)
- Health and personal care: 1% (was 4.5%)
- Amazon Fresh: 1% (was 3%)

How Do You Make Money as an Amazon Affiliate? 

Earning some bucks using Amazon Associates is no more a secret now. I mean, everybody can make this home-based stream of revenue by doing research, marketing, and a bit of work. Then, you can triumph over this number game and convert visitors into loyal customers. 

1.  Select Your Niche. 

So, first thing first, make sure that you choose a narrow niche that stands out in the market. Selection of the category can become simple if you already have a well-driven YouTube channel or blog. As you can link the relatable products within your content and it seems organic. But if you are a newbie, then read this to learn how to select a profitable and relevant niche.

Get Audience Insights.

You can find multiple sites on the internet to track down the trending products in the market. Just take a look at Quantcast, which helps you to discover the incoming flux. Some widespread yet broad niches you might think of are travel, clothing, or health. After that, you have to further drill down on the platforms like Quora to find specific keywords like Travel Essentials. And here you go with your niche.  

Look for Specialized Products.

Hunt down some highly specialized products. Reason: if brands like Olay, Sol De Janeiro, dove, etc., have fierce competition in shower gels, you should go for the organic one.

Monetization Potential. 

Remember this: until your chosen niche is not the best, you will never achieve monetization in the long term. To identify the monetization potential, you can also site like Clickbank or Moz, which help you to find the right niche/product based on your keywords.  

 
2. Create a Product Comparison Grid. 

By creating a product comparison grid, you can place all the products in your niche in juxtaposition. In this contrast, you can point out the feature of all the competitive products.  

Compare Features. 

In this step, you have to scout the relevant features of a product. For instance, if your product is acne serum then, you will consider its cost, types, and rating, among other types of serum. As an Amazon Associate, you have to keep certain things in mind. You cannot showcase product costs or ratings sourced from the Amazon website.

Find the Best Products. 

As an Amazon Associate, the hard part for you is to pick the best product, which is not too niche or popular yet distinctive. For this, you have to strategize your hunting. For this, you have to strategize your hunting. While cherry-picking, you have to seek out those products in the Goldilocks range (moderate prices), keep in mind the weightage, and your familiarity with the product. Plus, your product has popular keywords but does not have too many reviews. These key points will help you to find the right product.    

 
Create the Grid

The final step here is to create the comparison grid. A plugin to help you in creating a grid is Table Press. For this, you have to gather all the data from Amazon and export them into a spreadsheet or CSV format. Then arrange the columns and rows as per your need and exclude price, ratings, size, etc. Optimize the chart, and you are ready to boost traffic on your website.   

3. Write Product Reviews. 

It is 100% true that reviews dare to manipulate buyers’ decisions. Product reviews enhance sales and eventually the commission in return.

Therefore, most of the affiliates personally contact the actual makers for product specifications. After these details, they write a well-explained product review. There they will capture the customers to the sales funnel.  

4. Improve Your Website Layout. 

Engaging the reader with the visuals of your website is the other which needs focus. I am not saying that lowers the quality of content or the credibility of the website. But customize or choose a template on WordPress to make your leaders or listeners stick to your content.   

Create Visually Appealing Review Pages. 

48% of people say that a website layout is a determining factor for the credibility of a business. Therefore, create visually appealing review pages by platforms like Capterra. Through this, you can pick colours that align with your brand and add visual elements like infographics or photos to make your website attractive. Moreover, play with the right yet impactful typography. These things will for sure lead to higher conversion rates.

Optimize Your Landing Pages.

A decent landing page translates your customers into leads, seriously! Therefore, optimize your landing page and improvise it by adding visuals, videos, alluring headers, snippet previews, or appealing taglines. Works wonders!   

5. Read Amazon Monthly Best-Seller List. 

Did you know that Amazon frequently circulates the Best-Seller list? Just pop up the ‘Amazon.com/Bestsellers’ page and peer at the top 10 products in your niche. Note down: do not pick those products from another category as it might glitch your brand prospects. Moreover, upgrade your website with a best-seller list, as customers trust you when you present a wide range of products.  

 
6. Perform Email Marketing Strategies 

When you join the Amazon Associate program, you can’t reach out to clientele directly through emails. But you can launch an email marketing campaign that links directly to your website. Some of the steps include:

Build an Email List.

Boost the conversion rate; so, your visitors turn into subscribers. And you know what 80% of visitors embark without signing up to your website. So, to make them stick, you’ve to set up high engagement with your content. Give such info which they will value, like product description, usage/guide, or comparison grid. Re-engage subscribers so they will redirect to your site. 

Types of Emails. 

If you are wondering about email, then do not stress as there are three kinds of emails. The Promotional emails, relational emails, and transactional emails. But promotional ones are excluded as you cannot promote Amazon products in your newsletter. Neither the relational emails as you cannot give freebies or gift vouchers. Hence, transactional emails are the ones where you can offer the best for your subscribers to visit your website.

Personalize Your Emails. 

Personalized emails have higher transaction rates so customize them! Such emails help in enhancing clicks and strengthen the relationship with your subscriber. Some tools are also there which automate this entire process, like Mailchimp and Constant Contact.

Leverage Data Analytics.

Get in touch with the insights like CTR, mail forwarding, and unsubscribe rates. That helps you to track down the progress. For this, you can also use data analytic tools like Google Analytics to boost traffic to your site. 

7. Use Native Shopping Ads.

As an Amazon Associates Affiliate, you can use Native shopping Ads. These Ads will boost your Click-Through-Rate and conversion rates as users can see the dynamic product recommendation with responsive ad units. You can place native ads either between the content or at the end of the content. 

For instance, if a visitor visits your website and clicks on that ad, you will get a 5% commission. The question arises how do you insert ads? For this, visit Amazon and click on Create Ad Code. Three types of the ad will appear in front of you:  Recommendation, Search, and Custom. Now you have to copy and paste the ad codes on your blog or use an ad inserter to plug in ads in your content.

8. Learn Basic HTML 

It is no doubt that now making web pages and applications is not a big deal. Platforms like WordPress, Wix, or Weebly have templates that require your action. 
But you still have to learn basic Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) to insert photos, generate hyperlinks, and format text. Hence, if you are not acquainted with HTML, then take out some time to learn it. It will be worth it!    

 
9. Use YouTube 

Nowadays, YouTube is the biggest platform if you are an Amazon Associate. You can join YouTube for free and get access to the Creator Studio, where you can edit your content. Your videos will not just generate income for you but attract visitors to buy products on Amazon.

Video Editing Software. 

For YouTube videos, you will have to learn some video editing software depending on your expertise. Video Editing Software includes Adobe Premiere Pro CC, Final Cut Pro X, etc. You can check out all of them based on their ease of use, editing features, and file transfer options.

Create Relatable Videos.

The key to driving visitors to your content is to keep it as simple as possible. Do not overdo your videos and get straight to the point so that your audience can relate to them. In addition to this, make short videos as statistics show that people tend to like them.  

10. Link to Products Within Your Content. 

What is the best way to bridge the gap between marketing and sales? Linking products within your very own content. If you fail to do so, you will lose the potential customer. 

Thus, you have to link the product page in the first paragraph where it is noticeable to the readers; and they eventually land on the product page. Plus, keep in check the bounce rate of your website.  Because if it is high, then you are in trouble. And there is an urgent need to fix it. 

Final Summary 

The popularity of the Amazon Associates Affiliate program is irrefutable. But even the best things have flaws. Yes! Low-slung payout rates and brief cookie windows make it harder for newbies to earn some bucks. However, if you are a pro blogger or YouTuber with a pool of followers, then you can make this affiliate program work for you. 

This program has its doors for both non-US citizens and non-US residents. But there is a no. of T&Cs on how you become an affiliate. So do not hesitate for this side hustle, gear up, and earn dollars.

Lastly, another benefit of this program is its timely yet reliable payment. Subsequently, what are your thoughts about this program? Is it worth joining?