Every affiliate marketer knows that without sales you might as well not even be marketing, and with Amazon’s affiliate program it’s no different. If you are looking for a few different tips that you can use to improve your sales as an Amazon affiliate marketer then look no further.
A Little About Amazon’s Associates Program
Amazon Associates was one of the first online affiliate marketing programs to help both bloggers and non-bloggers monetize their website by advertising the millions of products available on Amazon.com. Launched in 1996 the Amazon Associates program has a track record of over 12 years and has paid their affiliates millions of dollars.
Through their Associates program all you have to do is refer visitors to your site directly to Amazon.com, where they can quickly and easily purchase the products that you advertise. The best part is even if they don’t purchase the product you advertised but purchase something else you still get a commission off of any other purchases made from Amazon.
Amazon’s Associates program is a low-cost, low-effort way for affiliates to earn up to 10% in referral fees for each product someone you referred purchases.
Benefits to Working as an Amazon Affiliate
You Don’t Have to Create Your Own Product
While creating your own product is a great way to monetize a website and get your brand’s name out there it also takes a lot of time. Time that many people, especially those starting out, just don’t have. So instead of taking time out of schedule to come up with a product that you don’t even know will sell well you can have someone else do it.
They can dedicate the countless hours you would have and create their own product. Then as an affiliate you can start promoting it and making a commission for every sale you refer. If you pick the right products you can end up making a hefty commission. Some affiliates make up to 90% of every product sale they refer all without having to take the time to create anything.
No Customer Service Needed
Not only do you not have to take time to create a product upfront, but as an affiliate you do not have to provide customer service for any of the products you advertise. All you have to do is make the sale and once it is completed customer support will be the responsibility of the seller.
There are Plenty of Products to Promote
With Amazon there are a vast amount of products available to promote in just about every niche or industry you can imagine. The more popular a niche is, the more products you will be able to find to promote.
You Get to be Associated With an Established Brand
As an Amazon affiliate when you promote Amazon products you will be able to build trust and establish your reputation with your audience. If a consumer trusts you they are much more likely to purchase a product from you. As long as you promote products that are full of quality and that your audience will like, then you should have no trouble establishing a reputation as a trustworthy source.
Ways You Can Expand Your Amazon Affiliate Sales
So now that you understand a few reasons why you should promote Amazon products, let’s take a look at how you can drive sales and improve your affiliate marketing strategy.
Choose Only a Few Products to Focus On
Although there are virtually countless products you can promote as an Amazon affiliate it is best not to spread yourself out too much and focus on promoting a few main products.
These main products will serve as your cornerstone products and they should be the main area you focus all your efforts. Once you have a good marketing strategy set up for each product then you can start to branch out with a few more products that are related.
The best products to choose should be products that:
- You have used in the past and know are high quality products
- Are relevant to your audience
- Offer a high payout to you (while this isn’t necessary when choosing your products it is very beneficial to you when it comes to pay day)
Promote Your Main Products Often
The amount of success you can have as an Amazon affiliate is directly dependent on how you choose to promote your products. In order to maximize the amount of views your product can receive you need to place it where it can be seen easily.
Many of the common locations include the header, within the content of the post, at the top of posts or at the end of posts. Many website visitors ignore the sidebars of webpages since those are the areas where most advertisements are placed.
Collect Email Addresses
One of the easiest and most powerful ways to make money as an Amazon affiliate is through list building. List building is simply getting a lot of readers to subscribe to your email list so you can send them updates/information whenever you need to.
Whenever someone subscribes to your email list you can stay in contact with them and further develop their trust and establish your brand as a reputable brand. You can promote your products directly through your emails or send your readers to a specific link.
Write Product Reviews
Many studies have shown that consumers are more likely to purchase something if it has been reviewed by someone they deem as reliable. You can either write and publish the product reviews yourself or you can reference other trusted sources that have written a review of their own.
If you write a review yourself you can share your own personal experiences and opinions related to the product. If the product you’re promoting is a high quality product your readers will trust your opinion and continue to come to you in order to find out what the best products are.
Publish Tutorials
Creating tutorials is kind of like writing product reviews. Instead of writing and publishing a product review you will be showing your readers how to use the product themselves. This way you can provide information for your readers while promoting your Amazon product.
Tutorials are a great way to attract a lot of search engine traffic because when people are looking for information on a specific product they want to learn as much as possible before making a purchase.
Use Affiliate Links In Your Posts
You can include affiliate links in any posts that you make on your website and use that post to direct traffic to any product you’re trying to promote. You don’t always have to create an entirely new post just to highlight a certain product.
You can also just insert the affiliate link into a post you have that is related to the product. You can find various opportunities to mention it in one of the many posts you already have as well as the ones you are currently writing.
Track Your Performance
If you are not getting the sales you expect to receive with your current marketing strategy you will never be able to determine where you may be going wrong if you are not tracking your performance.
At the very minimum, you should be using a tracking code for your links so you can see how many clicks they are receiving as well as where they are coming from.
Create Bestseller Lists
People love to see what other people are buying and use others opinions in order to help them decide what they should be purchasing. Amazon makes developing a bestseller list incredibly easy by providing their own bestseller lists that you can use for inspiration. You can find almost every type of product you want and you can use their filters to hone in on certain types of products.
For affiliates Amazon also provides bestseller lists showing affiliate stats so you can see which products other Amazon affiliates are getting the most sales on. Another way you can create a bestseller list for your sites visitors is by using a survey.
By surveying your readers you can find out what their favorite products are and provide the results in a list for everyone to see with links to each product so they can easily purchase them.
Conclusion
Amazon has been one of the top online retailers in America for years garnering enough sales to break into the list of the top 10 retailers in the US overall. People trust and love Amazon and as an affiliate will trust you as well. There are a variety of strategies that can be used to market products as an Amazon affiliate.
One of the best strategies to follow as an Amazon affiliate is one that gets a massive amount of people to click on your affiliate links. With the substantial variety of products that Amazon offers and the unlimited number of people that you can advertise to you should have no problem being a great Amazon affiliate as long as you have a good marketing plan.
