Amazon Associates is known to be an affiliate marketing program that lets website owners and bloggers create links and earn referral fees when clients click through and buy products from Amazon.
Joint Best Affiliate Network for Clothing and Travel
How does the Amazon Affiliate program work?
Amazon Associates is a referral program that gives the commission to refer websites. So when you transfer a customer to Amazon through a link on your website, you will get a percentage of the purchase of whatever they buy over the next 24 hours.
However, it will vary based on what kind of item a customer purchases.
You need to have in mind that the percentage of the sale you get isn’t the only factor. Your conversion rate is also important because it shows how many people are clicking an affiliate link and buying an item after visiting your site.
The normal affiliate conversion rate is 0.5 to 1 percent. But, some affiliates regularly can have much higher conversion rates.
Advantages and disadvantages of Amazon Affiliate programs
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
| It’s easy to be an Amazon affiliate. You can register and begin sharing affiliate links in just a few minutes. | Amazon’s commissions are low in a few categories. While the Amazon Associates program holds a commission rate of up to 10 percent for items like luxury beauty products, others, for example video game consoles, can be as low as 1 percent. |
| Amazon is an eCommerce specialist. Affiliates don’t have to sell visitors upon purchasing from the website. | Amazon Associates Program Operating Agreement can be hard to understand and is regularly updated, so members can quickly be found not in agreement if they don’t remain up-to-date. |
| There are a lot of products to advertise, with services like Prime Video. Hence there’s no lack of products to promote through affiliate links. | If you do not have a website with product reviews or proper content that would be a good match for affiliate links, building one can demand a lot of time, effort and upkeep. |
Have you heard about Amazon affiliate websites but do not know where to start? Take inspiration from these five examples.
Amazon affiliate websites earn money through commissions from their affiliate program: Amazon Associates.
Successful Amazon affiliate websites
1. Story Hippo
Established by John Ramey and John Adama—previous advisors at the Obama White House. This website is known for suggesting brand and gift items to choose for various occasion.
- Domain Rating: 36
- Referring domains: 901
- Keywords it ranks for: 40,600
- Site age: 8 years
- Estimated revenue: Unknown
- Estimated organic traffic: 31,900
2. Dog Food Advisor
DogFoodAdvisor is a site that supports pet owners make healthier decisions when buying dog food.
- Domain Rating: 76
- Referring domains: 5,890
- Keywords it ranks for: 203,000
- Site age: 11 years
- Estimated revenue: Unknown
- Estimated organic traffic: 594,000
3. Equipboard
Equipboard is a site that shows the gear and tools used by leading musicians.
Content on the site is partly user-generated. The founders (Giulio and Michael) of Equipboard review products and then produce content targeting “best” keywords, and users share content about the gear their favorite artists use.
- Domain Rating: 58
- Referring domains: 2,560
- Keywords it ranks for: 722,000
- Site age: 5 years
- Estimated revenue: Unknown
- Estimated organic traffic: 354,000
4. The Wirecutter
Established in the year 2011 by Brian Lam, who was an Editorial Director at Gizmodo, it has become one of the most famous Amazon affiliate sites worldwide.
Disappointed with the endless chase for pageviews in popular media companies, Brian quit Gizmodo and then began The Wirecutter as a small review site-directed on gadgets.
It was taken by the New York Times in 2016 for $30 million.
- Domain Rating: 82
- Referring domains: 23,100
- Keywords it ranks for: 3,700,000
- Site age: 8 years
- Estimated revenue: ~$10 million (2016)
- Estimated organic traffic: 4,100,000
5. Homegrounds
Homegrounds is a website that teaches “home baristas” how to brew and experience better quality coffee.
- Domain Rating: 63
- Referring domains: 1,320
- Keywords it ranks for: 136,000
- Site age: 3 years
- Estimated revenue: Unknown
- Estimated organic traffic: 244,000
Most of the successful Amazon affiliate sites follow about the same formula:
- Target popular investigation keywords like the “best [category]”
- Produce best-in-class content by truly reviewing products
- Work hard in order to build and draw backlinks to improve their rankings.
It just requires hard work, patience, persistence, and a focus on long-term over short-term results.