When it was introduced in 1989, affiliate marketing allowed virtually anyone with a website to collaborate with brands, promote their products and services, and make a decent commission each time a sale was made. Since it was introduced, the win-win relationship between businesses and consumers has only grown more popular, driving online shopping’s growth. The affiliate marketing industry is estimated to be worth $17 billion today and is expected to continue growing.
You might be wondering if the same applies to Amazon affiliate marketing programs too. The answer is a resounding yes . It is possible for you to grow not just your brand marketing but also your conversion rates through affiliate marketing.
In this article, we talk about how you can grow your sales on Amazon and the benefits you stand to enjoy by jumping on the bandwagon of affiliate marketing.
The Story of Amazon & Affiliate Marketing
Before we talk more about how affiliate marketing can help your Amazon business, let’s briefly reflect on how Amazon was one of the first companies to have adopted affiliate marketing in the mid-90s. At that time, Amazon was only a small online book retailer, and it only had a limited marketing budget to work with. Instead of spending money on advertising, a young Jeff Bezos decided to pay people a commission each time they referred a buying customer to Amazon.
This initiative, which we now refer to today as the Amazon Associates program, also helped to reduce, if not eliminate, upfront marketing costs for Amazon. The idea turned out to be a tremendous success, and more and more people joined as Amazon expanded its product line over the years. To date, the program has registered close to a million members, and many have made substantial profits over the years.
If you can take anything away from this, then it is the fact that Amazon and affiliate marketing go hand-in-hand. Opting for affiliate marketing for your Amazon store will help you sell more while doing less.
Benefits of Using Affiliate Marketing for Your Amazon Store
1. Online ‘Word of Mouth’ is Great for Sales
According to review42 , 49% of US-based consumers consider online word-of-mouth as highly credible. And it makes sense why.
Affiliate review sites are basically the online version of one of the most profitable marketing tactics to exist: word-of-mouth referrals. Consumers are naturally suspicious of corporations but are much more trusting of recommendations of people whose taste & testimonials they trust. For example, niche review sites like GadetReview are often the go-to for people looking to make electronic purchases.
Because Amazon forbids affiliates to do dishonest reviews, the review’s integrity remains intact & customers see the product for what it is. Meaning, they don’t see affiliate websites as false testimonials but rather as authentic experiences of current users. This trust bodes well for sales, which is why affiliate marketing is the bedrock of ecommerce sales .
2. You Can Connect with the Audience Who’s Already in the Market for Your Product
Most affiliate marketing websites post reviews and comparison guides for their preferred niche. This means that the person who’s actually reading these is already in the market for the product and is not just “browsing” for information.
This makes for really qualified traffic, which is why some affiliate programs can have a conversion rate of up to 15%. Considering the low startup cost of setting up an affiliate program (you need no marketing team!), this offers incredible value.
3. Pay When You Sell
For most other digital campaigns, you’ll likely need to enlist the services of a professional for at least a few months, and even then, the campaign might not see results. There are multiple variables that could affect the ultimate output of an advertising, social media, or SEO campaign, many of which may not be in your control.
With affiliate marketing, there’s no such risk. You have the option of recruiting only the top affiliates in your niche, and you only have to pay them when they actually help you make a sale or gather a lead. There’s no experimentation time, no hefty retainers, and, most of all, you pay as you go.
4. Low Rate of Commissions
Compared to other affiliate programs, you only pay 1-10% commission per sale on Amazon. The percentage you pay depends on the product category, meaning only high-margin products have a commission rate of above 5%.
Another benefit is, of course, the fact that cookies only last 24 hours for an Amazon affiliate link. If the referral doesn’t buy within 24 hours, your affiliate doesn’t get a commission. You also don’t have to pay commissions for out-of-country purchases, such as from the UK, if you run an Amazon US store.
5. Flexibility to Scale at Will
Since you only pay for leads or sales, an Amazon affiliate program allows you to recruit as many affiliates as you need to meet your sales goals. The caveat is that you have to make sure the inventory is stocked up on your end, but other than that, there’s no headache for you.
You can have 100 affiliates working at once without any cost to you, unless their efforts actually produce an output for your business. If you have got Amazon fulfillment taking care of shipping & packaging for you, then your involvement is minimal in the whole process. Yet, you see an increase in sales.
You can expand your product line or even add more options for the same product and enlist even more affiliates for that. Your Affiliate program grows as you want it to grow, making it one of the easiest ways to grow your business without active investment of resources.
6. You Can Make More Affiliate Income with Amazon’s Brand Referral Bonus Program
Launched just over a year ago, this program by Amazon pays you a bonus in the form of referral fee credit for driving traffic to its website. If a customer makes a purchase on Amazon through your link, then Amazon will give you a 10% rebate on your seller fees for that sale. To add to that, if the same customer makes more purchases from your link/brand within the next 14 days, you will receive a bonus from Amazon for those additional sales as well.
This incentive can not only prove to be helpful in reducing your marketing and advertising costs, but it also justifies recruiting more affiliate marketers to promote your brand.
The Bottom Line
Amazon sellers are increasingly using affiliate marketing to increase sales, conversion rates, and brand recognition because it offers good value for money & has very few downsides.
Many brands already know how big of an impact a solid affiliate network can have on their revenue which is why there are so many affiliate programs out there for people to be a part of, making the landscape of hiring solid affiliates much more competitive.
Streamline your affiliate marketing workflow & integrate your Amazon storefront with Refersion to stay ahead of the competition. You get access to a powerful dashboard that not only helps you find top affiliates for your niche and recruit them but also tracks their performance and generates predictable affiliate revenue projections. Put your affiliate marketing efforts in hyper gear today.
