Hi everyone and welcome back to the channel in today's video
I'm going to be going over the pros and the cons of the Amazon affiliate program
there's ten things that you really need to know if you're considering joining or not and
Six of them are pros four of them are cons. I'm going to cover them all in today's video. Hi everyone
Welcome back to the channel if you're new here
My name is Greg and I like to talk about online entrepreneurship and sharing the resources that I wish I had along my journey
So if you're interested in those things feel free to look around the channel and consider subscribing in today's video
We're going to be talking about the pros and the cons of the Amazon affiliate program
Now you may have heard of this program before it's known technically as the Amazon Associates program
But essentially what it is is the largest affiliate program there is and it's by Amazon now
I've been an Amazon affiliate for the last few years and I have learned a lot over this time whether Amazon affiliate is a good
Thing or if there are better options, that's what I'm going to talk about in this video
Now as you guys know, I don't like to waste any time in these videos
Let's get straight into the good stuff starting with number one
This is the first pro to the Amazon Associates program. Now the first Pro here is that it is so easy to start
There's only really one requirement for anyone to get started
It's completely free to join that one requirement is that you have a functional website now
This is very easy to do if you need tutorials on this. I've got them linked throughout the channel
You can either use WordPress or you can use Wix. I've got tutorials for both
I'll link them down in the description if you need a good resource for that now once you have a functional website
And you've applied in the application. That's really all you need to get started
Everything is completely free to do and once you're accepted you can literally start creating affiliate links for Amazon products and just get started
Number two, this is the second really big Pro to the Amazon affiliate program. And that's that
It's so easy to use you can literally go onto amazon once you're accepted as an affiliate and you can get your affiliate link for
Any product on amazon?
You're no longer limited to just having one Universal affiliate link for the whole company
and then when they buy something you get credit the way this works is you can find any products on Amazon and get a
Specific link to that product page the cool thing, too
Is that when you're accepted to be an affiliate you get these tools available to you right away
So you can go create your custom links. You don't have to rely on anyone else to create the links for you
You don't have to wait you can make these custom links right away now
What's also cool about this is since you can link to any product on Amazon
It basically makes the topic ideas for your niche affiliate marketing websites endless
You can link to any categories on Amazon any products in any niches on Amazon once you're accepted you can link to any
products on Amazon number three
this is one of the biggest pros to being on the Amazon affiliate program is that it's actually
Easy to make money now, don't get me wrong. Everyone says easy ways to make money
but the reason I'm saying this is because when anyone clicks on your affiliate links from Amazon
Anything that they add to their cart and purchase within 24 hours of clicking that link you will get a commission for now
This is not like other affiliate programs. And what's so cool about this is you can link to certain products or whatever
It is in your articles and people can click it
Let's say for example, that was for a pair of shoes that you link them to Amazon on on your article
Well, they click on it
They go look at the shoes and they decide well, I'm not ready to buy right now. Maybe next week sometime
well
even if they don't buy that pair of shoes if they come back within 24 hours and let's say they buy a
vacuum cleaner or anything on Amazon
Within 24 hours of clicking your link, you will still get a commission on whatever they put in their cart and purchased
this is why I always recommend for beginners to start on Amazon affiliate program because you may have
accidental success
All you have to worry about doing is getting people to read your articles and click on your affiliate links to go over to Amazon
And then anything they purchase within 24 hours. You still get a commission on now number four
This is another Pro to the Amazon affiliate program
And that is that it is so evergreen and it is totally passive income
The reason I say it's evergreen if you haven't heard me talk about this before
Essentially what evergreen is is you create the content or the links once and it lasts forever
You want to set yourself up this way?
So you have passive income long into the future and you're not just looking a month or two months down the road
The reason that the Amazon affiliate program is so evergreen is because Amazon is not going anywhere in the near future
They're not going to go away. They're not going to close up shop
They are a massive company and the other part to the equation here. Is that when you're linking to products on Amazon?
They have name-brand products. You can choose from really big companies that also are not going anywhere. They're not going to close up shop
They're not going to stop selling on Amazon anytime in the future
so by you
Creating content around name-brand products things that are here to stay on Amazon and aren't going anywhere in the near future you can
Advantage of your content being evergreen and making you money for years to come because it's still relevant
Your links are still relevant and working and linking to those same products
This helps us avoid creating affiliate content for products that go away in a year or are no longer relevant
Because then you have to recreate the content and what you created originally is not going to make you money in the future
But by having this be evergreen and totally passive income
You can pick the right products and our name brand and link to them on Amazon and it'll still be relevant for many years to
Come now number five. This is my favorite Pro to being part of the Amazon affiliate program
And that's that Amazon is arguably the most optimized website for getting people to buy things online
there is no doubt at all that when you go on Amazon and you find a product that you are remotely interested in buying they
Make the checkout process and reviews and everything so easy for you and compelling for you to just make the purchase
this works to our advantage because like I said before even if they go on to Amazon from your affiliate link
And they don't buy the product that you referred them to Amazon for they may look at other products
and since Amazon is so compelling and so well optimized for you to make a purchase right then and there it
benefits us a ton because people will convert into
Purchasing and therefore you get your Commission far more than other websites that aren't as optimized now
I know that Pro number five is mixed into this list, but don't let it go unnoticed
that is a
Really big Pro and we're able to join the Amazon affiliate program completely for free and make commissions off of products that sell on Amazon
but don't forget that Amazon has put so much money and resources into finding out what makes people buy and
Tailoring their systems and optimizing them to get people to make purchases
We can benefit from all of that by being a part of the Amazon affiliate program
Now the last Pro in this list number six that is that the customer service on Amazon is so good
We all know the environment
You know it just as well as me when you make a purchase if you have any issues on Amazon
Their customer service is taken care of by experts. They are super quick to take care of anything
That's an issue possible returns. If you have any questions, they're always sending emails on where your order is the tracking through the app
They have everything figured out
So we get to take advantage of this as well and just know that if you're referring someone to Amazon through your affiliate link
They make a purchase if they have any issues with that product at all
We're making the purchase anything. They're in good hands because they have Amazon's customer service taking care of them
This in itself is an amazing Pro for all of affiliate marketing because as the affiliate marketer you and myself when we refer people to
Products we don't have to take care of the customer service. The company takes care of all the customer service processing the transaction
fulfilling the orders everything
We just have to find the best product to refer people to
So certainly keep that in mind Amazon's customer service is top-notch and it is always great
So, you know that your customers you're referring are in good hands
So all six of these pros are extremely good, but it does come with some cons not everything is perfect
So I've got a list of four cons that you should be aware of if you're considering joining the Amazon affiliate program the first con
Is definitely the biggest con and it's the biggest drawback to the affiliate program here
And that's that the commission rate is low
They have a commission chart that's going to show you how much you will make in commissions on each category on products on Amazon
But just know that roughly on average you'll make about 5% of the total sale
So to put that in perspective if you refer someone to a product and they order $100 worth of that product
Whatever it is, you will get five dollars as a commission
Now that's on average some categories go up to 10% Most categories are about 4% but just know that the Commission rate is generally
Pretty low compared to some other affiliate programs out there
But with that said you have to look at the flipside to this people are going into the Amazon environment where they are so compelled
And easily convinced to actually make purchases. So these sales come pretty easy on the Amazon affiliate program
So essentially with the Amazon affiliate program just keep in mind that you're going to make your money in volume a lot of people ordering
Affiliate products and it's not going to be high commission high ticket sales where they make one purchase and you get a big commission payout
Now for some people this is a big drawback, but trust me from experience, especially if you are a beginner
This is a good thing because like I said before they have the 24-hour window when they click your affiliate link over to Amazon
Anything that they add to their cart and purchase within 24 hours
You will get the Commission on and whether that's in the 10% category or five percent four percent, whatever it is
You will still get commission on anything that they buy so keep that in mind
That's a really big con to the Amazon affiliate program
That's that it's generally a low Commission rate. Now the second kind of big con here that we have to talk about
Is that it is limited availability?
Although the application to Amazon is very easy
And all you need is a functioning website some countries and regions are not supported
So you may go to sign up and find that your country region is not any supported list
This is typically going to come in when you're putting in your banking information
Amazon has to be sure that they can pay to your bank and everything is proper
So if you're not in one of the countries or regions that are supported this can be a little bit
discouraging but look into using Payoneer
com you can use they're completely free us payment service where you get us banking details that you can use on your
application so that you can put USA as your banking location now the third big calm that we need to talk about here is that
The tracking link only lasts for 24 hours. So this is a positive and a negative
I'll explain why it's a negative here
Now when someone clicks on your link and goes over to Amazon
It tracks that for basically 24 hours they give you credit for anything
They purchase within the next 24 hours of clicking your link
Now that's all great, especially because people are buying things on Amazon
So regularly, whether that's your product that you're recommending or a random product on Amazon, they needed anyways
You'll still get credit but only for 24 hours now if they click your link every day
Then you'll keep getting credit for 24 hours after they click your link
But the con to this is when we start comparing that to other affiliate programs some affiliate programs out there give you 30 or 90
days of tracking so if someone clicks your link if they purchase a product or any product on the site within 90 days
You will still get a commission on that. So looking at this kind of with a grain of salt
You have to look at both sides here. You have to know that on Amazon people buy things so
Regularly that they can only give you 24 hours of credit because chances are even if they use your link in
Three days or four days. They may come back and need to buy something on Amazon
anyways
So Amazon can't give us credit for referring them because amazon knows that people are generally going to just come back and buy things regularly
Anyways, so obviously there's pros and cons to that one
But that is the con side of only having a 24 hour tracking window now number four
This is the last big con to the Amazon affiliate program
And that is that you have a 180 day review on your account
Now what that means is you sign up to be an Amazon affiliate
You have your functioning website and you get in through a proper country or region. You're good to go
But that gives you 180 days to get three qualified sales
So three people clicking your link and purchasing anything in the first one eighty days and at least 10 pieces of content on your website
These can be 10 videos. They can be 10 articles just 10 unique pieces of content that you created as original content
So keep in mind once you sign up to be a part of the affiliate program you're in and that's good
However in 180 days from when you're accepted they're going to review your account and look for those two things
They want to make sure that you've gotten three affiliate sales and you have at least ten pieces of content
Now a lot of people ask can I just buy three products through my own affiliate links and the answer to that is no
Amazon does not count our own purchases towards the affiliate program sales now
Another question that I get often is what if you get your account shut down at 180 days. You only had two qualifying sales
So they closed your account
Well just know that you can just go reapply get a new account go through all of your pieces of content
You already created and switch out the links with the links from the new account
You can just go into your new account find the same product and get the new link and just swap it out with your old
Accounts links that'll give you another 180 days to meet the requirements of three sales and ten pieces of content
So with all of that said there's six pros. There's four cons. Do I recommend it to you?
The short answer here is yes
especially if you are a beginner in affiliate marketing as long as you focus on
Creating good content with your affiliate links in it
people will click on your links the more time that you give your articles to rank in Google the more people are going to be
Clicking on your links and then anything that they buy on Amazon for the next 24 hours, you will get a commission for it
It's so easy. It's free. It's stress free and it's as passive as it gets I can't say no to this
I do recommend using the Amazon affiliate program now
I know a lot of people are going to get hung up on seeing low Commission's between four or five ten percent
compared to other affiliate programs where you might have a big payout
But just know that in exchange for getting that low Commission rate, you're getting Amazon's website that is optimized
it's compelling and it converts people to purchasing products so much better than other websites on the internet and
Lastly remember how many people are truly using Amazon and buying things on there?
Regularly now I've known this number is big, but I looked it up before this video
There are over 100 million people with amazon prime
Memberships what other company with an affiliate program can say that they have that many returning customers
Whether these people are using your Amazon affiliate link to make purchases or not
They're going to be making purchases on Amazon
No matter what
So it's to our advantage to create Amazon affiliate content and have them click our link first purchase
Whatever they're going to be purchasing anyways, and then we get a commission
So I hope this video has been helpful to show you the pros and cons of the Amazon affiliate program
I'll link up resources in the description and a couple helpful videos that will help you as well as
Always if you like this video
I definitely appreciate the thumbs up if you haven't subscribed consider doing that and I'll be seeing all you guys in the next video