Amazon Associates UK: How to get started?

Did you know that there are other ways of making money from Amazon other than selling products? The Amazon Associates UK program is a venture you can use to earn on Amazon. In this article, we'll dive deep into what the Amazon Associates UK program is, how you can monetize it, and how to get started. We’ll also look at how you can save money when you get paid from the Amazon affiliate program using Wise.

What is the Amazon Affiliate Program?

Amazon’s affiliate program, also known as Amazon Associates, is an affiliate marketing program that allows users to monetize their online platforms such as websites, blogs, or social media. The basic principle of the Amazon affiliate program is pretty simple: affiliate users generate special customized links to Amazon products and place the links on their platforms. Whenever a customer buys the products through their link, the user receives a commission.¹

To understand exactly how the system works, and how you can take advantage of it, let's take a look at what affiliate marketing is.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Associate or affiliate marketing programs is an arrangement where an online merchant, in this case, Amazon, pays affiliate websites a commission to send traffic and/or sales to the merchant. These affiliate sites link to the merchant sites with special affiliate links. On Amazon’s affiliate program, affiliates are paid based on the number of people that they send to Amazon and make purchases within 24 hours.

Affiliate marketing has several benefits both to the merchant and the affiliate marketer. For the affiliate marketer, participating in an associate marketing program allows them to become involved in e-commerce without needing to build and run their own store, and also provide the opportunity to monetize any online platform that they have.

For the Merchant, affiliate marketing provides the opportunity to expand their brand reach and increase sales. Affiliate marketing is performance-based as affiliates are only paid when the desired action, such as driving traffic or making sales, actually happens.

There are three typical types of affiliate marketing:

1. Pay-per-Sale: In this type of affiliate program, the merchant pays the affiliate only when they send a customer that makes a purchase. Some merchants pay a fixed rate per sale, while some others, including Amazon, pay the affiliate a percentage of the sale.
2. Pay-per-Click: This type of affiliate program pays the affiliate based on how many visitors visit the merchant’s site through the affiliate’s link. This means that the associate is paid whether the visitors make a purchase or not.
3. Pay-per-lead: This affiliate program type pays affiliates based on the number of visitors on the merchant’s site that sign up as leads or fill out some requested information on the website.

How can I monetize it?

The only thing you need to start monetizing the Amazon affiliate program is consistent traffic on your online platform. Do you have a blog that has a decent level of readership, or numerous followers on Instagram or subscribers on your YouTube channel? You can join the Amazon affiliate program and start monetizing your online traffic.

All you need to do is to convince your audience to purchase products from Amazon through your link, and you start earning on every sale they make within 24 hours of them clicking your links.

How to become an Amazon Affiliate

Becoming an Amazon affiliate is quite simple.²

1. To start, visitAmazon’s affiliate site, and click “Join Now for Free.” You first have to enter your account information, which includes your name, address, and phone number.

2. Next, enter the website or mobile app URLs where you plan to display your banners, ads, or affiliate links. You are allowed to enter up to 50 combined website addresses and mobile app URLs.

3. In the section that follows, select the store ID and provide information about the platform you want to promote on, and the product you are promoting. You will also be asked to choose a topic that describes your website or mobile app.

4. Then you need to describe how to drive traffic to your online platform and generate income from them, how you typically build links, and the total number of unique visitors that you get every month.

5. Once that is completed, what you do is enter your phone number and click “Call me Now.” You get a call from Amazon, and they’ll instruct you to input a 4-digit pin, and your account gets instantly set up.

6. Finally, decide if you want to enter your payment and tax information immediately or later, and you can then proceed to your dashboard and begin creating affiliate links.

Once your account is set up, the next thing you want to do is create your Amazon affiliate link. You can use the Product Link Tool by Amazon to this. To get it, click “Product Linking” at the top of your Amazon Associates dashboard. You’ll be directed to a screen where you’ll search for a product. You can search for a generic term or a specific brand or product. When you click the search button, the search results will appear below it, and you can click the products you would want to create an affiliate link for. Then simply click the “Get Link” button next to the product. You’ll see a pop-up box with your affiliate link, which can use as it is, or customize it and then share it on your platform.

How do I get paid from Amazon Associates?

The profits that you earn as an Amazon associate is paid approximately 60 days after the end of each calendar month. The payments can be made by direct deposits (that is, into your bank account), by cheque or by Amazon gift cards. The payment option that you choose will often play a role in how often you receive your payment. This is because it has a minimum payment account amount for each withdrawal type. The options that you have are cheques (only available to non-UK residents), amazon.co.uk Gift Cards, and direct deposits to bank accounts.

If you use the direct deposit option, Amazon will regularly disburse funds from your affiliate account into your bank account. If the payout is not in your local currency, consider using Wise as an alternative to your bank account for receiving payments from Amazon affiliate program to save over 30% on the transaction fee.

With Wise Business, you can receive payments in 10 different currencies and take advantage of the real exchange rate for when you convert the money to your local currency for a small and transparent fee that is 14x cheaper than PayPal.

Start saving today with Wise