How to get paid for links to Amazon: Step-by-step Guide

If you want to start making money from the traffic that visits your website, one way you can do it is through Amazon Associates. This is one of the largest affiliate networks in the world.

In this guide, we’ll cover all the basics you need to know to start making money through the Amazon Associates Programme. We’ll show you how to get set up and how to save money when you get paid for links to Amazon using Wise.

How does the Amazon affiliate program work?

It’s completely free to sign up with Amazon Associates. All you need is a website or blog and you can join the program.

Here’s how it works. Once you’re all signed up, you’ll create links to Amazon products in the content or blogs on your website. If your visitors click these links and go on to buy the Amazon products, you earn a referral fee.

You’ll need to follow all of Amazon’s guidelines, such as disclosing to your site’s visitors that you may earn money from your recommendations¹.

How to start getting paid for links to Amazon

Want your website to work a little harder for you? Here’s how to get set up with Amazon Associates and start making money through your online content.

Step 1: Sign up with Amazon Associates

You’ll need to have a website, app, blog or YouTube channel, preferably one that already has a decent amount of content on it. Then, sign into your Amazon account and follow the sign-up process.

This involves:

• Creating an Amazon Associates profile – including choosing a store ID.
• Entering your website address and explaining how you drive traffic to your website – including visitor numbers and link building methods.
• Entering account information and choosing a payment method – this is very important, as you’ll need this in order to get paid.

Step 2 – Generate Amazon Affiliate links to use on your website

You can’t just copy and paste the URL for a particular Amazon product to get paid by Amazon Associates. You need to go through a particular process, so that the links can be properly tracked.

Follow these steps:

1. Log into your Amazon Associates account and head to ‘Product Linking’
2. Search for relevant products to fit your content (for example, products related to the topic of an upcoming blog)
3. Alternatively, you can enter the Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN) if you know exactly which product you’d like to link to.
4. Either option results in a special Amazon Affiliate link being generated – this is what you’ll use on your website.

There’s also another route you can take. You can use the Amazon Associates SiteStripe bar, which shows up on product pages and has a ‘Get Link’ option. You’ll need to be logged into your Associates account first though.

Step 3 – Use the links on your website and track results

With most of the hard work over, the next step is to use your generated Amazon Affiliate links in your website content. It’s important to check over Amazon’s guidelines carefully, to make sure you know what you are and aren’t allowed to do.

Here are some tips to remember:

• High quality content is always best for attracting an audience and keeping them on your site
• Use your links as naturally as possible, which means using them in the context of relevant blogs or content – rather than shoe-horning them in anywhere
• When using Affiliate links and recommending products, you mustn’t make deceptive, false or misleading claims.
• Avoid using prices for Amazon products, except in a very broad sense – as prices on the site change all the time
• You can’t use generated Affiliate links anywhere except your blog, website, app or YouTube channel. This means you can’t use them in email marketing or advertising promotions, PDFs or eBooks.
• Avoid using link shorteners.

Once you’ve got links on your website, you can use the Associates dashboard to track clicks, sales and referral fees – and keep an eye on your earnings/

There’s one final important point to remember with the Amazon Associates program. You must make a sale within 180 days of opening your account. This means a visitor to your site must click on an Associates link on your site and go on to buy the product – within 3 months.

After this time, your account will be closed. You can reapply to the program after this point, but you’ll need to make certain adjustments to have a better chance of success.

Here’s what you need to know about getting paid by Amazon Associates²:

• Payments are issued around 60 days after the end of each month.
• You have a choice of payment methods – in the UK, your options are direct bank transfer or payment by Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate.
• You’ll need to reach a balance threshold of £25 before payment will be issued.

You’ll choose a payment method and enter your bank details while you’re setting up your Amazon Associates account. Once this is done, you can sit back and relax as payments will be issued automatically.

There is one point to note with payments from Amazon Associates though. If you don’t have a UK bank account, you’ll need to provide your International Bank Account Number (IBAN). But sending money internationally to your overseas bank may involve a currency conversion, which will most likely be at an unfavourable rate.

There is a way you can avoid this, by opening a free borderless account from Wise. Your account gives you access to local bank details, which you can provide to Amazon Associates in order to get paid in the local currency.

Here’s an example of how it could work. You’ll provide UK bank details from Wise and Amazon Associates will send the payment to those details, once you reach the minimum payout threshold.

The money arrives in your Wise account in GBP, without the need to convert it to another currency along the way. You can then choose to convert it to your local currency (i.e. US dollars) for a tiny fee and a much fairer exchange rate, or hang on to it for a future overseas payment. It’s up to you.

Start saving today with Wise

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If you already publish lots of content on your website, signing up with Amazon Associates could be a great way to make money from it.

After reading this guide, you should have a better idea of how to join the program, generate links and use them on your website. And of course, how to get paid – without getting stung on terrible currency conversion rates.

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Sources used:

1. hubspot blog post
2. Amazon affiliate help article

Sources checked on 16-December 2020.