One popular way to make money online is by becoming an Amazon Associate. By joining the Amazon Associate Program, you become an Amazon affiliate and you can start promoting products from Amazon to earn a commission.
Amazon is one of the biggest shopping platforms and with millions of products listed on this site from different sellers and big manufacturing companies, there is definitely a lot of money to made from this site.
Amazon affiliate commission is usually not as much as what other affiliate companies pay like Clickbank. However, if you are able to sell a lot of things, they usually add up very fast. You also get your commission percentage increased every now and then if you sell a certain number of items each month.
How to Become an Amazon Associate
To become an Amazon Associate, there are a few things that you need to put into consideration.
1. Eligibility – Kenya is one of the eligible countries. So, anyone can sign up to become an affiliate, provided you are 18 years and above.
2. Payment Method – You need to have a payment option that allows you to receive payment from USA banks or a bank account in order to be able to receive payment through a cheque. To receive payment through a USA bank, all you need to do is to sign up for a Payoneer account.
3. Website With Contents. This is required for approval. You can start one on free platforms like Blogspot and WordPress.com.
Once you have the three requirements ready, it now time to apply for an Amazon Associate Account. Fill up all necessary information required and wait for approval. Once your account has been approved, you are now ready to start earning commission from Amazon Associate Program.
How to Set Up an Amazon Affiliate Site
There are two ways to start making money from Amazon once your account has been approved.
1. Use the website that you submitted for approval to display Amazon products. If you are on a tight budget, this option might be the best for you. You just display related products on your blog. However, you will have to keep on updating your website with new content to maintain a constant flow of visitors.
Your niche audience is also not well targeted since you will be writing articles on different topics unlike when your site is all about a particular product.
2. Set up your own Amazon affiliate store. This option requires a software that automatically adds products straight from Amazon to your store. Basically, you just pick a certain niche, set a store in that particular niche, add products from Amazon from your dashboard, and that all you need to do.
You can now start receiving commission every time someone visits Amazon through your store and purchase something from Amazon. With this option, you also need to have your own domain and a hosting account. However, a domain name will cost you around Kshs. 1,000 per year and a hosting account cost around Kshs. 700 per month.
How Much Money Can You Make From Amazon Associate Program
To be frank, when it comes to internet marketing, there is no guarantee on how much money you can make since how much money you make is determined by many factors.
When it comes to selling products from Amazon, one thing that really determines how much money you make is the product niche and the competition around that particular niche.
If you are able to get a niche with less competition but high demand. I mean with only a few affiliate marketing that product and many customers looking for that particular product, I can guarantee you will start making money almost immediately after setting up your store.
On the other hand, if you pick a general niche or a niche where so many affiliates have stores about that particular product, it will be hard for you to make money or you will have to work extra hard to rank your store to remain competitive.
So, before you start promoting a certain product, make sure you do a thorough market research. Avoid going for general products like health and fitness equipment but instead, set up a niche on a particular product like treadmill.
This will be much easier to rank and will be less competitive. In addition, when buying a domain, look for an exact domain niche and not a general domain name. For example, if I want to promote treadmills, I could register a domain called www.treadmill.com or something like this, depending on your niche.
The other thing to remember is that you will be earning commission from the US, UK, Japan, and other countries supported by Amazon and not from Kenya. So, when registering a domain, use a top domain name extension. I mean domain name with .com, net, org extensions and not co.ke.
For the payment option, since it takes some time for Payoneer to approve your account, you can just fill up your personal details and select cheque as the payment option to receive a commission from Amazon when signing up for a new Amazon Associate account.
You can always change the payment option later to direct deposit when your Payoneer account has been approved. With direct deposit, you are able to receive payment as low as $10 but with a cheque, you need to have accumulated at least $100.