Self Publishing and Marketing

Can Anyone Join Amazon Associates Affiliate Program? YES! A How To Guide For Making Money

Selling something on Amazon? You NEED to set up an affiliate link.
Not selling something on Amazon? You STILL NEED to get an affiliate link. How else are you going to make a second stream of income??

The beauty of the Amazon Associates program is that you can earn money on your own product (for example, a self-published book on Amazon KDP like ours) or any other product you recommend via a Social Media post Blog.

So what do you need to get started?

A website:

Can’t be bothered to make one, well let Facebook do it for you then! If you make a Facebook Page then you can use that to create an Amazon Associates Account. (You can not use your own personal page, make a business one!)

Pretty easy, yeah?

So once you’ve made your Facebook Page (and ideally invited people to like it), you can head on over to google and search Amazon Associates…..in the country you want to sign up for.

Setting up your Amazon Associates Account…multiple times:

Yes, one country. Unfortunately, you need to sign up on each countries Amazon page individually.

This is a bit of a pain in the ass and can take some time, but it is worth it in the end. I would recommend doing it in the following countries:

  • USA
  • UK
  • Canada
  • France
  • Germany
  • Japan
  • Australia

These countries usually have the highest percentage of purchases, but ideally add in your own home country too if its not on the list or any country where you are trying to sell your product in.

Lets use signing up in Singapore as an example.

So type in Amazon Associates Singapore and click Sign Up.

You then have the option to create an Amazon account, or you can use one you already have.

Account Information: This is where you can enter your address details and whether you are a U.S. person for tax purposes.

Website and Mobile App List: This is where you will add in your Facebook Page URL, or if you have another website you can add that in. Click Add, and then Next.

Profile: Pick an ID that is going to be your referral ID for everything. Your Name or Business Name is a good idea.

The scroll down the page and fill in all boxes with a red asterixis *.

Traffic and Monetization: Again make sure to fill in all * boxes, you can use what I filled in below if your website was a Facebook Page. Otherwise, make sure to fill it in according to your website.

Agree to terms and conditions and then bam you are finished!….Sort of….

Payment and Tax Information: You want to get paid, right??

After you clicked finished this little section should have appeared “Enter your Payment and Tax Informtion” you can clcik Now or Later…guess what you should do?

NOW! GIVE ME MY MONEY!

Now each Amazon Associates page has slightly different options for Bank Locations.

For Singapore, I have four options (and having a US bank account means I select that). But if you don’t have a bank account in any of the countries offered have a google…there are a lot of websites that offer the ability to set up overseas bank accounts.

Fill in your bank details, and make sure to hit SUBMIT, not Skip! I definitely hit this option by accident and didn’t even realize it for months. So please don’t make my mistake!

Tax Information: Pick if you are an Indivicual or Business, Your address, then fill in your SN and sign and submit your form.

A preview of your Tax Form will appear; make sure to SCROLL DOWN and hit SUBMIT Form. This will then validate your form and will give you the option to exit the interview.

If there are any issues a red notice will appear showing you what you need to fix or update. Sometimes it says your bank information is wrong, but it just needs the page to be refreshed for it to go away.

Adding Amazon Products to your Affiliate Link

Now you can go to the Product Link tab and click on Product Links to search for any Amazon product you want to create an affiliate link for.

Click Get Link and then you can copy and paste it into wherever you want to promote it.

OR

You can use your Tracking ID number and insert it into your Geniuslink account (don’t have one? Click here to read why you NEED one!). Geniuslink adds your ID to any product link you have already, and it will refer people worldwide to their country’s Amazon page.

Commissions and Bounties

While earning some extra cash for each purchase is nice, earning extra cash for each person’s total CART is even better. Whenever someone clicks on your affiliate link, even if they don’t purchase your product but instead buy a TV at that time and checkout, then BAM…you get a commission off that TV, and it’s called a Bounty.

Amazon does this because you are the one that brought them to their site, so if they purchase anything, then you get a small commission too.

In Amazons own words:

You earn commission income on any qualifying items placed in a customer’s Shopping Cart within 24 hours of their arrival at Amazon.com via your Associates link. However, this 24-hour window closes once the customer submits his order or reenters Amazon.com through another Associate’s link. Once the window is closed, you will not earn commission income  on any subsequent purchases. However, if the customer then returns to Amazon.com through one of your Associates links, this opens a new 24-hour window.

It is of course possible that a customer may arrive at Amazon.com via your Associates link, add an item to his Shopping Cart, and then leave Amazon.com without placing an order. As long as the item was added to the customer’s Shopping Cart during this 24-hour window, you will still earn a referral commission if the order is placed before the Shopping Cart expires (usually after 90 days). The referral commission will not be credited to your Associates account until the customer has purchased the item, accepted delivery, and remitted full payment to Amazon.com.

Cheers Amazon.

And that’s it! How you can signup and make the most out of your affiliate links.

Make sure to check out some of our other posts about how to advertise and market your product too!