I'm sitting deep into my chair, full fingers on the keyboard, and I've only got one thing on mind as I'm about to write my next few words.
Is Amazon Affiliate Marketing A Scam? Or maybe a $1,000,000 Opportunity?
What if not one, but both of these questions were answered truthfully, and I told you that One Is right, and the other was wrong?
Like the sound of a Bee flying around from your left to right ear, there's a HUGE Buzz around the amazon "make money online" territory, and I want to end your doubts and concerns, and tell you...
Absolutely not!
Yeah, that's right, Amazon affiliate marketing is not a scam, but I'll tell you what is...
People telling you that all you have to do is press a button and CHA-CHING Baby! Watch as your $10,000 start rolling in. This my friend is a complete lie, and it's sad, but there's a dark unethical side of affiliate marketing you don't want to fall further into.
With that said, like anything in affiliate marketing, it'll take you persistence, a good attitude, a work ethic, and listening skills, among many others. Before We jump into things, I made a review about the amazon associates program, if you want to learn more about it, and how to get started.
Amazon Affiliate Overview
Product Name: Amazon
Founder: Jeff Bezos
Product Type: Affiliate, FBA, Ecommerce, physical.
Price: Nothing
Best for: Starting your own business,side-hustle, full-time, people wanting to leave their 9-5, and so many more!
Summary: Being an amazon affiliate marketer is great for any beginner who is just getting their foot into affiliate marketing - as well for expert affiliate marketers. You have a trustworthy company, many people are online purchasing, and if you look around you, companies are going out of business! This is a great time for you to get into the online digital world as an affiliate.
Rating: 98/100
Recommended: Yes
UPDATE: Amazon Associates program has experienced changes to their commission rates, drastically dropping them down to the point where you have to reconsider relying on JUST them. I made a through post here on amazon's associate program.
NOTE: You can still read this post to know about how amazon affiliate marketing works and possible additions and alternatives to it.
What Is Amazon Affiliate Marketing?
You were once a baby, and like one, you had to learn to crawl before you walked right? And when you walked, you looked up every once in a few moments to stare back at your parents with a big huge smile, and then it happened...
The certainty that on the other side, you were going to stand up and walk, but Hold on...
BOOM! You fell back hard on your ass. But who's there to encourage you to get up and try again? Your parents, your mentors, the people who you look up to, and in no shocking matter, you finally got up to walk without the help.
That's what it feels like to be an affiliate marketer Ok...
- Crawl
- Walk
- Fall on Your Ass
- Get up and do it again
- Fall again
- Get up and do it again
If you don't have this mindset right now, you will be setting yourself for complete failure, and guess what?
There is no Amazon Affiliate in your equation. Forget about it. That's the tall glass of truth that I want you to know before moving forward, It's best to clear the air because I'm so freaking sick and tired of people hearing "Oh man, well everyone is doing this affiliate and amazon affiliate marketing thing...
I can make a "quick buck" or "I don't have to put any effort behind it. You know very well, you didn't just show up to class and get a good grade, or that you were lucky that you got your job...
You actually had to sell yourself, and put in what?...EFFORT.
Assuming that you have some form of an understanding about affiliate marketing in general, Being an amazon affiliate is like walking up to your first date ever, and you ask this girl to marry you...
Why the heck would she marry you? Warm him/her up, take them on more dates, and that's what being an amazon affiliate will feel like.
I promise this next part will be more strategy, less romanticizing and what not.
Amazon Rules The Online World
Is your dream to be financially free? To have a "side hustle" that can help you pay off your bills? Whether it's one or the other, or just a couple of the many reasons, Amazon is the best place for beginners and experts of all backgrounds.
Take a snapshot the next time you walk into a retail store and you pick up a product off the shelf, ask yourself this one question...
"Who would need this". Just this one question will open your doors for these others:
- What is their core problem?
- What is the core solution?
The reason why Amazon is so rich is not because they have great products, but great people with problems searching for their solutions, and then you have the affiliates(You) who connects the person with Amazon.
That's all you have to do - Drive people(we call that traffic) to your offer, Your audience will click on an affiliate link and then go over to the retailer(the merchant), and once he/she buys, you get paid out a commission.
It's that simple, no need to complicate it, yet everyone does because of one problem.
They go to amazon, select a product and then go over to their social media page(or create one), and start spamming on peoples comments, Direct messages, posts, and you know the reaction?
FAILURE! I don't want you to be this person who thinks they can place a link to sit in their bio and wait for someone to come click it, or "Holler" at people who have no idea who you are, in attempt to make a purchase.
Don't get me wrong, you might get a sale or two but good luck getting consistent income. Would you rather be on that end of the long tail of people who constantly drop out from amazon affiliate marketing or do you want to be the one who has people begging to buy from you?
I want you to start thinking as the "Hunted", not the hunter. This concept is about getting people to find you, not you having to prospect, recruit, be a pushy salesmen type of deal, rather to have people search you...
That's how I do my business, and it's the reason why I make well over 4 figures per month just from Amazon.
You can get a piece of the 1,00,000's searching online for products that you can place in front of them, but ONLY if you go about it right, which I will share with you soon, stick with me if you want to see.
Going Inside Amazon Affiliate Marketing
Back in early 2017, I was searching for my next "award winning product" that would make me the big bucks, and I was like, This product is so awesome, I've used it myself so everyone must want it!
One link went on my social media page, another one to a couple of my family members, and I was like YES! I'm doing it, rags to riches, Or was it?
My two mistakes:
- Wanting fast money
- Promoting to everyone and anyone.
Let's get one thing straight, I was blind. No one online bought from me. After watching one YouTube video, after the next, blog post after blog post, I thought I finally had it...
I'd put up a site and start putting my products on their with a bit of content. No one showed up! If crickets lived on my website, I would have believed it.
No kidding. At the time, I had up a weebly and Wix website for Free, and that got me no where. People didn't take me serious, No one came looking for me, I went back into my Instagram account back to the grind...
I lost connection with myself, thinking I wouldn't pay off my college debt, I'd go back to being someone that tried and failed...But no!
I went back to my research and I found a training platform that CHANGED MY LIFE.
I learned that you couldn't sell to everyone and anyone, but you had to have your own Niche, which is like you're in the middle of this red ocean where all the sharks are feeding, and then in the distance theirs this blue ocean...
And that's where you are unique and you have your own competitive advantage in the marketplace.
I was taught to make a website blog, publish content and that would attract people over to me from the Google search engine and others like Bing and Yahoo...
This was my first REAL shot at being the hunted and not the hunter. There are 5 things that I do before I select a product...
- How much money do I want to make?
- WHO is my dream customer?
- Core Problems my dream customer is facing
- Core Solution I can offer him/her
- Core offer.
Sounds complex at first, but stick with me here. You have to get real with who you want to target...
For example: I have a health and wellness amazon affiliate business in the lower back pain space...
So I answer to myself the questions above:
- I want to make over $10,000 a month. See, it's not that people don't have goals, it's that they have goals that are too low and you can hit them. But you need to have goals that are high(realistic too) and that even if you didn't hit within a time frame, you know you can get to it, and you put in all your effort.
- Who do I want to serve? If you don't know your "Who", you will continue to fail and you will quickly end what you're doing and jump on another shiny object opportunity. My dream customer are people who can't work and need help getting back into the workforce.
- Core problem they are facing is that they are not able to get through the day without having a chronic inflammation at work.
- My core solution that I will place in front of them can be a seat cushion.
- My core offer is what will they need after they purchase my product that I offer them? In other words, what objections will they have to purchasing the product and what will they need after they make a purchase? Ex: A day-by-day workout plan, more stretching routines, etc.
That's how you rock any amazon affiliate niche. But it's important that you pick a niche that you have experience with, a passion, hobby, and or interest in. With my site, I had an interest in it, not a passion...
But over time I developed that passion. Alright, ready for the fun part?
Amazon Affiliate Training
Amazon doesn't have a particular training themselves on how to promote each product of theirs but guess who does?
Me! Here's what you should do way before you apply to be apart of amazons affiliate program step-by-step:
STEP 1: Get your niche. With the questions I gave you in the section just above(how much you want to make, the "who", core problem, core solution, core offer).
And here's a video I created for this
STEP 2: Get a website. My ultimate advice stands as, start a website blog where you can get used to the idea of publishing natural content and having your affiliate links in between.
Here's a video on why you need a website:
STEP 3: Place your content in front of people. Remember, you want to be the hunted, not the hunter. So we're going to get you in "keyword research" mode, where you'll find what people are typing into google and you can put your content in front of them.
Here's my keyword research video:
STEP 4: Get traffic. The heart and soul of your affiliate business will come to getting quality leads who want to buy your offers/products, and you will need traffic that converts. After you start posting content through your keyword research efforts, people will come.
For more references on how to get setup as an affiliate, you can visit Hub spots article too.
How Much Does Amazon Affiliate Cost?
Absolutely nothing! While there is no cost to become an Amazon affiliate, there will always be some other expenses such as:
- A website domain and hosting
- Your Time
If you can't even do those two things, this is not going to be right for you. It's such a little cost to startup, and just imagine where you would be in 6 months to a year from today...
You're going to have traffic coming to your website, people will start buying from you, you'll become an authority in your niche, and your skill levels will be above the 99% of people who will give up.
Most people want a quick buck when they come into this, but YOU need to get this...
It's not a sprint but a marathon. Also..
Rather let's ask, is it profitable? Here's a video on that:
Amazon Affiliate Without A Website
If you're wondering, at what point can I start to do this without a website, I got you, there are two videos that I made for you:
This is without a website:
Along with that, I made a precision video on how to use Instagram for this:
At the end of the day, you will still need a website! Don't go away from the idea that not having a site is more attractive. If you've never done affiliate marketing, then you should first start with at least a website blog, and then later transform into other platform ONCE you get results.
Who's Amazon Affiliates For?
The amazing thing about being an amazon affiliate is that it's honestly for everyone, ranging from beginners to experts. It's for:
- Stay at home mom and dads. If you don't want for reason that you have to take care of your family, for a disability, you already work from home, and for many other reasons, you can do this.
- Retirees. If you're tired of sitting at home not doing anything, or you want more activities to fill up your time, this will work out for you.
- 9-5 workers. Do you want to get away from the 9-5 rat race? Or maybe you just need extra income to pay the bills? This will work out for you.
- Entrepreneurs. Current entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs enthusiast, you can get a start with the amazon affiliate program and grow your business.
- Side hustlers. Do you want a part time gig where you can learn to market products? This can definitely be a good fit for you.
- Business enthusiast. You've always wanted to start an online business.
And it's for any age range. There are so much more that I could put on the list, but these are some of the important ones.
Amazon Affiliate Alternatives
I'd like to say Amazon is the only place every person will purchase products from but it's not...
There are TONS of other awesome affiliate programs you can expand to inside of your niche, and also for the fact that at the beginning of this article I mentioned that Amazon has sliced commission rates really low making it very difficult to even partner with them anymore.
So here are alternatives for amazon's associate program:
- Shareasale
- AWIN
- Impact
- Commission Junction
- Ebay
These are just a few. I've done a thorough review of a proper list of 7+affiliate programs that can make you great money here.
What I Like About Amazon Affiliates
There are so many aspects of being an amazon affiliate that I love, but If I had to name a few, this is what they are:
- Time Freedom. There's no better feeling than being able to work from anywhere and at any time, and I don't have to be attached to an office. I travel when I want and all I need is my laptop.
- Amazon is Trustworthy. The biggest online retailer has a great reputation for attraction billions of people every year. That means you can get in front of people who are ready to buy.
- My entrance to leaving my 9-5. I started as an amazon affiliate, and later expanded into other areas of affiliate marketing, and I grew as a person and added extra stream of incomes.
Is Being An Amazon Affiliate A Scam?
Heck no. I know there are many scams out there in affiliate marketing and that's a hash reality to face, but I can assure you that as a an amazon affiliate, you will be safe.
There's no greater feeling than having a trustworthy affiliate network that will be there to help you, is there for the long term, and it has quite the reputation it has.
3 Amazon Affiliate Marketing Growth Hacks For Faster Results
Before you leave here today, you can't afford to miss out on 3 amazon affiliate marketing growth hacks.
- Research your market. Whether you're going after passion, interest, or a hobby, you have to research things like: Potential for profits, competition, are people buying, and can I see myself doing this for years to come? It's crucial that you understand what you are choosing and that you see through with it, not go from one niche to the next.
- Produce Video. Along side a blog, you can make videos or vise versa and re-purpose your content to other platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and so forth. It's great to have "keyword" visibility, but you should try to stay omnipresent - meaning showing up over and over again in front of your audience.
- Take note of what amazon recommends people after or before they buy a product. You can use these to see what else is popular in your space, but even better...to start making a list of what you can offer your new or current audience the next time. You always want to start with one product to begin and then grow to others once you've made enough reviews and have made the impact you've needed to solve peoples problems.
That's it! Although there is one more section that will reveal to you how I would get started with the #1 training platform and to have a website with, I want to hand you an extra 4 advanced growth hack tips inside of a free blueprint to accelerate your exposure with a website and through social media too.
How I Make A Living Online
Where can you go from here?
If you're ready to start your amazon affiliate journey like I once did, you should check out my #1 recommendation for getting started...
Where you will be shown step-by-step how to start your website, and grow an asset that will serve you for many years to come.
What did you think of this review? Is there something I missed that you would like to know more about? Leave me a comment down below and I will get back to you ASAP.