Amazon Affiliate - The Definitive Guide

What is affiliate marketing?

Before we dive into what the Amazon affiliate program is, we should probably start with the question "What is affiliate marketing?" in general.

The gist is that an affiliate marketing program is a way for a brand or retailer to track referrals, sales, and/or certain actions and reward those who are responsible for doing so.

When I was working at Apple as the Global Program Manager of the iTunes Affiliate Program, I described our affiliate program to my marketing peers as an "infrastructure to facilitate partnerships."

This process typically involves three major pieces -- the brand or retailer (Amazon in this case), the person referring the shoppers (this is likely you), and the way they do this (a specialized tracking link is often used).

The way things would work is that you, with a website, app, and/or social media channel, make a recommendation about a product or service, adding insights and value into the buying process for your community, and then follow that up with a specialized affiliate tracking link. Your audience -- the shopper -- will then review your insights, and if they are moved, will click on that link, be taken to the retailer, and ideally buy the product or service you recommended. The retailer will then see the sale was referred by you, within a certain timeframe of the click, and then credit you for the sale at a predefined rate.

Ideally, this process repeats itself again and again, and with this success, you expand the recommendations and insights you provide to support a growing audience. Everyone wins -- the shoppers get unique and additional insights, you get rewarded for your time and effort, and the retailer is making additional sales it may not have made otherwise.

This simplification of the process ignores the sign-up, set-up, and payment aspects of the affiliate program. While those are important, they are administrative tasks that aren’t as interesting. More details on those will follow.

Besides the specific brand or retailer they support, the two biggest factors that differentiate an affiliate program are the commission rates they pay out (often as percentage of the sales price) and how long the shopper has between clicking your link and making the purchase (often called the "cookie window").

Where does the Amazon affiliate program fit in?

Amazon’s affiliate program, officially known as "Amazon Associates," is very similar to the tens of thousands of other affiliate programs out there and follows the model laid out above. In general, for sending qualified shoppers into the Amazon store via a specialized link, you will be rewarded with a commission on sales.

A few differences to note include: Amazon doesn’t call the rewards "commissions," opting instead for "Fees" and "Bounties." They also refer to you, traditionally referred to as an "affiliate publisher," as an "Associate."

Additionally, Amazon’s affiliate program does not use an affiliate network, a third-party service that often provides the tracking and reporting services to both the retailer/brand and the publisher. Amazon’s affiliate program is internal.

Traditionally, the specialized affiliate tracking link for an affiliate program is long and ugly, as it includes multiple parameters and additional information necessary to make one or more redirects. However, since Amazon’s affiliate program doesn’t use an affiliate network, there is only a minor difference between a link you’d see in your browser while on the Amazon site and an affiliate link. That difference is the inclusion of the parameter "tag" followed by some characters that end with "-20" for Amazon.com.

Normal link: https://www.amazon.com/Martian-Andy-Weir/dp/0553418025/
Affiliate link: https://www.amazon.com/Martian-Andy-Weir/dp/0553418025/?tag=geniuslink-20

Amazon’s affiliate program, like the majority of today’s affiliate programs, uses the "last click attribution" model. This means the Associate -- aka the affiliate publisher, aka you -- who sends a shopper to Amazon is only rewarded if they are the last one to do so. If, for example, you send a shopper to Amazon, but before they leave, go to another site and read another review then click on another affiliate link, you lose out on the opportunity to earn a commission. While that other affiliate link, the last click before the purchase, will get credit for the sale.

Another way to lose out on commissions is for the "cookie window" to expire. The cookie window is the time Amazon allows for a sale to happen and still be credited to you. Amazon’s affiliate program has a pretty tight window of 24 hours. So if someone clicked on your link, didn’t click on any other affiliate links but waited 25 hours before they bought, you would miss out on the referral credit. Other programs can be much longer. Walmart, for example, offers 72 hours.

However, it’s important to note that Amazon’s cookie window isn’t a measure of click-to-purchase but rather click-to-cart. As long as the product is moved to the cart within the 24 hours, then purchased and shipped within 89 days, you’ll earn that commission. This gives some extra flexibility, but also can create some confusion in your earnings later down the road.