How To Increase Your Amazon Commissons

[Michael Brown]

I don't always use Amazon as my affiliate program and in fact, I don't use it very much. However, I'll be changing that this year because I noticed my sales are increasing with AMZ.

I train people to make money online from scratch and one of the most common trends I see when people go to select an affiliate program is people saying they will not use Amazon because of the low payout.

So I decided to make a post showing how I pull in 7-7.5% commissions instead of 4% on a regular basis.
(and yes, I want to improve this even more as the tier can go all the way to 8.5%).

Amazon offers a tiered affiliate payout structure. The more you sell the more you make.

The problem? Most people want to promote those real expensive items that they only sell 1-2 of each month. Therefore they never hit a higher sales tier.

To get to 6% you only need to sell 7 items.

To get to at least 7% sales you need to sell 111 items. That sounds like a lot... but it's really not if you're promoting Amazon products the right way.

Here's what you need to do.

Create a niche site or as many as you want around extremely cheap products (stuff most affiliates think is a waste of time). This could be promoting MP3s (you will only make like 6 cents off a single), or cheap under $10 products.

Get the site ranked to where it's getting regular traffic and sales.

Then create bigger ticket item niche sites i.e. Cameras, expensive sporting equipment, kitchen appliances, etc.

Note: If you're in a large niche that has both cheap and expensive items you can get away with just the 1 site, but focus on recommending both types of products.

Sure you'll sell fewer larger ticket items compared to smaller ticket items but here's what will happen. You'll start selling hordes of cheap items and you'll hit that 7%+ tier. i.e. last night alone I sold 44 mp3s. I made a whopping 3 bucks from that... but I also went into a new tier. I also sold a few higher ticket items, now for the month all of my sales make me almost double what they would have.

Just to show you the difference let's say you are selling items that are $2000. At 4% that's $80. At 7% that's $140


Once you start hitting those higher tiers on a regular basis you can scale up your expensive item niches to increase your income.

It takes slightly more work to do this, but the end results will be worth it.

Keep in mind certain products like computer systems are capped at $25 because Amazons profit margins are much lower.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share this today because it seems so many people have this same question and I believe this can help a lot of people.

[wink0r]

Also keep in mind that you may send a customer for a low cost item but that Amazon is one of the best at selling additional items. Many Amazon affiliates have stories about sending traffic for a low cost item and ending up with a big ticket sale. If the customer enters through your link you get credit for anything that they purchase on the visit.

[Michael Brown]

Winkor, great point and one I completely forgot to bring up. The funny thing is I remember back when Amazon first came out an they were ridiculed by every business insider. A few years later and they are a selling power house.

[Damien8100]

Amazon gives you many opportunities its large number of items but you have to come up with your own exclusive methods of promoting them. I read out your interesting and informative post. Its dead easy and pretty difficult to go wrong.

[bluearrow]

Winkor, great point and one I completely forgot to bring up. The funny thing is I remember back when Amazon first came out an they were ridiculed by every business insider. A few years later and they are a selling power house.

Many still think Amazon affiliate program is waste of time because of their 24 hour cookie period. But when you do it right you can earn from Amazon better than from AdSense.

[macgizmoguy]

Excellent tip: Going after not just cheap products to quickly move up commission tiers - but also targeting the "CHEAP" customer. For many of my Amz affiliate sites I will do a blog post or create a dedicated static page targeting it: "Cheap 4-Slice Toasters Under Fifteeen Dollars", "5 Best Cheap Bluetooth Headphones", etc.

Ironically: Targeting low-cost products and penny-pinching customers often results in better conversion rates - or folks buying higher-end premium products anyways! Doesn't matter what niche you're in.

P.S. It's also smart to include 'Cheap, Cheapest, Low-Cost, Affordable, Best Price, Lowest Cost' when doing keyword research.

[bluearrow]

Another tip is make sure to have couple of sites which sell very cheap but stuff people buy often. You might not earn anything more $0.20 from each item but if you sell many items then it will help you to increase your commission rate.

[James Greg]

Excellent tip: Going after not just cheap products to quickly move up commission tiers - but also targeting the "CHEAP" customer. For many of my Amz affiliate sites I will do a blog post or create a dedicated static page targeting it: "Cheap 4-Slice Toasters Under Fifteeen Dollars", "5 Best Cheap Bluetooth Headphones", etc.

Ironically: Targeting low-cost products and penny-pinching customers often results in better conversion rates - or folks buying higher-end premium products anyways! Doesn't matter what niche you're in.

P.S. It's also smart to include 'Cheap, Cheapest, Low-Cost, Affordable, Best Price, Lowest Cost' when doing keyword research.

It is true. If you add the word Cheap and make your title saucy, people would be clicking on it like mad. Everyone out there is looking for ways to save money on shopping and the word cheap attracts the most.

---------- Post added 07-05-2013 at 05:21 PM ----------

@bluearrow: I agree that one you enter their good books you are awarded a bigger share of the pie. But in many cases reaching that point is just too hard.

[vf8170]

It works when I'm searching for stuff lol. I'm a cheap SOB

[bluearrow]

James I think earning from Amazon is lot easy than many think. Main point is get them to Amazon site through your site. Most visitors (US) would buy something there when they visit Amazon. But for this you have write nice content and Get enough US visitors. This might be a hard part. But these days you don't have to relay on Google to send all your traffic. Amazon work great with Social media traffic.

[James Greg]

bluearrow, attracting US visitors is also not an easy task in itself. I get your point, I agree that relying on Google for this task would not be very rewarding. Social media is a better place to sell right now because there are just too many viewers available at the same time. But I still believe that if you are giving any sort of benefit to your customer, only then will you be able to make the sale.

[Misterlane]

Thanks for the tips, Michael!
Still I see Amazon as a good starting platform for people that are new in affiliate marketing. Selling Amazon products is relatively easy, but 24hour cookies and small profit makes it limited. I think that once you are reaching 7-8% in Amazon, it's time for you to move to more profitable affiliate programs. But it's just my opinion

[bluearrow]

bluearrow, attracting US visitors is also not an easy task in itself. I get your point, I agree that relying on Google for this task would not be very rewarding. Social media is a better place to sell right now because there are just too many viewers available at the same time. But I still believe that if you are giving any sort of benefit to your customer, only then will you be able to make the sale.

Attracting US visitors is not easy as it see but there are factors and signs which you need use and look for. like US local forums, classified sites, groups even keywords like there are some words in various US states use but not common in other countries. These are just few examples. It can be done.

[rahmado]

amazing article... good job bro..