You’re scrolling your Instagram feed, and you stop on a reel of someone describing how instead of watching Bridgerton on Netflix tonight, you could be making money online by pinning Amazon affiliate marketing pins on your Pinterest account.
The steps look simple enough in the video.
- Pick a product.
- Create a pin in Canva.
- Post to Pinterest.
You watch the video a few times until finally you decide to give it a shot. But now that you’re ready to get started, you realize there’s more to it than the video let on.
- How do you pick a product?
- Where did they get their image from?
- Is Canva free? Or do you need to pay for the pro version?
- Do you just pin this to your personal Pinterest account? Is there any other kind?
- How do you actually get paid for this?
And suddenly all that self-confidence begins to fade. Let me know if this sounds familiar.
Maybe you’ve heard of affiliate marketing before, but you’re not sure how to actually get started. You like the idea of Amazon affiliate marketing; you just need someone to help you fill in the gaps.
You’ve come to the right place. In this post, I’m going to break down those 3 simple steps to getting started to answer your questions about how to go from product to paid.
Just a heads up, this post may contain affiliate links. If you click and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products and services I genuinely believe in.
What is the Amazon Affiliate Program?
I want to start by telling you that I am not an Amazon Associate, so none of the links to Amazon in this post are affiliate links. Personally, I think Amazon’s commissions are too low, and I’d rather spend my time promoting higher commission products.
That being said, Amazon’s affiliate program is one of the most popular affiliate programs, especially for beginners. Why is this program so popular when it pays so little, you ask? Well…
It’s free to join.
Lots of folks are familiar with shopping on Amazon.
Amazon sells just about everything, so you can find products related to any niche.
In addition to being a giant retailer with trusted name recognition, Amazon’s website is built for conversions (read: sales). You funnel people to their site, and they take over from there.
If you haven’t read my blog post describing how affiliate marketing works in depth, let’s do a quick review of the highlights.
Affiliate marketing is a common way that bloggers and influencers monetize their online content. They recommend products or services they have used and love and provide a unique link for their audience to discover more about those products.
If someone clicks on one of those unique affiliate links and makes a purchase, that person earns a commission. Like a thank-you from the company for sending them a customer.
It works the same on Amazon’s website. When an Amazon Associate recommends a product and someone uses their affiliate link to purchase the product, the associate earns a small commission at no additional cost to the buyer. Amazon rewards the associate for generating leads. And the buyer gets a user-reviewed product. Win-Win-Win!
How does Amazon know that the person used your affiliate link? They track the cookies (not the edible kind).
When a member of your audience clicks on your affiliate link, a cookie is placed on their device which is unique to your affiliate account and ensures that Amazon knows:
- this customer came from you, and
- the commission should go to your account.
The cookie lasts 24hrs and applies to any purchase(s) made on the site within that time, even if they don’t purchase the specific product that you linked to. The cookie life is extended to 30 days for any items they add to their cart.
Think about that for a minute. Do you remember every link you’ve clicked on in the last 30 days? Are you sure that none of them were affiliate links? Did you shop on Amazon cart or make any purchases in the last 30 days?
The fact that shopping on Amazon is so integrated into our lives is one of the reason’s this program is so popular. You could be earning commissions from people who visited your site up to a month ago and may have already forgotten all about that visit.
So, let’s breakdown those three simplistic steps you saw on Instagram.
Find A Product Join the Amazon Associate Program
Before you start scrolling through Amazon looking for a product, you need to actually join the Amazon Associates program. And for that, you’re going to need a website. This is important because you to tell Amazon where you’ll share your links and how you expect to drive traffic to their platform.
Some options for a website include:
A blog
Instagram account
WooCommerce website
A link hosting platform, like StanStore
This will be important for Pinterest too, so don’t skip this part. Amazon has strict rules about not sharing your links with friends and family. Only share your links on the approved sites.
If you choose to create a blog or a website, you don’t need to overthink this. There are plenty of services, like Hostinger, that use AI to generate an entire website with just a few clicks.Once you have a site, you’re ready to go to the Amazon Associates website and sign up.
Once your account is successfully created, you’ll be redirected to your associate dashboard where you can track link clicks and commissions.
Now you’re ready to pick a product.
Find A Product
Keep in mind that one of the ways you build trust is by promoting products that you have used. One way to ensure that you are approaching affiliate marketing ethically is to source products from your own previous purchases.
What’s something that you own that you would feel comfortable recommending?
If you need more inspiration, you can search through the categories in the left side panel and look for products that are best sellers. These are good choices because they are popular and people like buying them.
Now that you’re an associate, take a look at their commission structure. That may also impact which product you choose to promote.
Create A Pin in Canva
The good news is Canva is a design tool that allows you to create Pinterest pins, and it has a free tier.
Inside of Canva, you’ll choose to create a new design and select Pinterest pin (2:3) for the size. Even in the free tier, you have access to tons of pin design templates. No need to reinvent the wheel here. Pick a design you like that will work well for promoting a product.
But where do you get your product image from?
This is important. Amazon doesn’t allow you to use their website images in your pins.
This is another reason why having the product in hand helps. You can take your own photo and upload it into Canva to create your pin. It helps build trust, and gives your audience better context than the generic product image.
Post to Pinterest
You’ve created your pin in Canva and downloaded it to your computer. Now, it’s time to share it.
While it’s not wrong to use your personal Pinterest account to promote your affiliate pins, a Pinterest Business account is free and offers you greater benefits for things like analytics to see how your pins are preforming on the platform.
But hey, if you’ve got lots of followers who would therefore see your new pins first and you think they would be likely to click on your pins, then I’d say go with your gut. I’m going to proceed as if you’ve created a Pinterest Business account.
Pinterest is primarily a search engine. When you create a new pin, you need to include relevant keywords so that your pins will show up in searches on the platforms. You know what else is a search engine? Amazon.
A good place to find relevant keywords is in the product listing on Amazon. These include broad topics, like “ring light” or “tripod”, and long-tail keywords, like “best ring light for Instagram.”
When you create your Pin on Pinterest, you’ll need to do the following:
- Upload the image you made in Canva
- Give your pin a keyword-rich Title
- Give your pin a keyword-rich Description and disclose that you’re sharing an affiliate link (e.g. #ad #affiliate).
- Choose the best board.
- Provide a link to your website. (Do not put your affiliate link as the destination URL.)
- Add a Product Tag. This is where you’ll insert your affiliate link.
You’ll find your Amazon affiliate link on your Amazon product’s page in the the Stripe bar at the top of the screen. Don’t try to hide or shorten your affiliate links. Pinterest doesn’t like this. And don’t make false claims about the products or include prices, which are subject to change. Amazon doesn’t like this.
Remember when I said that having a website was going to be important to Pinterest? Well here it is. Pinterest doesn’t like to see people posting directly to their amazon affiliate links. This is why it helps to have a link hosting site or a blog that you can link to instead that contains your affiliate link.
Pinterest also doesn’t like to see you linking to the same URL more than once every 7 days. The long life of a pin makes this unnecessary, and it make you look like spam. So it’s ok, even expected, that you’ll promote more than one product.
You should definitely read through their rules yourself when you join, but here’s a few quick rules to keep in mind:
As long as the associate makes 3 qualifying sales in their first 180 days of joining the program, then they can stay in the program.
While 180 days sounds like a really long time, making those 3 qualifying sales can take longer than you might think and largely depends on the kind of content you create and how you promote that content.
Those are the real 3 steps explained to start Amazon affiliate marketing.
Final Thoughts
If you choose to join the Amazon Associates program you should read through all of their rules and restrictions. You should also make sure to set up your Pinterest profile and boards with SEO in mind.
I hope that after reading this you have more confidence with starting your Amazon affiliate marketing journey. If want to learn more about affiliate marketing across other social media platforms, sign up for the same free live masterclass that helped to build my affiliate marketing business.
I have to admit that I agree with the Instagram influencer. If you’ve got time to watch Netflix, you’ve got time to watch a free masterclass and start making money with affiliate marketing. Cheers!