Historically, Amazon Sellers have relied heavily on internal traffic, be it organic or through paid ads. But these channels are highly competitive now, and Sellers often find themselves competing for the same group of buyers. External affiliate marketing allows Sellers to reach new, untapped audiences outside of Amazon, driving high-intent traffic that converts more efficiently.
Unlike cost-per-click (CPC) advertising, affiliate marketing operates on a cost-per-acquisition (CPA) model. This means Sellers only pay commissions when a sale is made, providing more predictable and controllable costs. Affiliate marketing tends to require lower upfront investment than advertising, allowing Sellers to scale their programs based on performance.
As affiliates drive external visitors to your listings, your products gain more visibility, leading to improved organic rankings. This external boost can drive additional organic sales and create a compounding effect that gets you more business, more often.
Affiliate marketing is a powerful tool for Amazon Sellers, but it works best when used alongside other strategies like paid ads. It can be tempting to launch affiliates or ads right away, but Sellers should first focus on perfecting their listings before even launching on Amazon.
To maximize success, Sellers should take advantage of Amazon’s "honeymoon period"—the first 30-60 days after launching a product—when Amazon gives new items preferential treatment in search results. Because of this, ensuring your pages look great, have the right images, and the proper keywords are critical - before you launch. During the honeymoon period, you should prioritize tweaking product pages, gathering reviews, and maximizing traffic to your products that will convert a sale.
How Amazon Programs WorkAffiliate Programs Work
Amazon Seller affiliate programs operate differently from the traditional Amazon Associates Program, offering Sellers more control and visibility over their partnerships. Here’s how they typically work:
- Affiliate partnerships: Sellers can partner with a range of affiliates, from influencers and bloggers to media buyers and content creators. These affiliates promote your products on their channels—whether through blog posts, videos, or social media posts—and earn a commission for every sale they generate.
- Amazon Attribution API: By using Amazon’s Attribution API, Sellers can track the performance of each affiliate, measuring the amount of traffic and the number of sales each affiliate partner drives. This transparency helps Sellers optimize their programs by focusing on the highest-performing partners.
- Brand Referral Bonus: As mentioned earlier, 3P Sellers can earn back up to 10% (depending on the Seller category) of the referral fees Amazon charges when they drive external traffic. This bonus is applied to Sellers who use Amazon Attribution to track external affiliate traffic.
- Step 4: Build topic clusters
Interested in unlocking additional Amazon revenue with external affiliate traffic? We’d love to chat — click here to meet with our team and learn about how you can work with our strategic Amazon affiliate partners.