amazon influencer basics
Leave a comment at the bottom if you have any questions that you want me to answer about the Amazon Influencer Program and I'll respond!
I don’t care who you are -- at one point in your life you were scrolling through Instagram and saw an influencer sipping a piña colada on the beach and thought to yourself -- what would I have to do to get THAT life?!
The answer is: a lot.
That being said, there’s a lot of money to be made if you’re willing to put in the work. Here’s what happened to me and let me tell you, I had NO idea what was coming. I thought I was going to be snapping some outfit pics, linking a few products, smiling for the camera, blah blah blah. Little did I know…
When I started all of this back in May of 2020 I had under 1k followers. I chose to promote Amazon products because it made sense for me. I was always known as the “Amazon person” at work. People stopped asking where I got [insert item] because they knew my only response would be, “Amazon”.
It wasn’t until July that I started making money. Up until that point, it was strictly hustling with no ROI. I “dabbled” in the craft of Influencing. It took me a month to get used to talking into the camera lol! I was also unemployed at the time, which meant - I was bored and figured why not, I have the time.
** Let it be known I was only unemployed for 2.5 months. Within the last year of influencing, I’ve had a full time corporate job! **
I remember getting to 1k followers and thinking it was the BIGGEST achievement and at the time it was! I was teaching myself about what it really meant to “do” Instagram and I quickly learned how difficult it was. You have to build credibility, remain consistent, positive, funny, and look put together while doing it.
I applied for the Amazon Influencer Program once and got rejected. I was crushed. When applying, you have to submit all your social media accounts along with the # of posts and # of followers. In July, I finally got accepted. This meant I could “open up” my own storefront.
A storefront is basically like your own personal Etsy page only instead of your own handmade products, it’s Amazon products.
In July, I made like $170 from associate links. Meaning, if someone purchased something off my storefront I’d get a small percentage of that sale. Amazon has a rate card where they break down what commission percentages you get based on the category of the item.
For example, clothing was worth 10% commission.
If someone bought a $100 shirt, I’d make $10.
In August, I made $487. I used the exact same process but I was growing pretty rapidly mostly due to my break-up blowing up on TikTok.
In September, I made $1,664. Which accurately reflects the rapid growth LOL. I was movin’ and groovin’.
** One thing to note is that you don’t get paid out for 60 days, SO I got paid that $1,600 in November even though I earned it in September** The reason for this: returns. It takes 60 days for Amazon to process the returns which means you must wait for your ca$h money.
Once I started making noticeable money I started utilizing the Amazon Associates Dashboard. It’s SO cool. Basically all the analytics and reports you could ever want. You can see what products are getting clicked on the most, your click to conversion rate, returned items, literally everything. The dashboard is still my bff. I check it constantly.
In October, the Amazon Fashion Program reached out to me after having a very successful Prime Day. Somehow I had a TikTok blow up, which caused A LOT of people to click on my storefront link (once someone clicks on my storefront link, I get commission for anything they buy). I drove $61K in fashion sales, $146K across all categories, and earned over $4,300 in commissions just in ONE WEEK.
So that caught Amazon’s attention.
Then we formed a partnership and I am currently compensated based on a monthly sales target, which Amazon has set.
The rest is history because everything kept building on top of each other. From October-January I wasn’t growing all that much, it was more about maintaining. I like to compare it to the last 5-10lbs you want to lose when dieting. It’s easy to gain around 5k followers but getting to 10k on Instagram is the real success lol. TikTok is an entirely different world that I do not understand and probably never will.
In February, Amazon Live reached out. That was another partnership. I believe I was referred by the Fashion Program. I receive another monthly rate for meeting a separate sales target.
So now I’m working with the Fashion Program, LIVE Program and receiving regular commissions from associate links! It’s been a little luck but a whole lot of research and grinding. You HAVE to like what you’re doing or else it’ll feel miserable because the amount of work that needs to be put in is next level. That being said, I did all of this with a full-time “real” corporate job, so it CAN be done.