How To Become An Amazon Influencer: Step-by-Step Guide

Are you looking to monetize your social media following? You might be wondering how to become an Amazon influencer.

With its wealth of product categories, superb brand awareness, and high consumer trust, Amazon is a great choice for influencers in most niches.

This post will share everything you need to know to sign up and succeed.

What Is The Amazon Influencer Program

The Amazon influencer program is an extension of Amazon’s affiliate program, Amazon Associates, aimed at content creators with sizable social media audiences.

It allows influencers to make money online by promoting products and services sold on Amazon to their followers. Specifically, there are three ways for Amazon influencers to earn commissions:

• Affiliate links: You’ll include an affiliate link when recommending a product on your social channels. When people click that link and buy, you get a commission.
• Storefront links: If a customer browsing your Amazon influencer storefront clicks on and purchases a product, you earn a commission.
• Review videos: Many Amazon product pages feature review videos from influencers. If your review video gets listed on a product page, you’ll get a commission each time someone buys the product after watching your video.

👉 See also: Amazon Influencer Program Review

Who Can Become an Amazon Influencer

Amazon says it accepts applications from “all types of influencers,” but it does have some stipulations about who can apply. It considers three factors related to your social media presence.

Platform

Amazon currently accepts influencers with followings on four platforms:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• TikTok
• YouTube

If you are applying using an Instagram or Facebook account, you are required to use a business account.

Follower Count

Amazon explicitly states that it considers follower count when reviewing applications from prospective Amazon influencers.

But don’t be put off if you’ve only got a small following. We’ve seen reports of tiny accounts being accepted.

Engagement Metrics

Smaller accounts tend to see higher engagement levels, which brings us to the final element of the Amazon influencer program approval process: engagement.

Social media engagement refers to the proportion of followers who interact with your posts, such as liking, commenting, sharing, and clicking on your links.

Amazon looks at various engagement metrics when reviewing affiliate applications. They also look at how often you post and how consistent you are with your uploads.

You have a better chance of being approved if you have 2,000 highly engaged followers than tens of thousands who ignore everything you say.

Steps to Becoming an Amazon Influencer

Ready to join the Amazon influencer program?  Follow these steps carefully to give yourself the best chance of being accepted.

1 Apply to the Amazon Influencer Program

Visit the Amazon Influencers landing page and click the “Sign up” CTA button:

You can sign up with your existing customer account. Or, if you’re already a member of the Amazon affiliate program, you should apply using your Amazon Associates account.

Alternatively, if you’ve never bought anything on Amazon, you can register a new Amazon account, which involves providing your name and contact details and creating a password.

Next, connect the public social media account through which you have the most “influence” in terms of follower count or engagement. Remember, if you’re using your Facebook or Instagram profile, you must use a business or creator account. Then click your preferred channel to log in and authenticate your account:

Unlike with the Amazon Associates program (and other affiliate programs), you’ll get an instant approval — or rejection — based on publicly available information, such as your follower count and engagement rate.

Don’t be discouraged if you don’t get approved. Just wait for your followers to grow and engagement to improve, and apply again.

Got the thumbs-up from Amazon? Congrats! You’ll be presented with this message:

At this point, Amazon asks you to upload a profile photo and cover image:

Next, fill in your name, write a short bio describing what you do, and add your social media links:

Finally, Amazon wants to know where you heard about the influencer program. It also asks you to accept its operating agreement and confirm your content isn’t directed at children under 13.

And that’s it! Now, you’re free to visit your influencer page and start creating content.

2 Create Your Amazon Storefront

As an Amazon influencer, you can create your own custom Amazon storefront.

An Amazon storefront is a page where influencers can showcase curated product recommendations. Think of it like a bridge page in affiliate marketing: a dedicated landing page for all your affiliate products. Except it’s inside the Amazon ecosystem rather than on your own blog or website.

By default, your storefront will look something like this:

But you can customize it by adding your own banner image and profile picture.

Amazon influencers can access the same reporting page as the regular Amazon Associates dashboard:

And there’s also a dedicated page to manage your photos and idea lists:

Found a product you like on Amazon? Simply add it to a list, and it’ll appear in your storefront.

Publish Amazon Influencer Content

Amazon influencers can add three types of content to their storefronts:

• Video/photo posts
• Idea lists
• Livestreams

Video and Photo Posts

As the name suggests, video and photo posts are an opportunity to post photos or videos and tag the featured product(s) — just like when you tag a friend in a Facebook image.

When shoppers click these posts, they can access basic information about the product, including the price tag, availability, and reviews. They can add to their cart from within the post if they like it.

Idea Lists

Think of idea lists as a catalog of your top recommendations. You can add a caption to explain your list and categorize them as you see fit, such as by occasion, audience, and price.

You can also tweak the order in which items appear on your list, allowing you to control which products shoppers see first.

Livestreams

Finally, livestreams are a more engaging way to present product recommendations. Live unboxings and product demos allow you to field questions from your viewers in real-time, creating a two-way conversation.

Products in your livestream will appear in a carousel beneath the video, allowing shoppers to add to their cart while they watch your broadcast. Neat!

3 Promote Your Affiliate Links & Storefront on Social Media

Let’s look at four ways social media influencers can earn commissions through the Amazon influencer program:

Share Affiliate Links to Products

With this approach, you’ll find a product, promote it through social media, and add an affiliate link so people can click and buy.

This approach varies for different social media platforms:

Facebook lets you add links directly to blog posts on your website, although many Facebook influencers steer you toward a landing page. For maximum conversions, direct people to blog posts containing multiple affiliate links.

Instagram lets you add a link in your bio. You should link to a specific Amazon page, a landing page or blog post, or a Linktree link that lets you direct people to multiple pages at the same time.

TikTok lets you add links to your TikTok bio if you upgrade to a business account. You can also add unclickable links to captions or comments.

YouTube lets you add links to video descriptions. Remember to tell viewers to check the description for your link!

Create Amazon Livestreams

You can create your own Amazon livestream using your phone by downloading the free Amazon Live Creator app via the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. The app is available in the US to vendors who have a Store and professional sellers enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry.

With livestreams, you can add links to the products you’re discussing, which appear below the stream:

Livestreams convert extremely well, with brands reporting conversion rates of nearly 30% from live-streamed events. That’s up to 10 times higher than traditional online shopping channels.

Share Links to an Amazon Storefront

Once you’ve set up your influencer storefront, you can link to it from your social media accounts.

Your storefront features links to curated collections and individual products:

When a shopper sees a product in your storefront, clicks, and makes a purchase, you earn a cut of the sale. Commission rates for storefront earnings vary across product categories:

These rates are lower than Amazon’s standard affiliate commission rates because you didn’t actively bring customers to Amazon — they were already browsing the site. However, you played a role in the path to purchase, so Amazon’s happy to reward you.

4 Get Approved For Onsite Earnings

Onsite earnings are what you earn if a customer already browsing Amazon sees your product photos or review videos and then makes a purchase. As such, they’re an easy way for influencers to boost their earnings by recommending products to people already in the buying mood.

Unfortunately, onsite earnings aren’t automatically available to Amazon influencers.

To get approved, you must submit three example review videos showing products you own and like, explaining why you recommend the product in an authentic, conversational way.

Once you submit your video examples, Amazon will manually review them and accept or reject your application, typically within two business days.

Amazon is pretty damn picky about review videos, so don’t be too disappointed if your first attempts are rejected.

At the same time, don’t take it too lightly because you only get three video submission attempts to get approved for onsite earnings, or your Amazon influencer account will be permanently banned, and you’ll have to start again from scratch.

If you’re approved for onsite commissions, you can add video reviews to your storefront, allowing you to discuss the product’s features and benefits in a way that appeals to your target audience.

Storefront videos incorporate a link to the product you’re discussing:

When someone clicks through and purchases the product, you earn a commission, per Amazon’s onsite earnings commission rates.

There’s also a chance your videos will be added directly to Amazon product listings:

Product listings can feature up to six review videos, which appear in a popup lightbox:

When Amazon customers view your content and make a qualifying purchase, you’ll get paid.

Getting Paid As An Amazon Influencer

By this point, you’ve (hopefully) been approved for both the Amazon influencer program and onsite earnings. So it’s time to get into the fun stuff: earning money.

Amazon offers three commission payment methods:

• Direct deposit
• Amazon gift certificate
• Check

Whichever you choose, you’ll receive your commissions approximately 60 days after the end of the month in which you earned them. For instance, commissions earned in January will be paid in late March.

How to Be a Successful Amazon Influencer

There are no shortcuts to success as an Amazon influencer — it takes work. But there are some tried-and-trusted strategies you can follow to improve your chances.

1 Apply Through TikTok

TikTok is in a league of its own when it comes to social media engagement, with a median engagement rating of 5.69% across all industries.

Remember, Amazon uses engagement metrics when deciding whether or not to approve your application. So, it makes sense to apply through a channel that’s naturally geared toward engagement.

2 Prioritize Engagement Over Virality

You might think getting as many eyes on your affiliate-related social media posts makes sense.

But there’s no point generating hundreds of thousands of impressions if no one interacts with your content. So stick with high-engagement content formats, such as easy “name that” quizzes.

3 Nail Your Onsite Earnings Application

To be approved for onsite earnings, you must upload three example review videos that comply with Amazon’s (many) guidelines.

You only get three attempts to get the green light from Amazon. Give yourself the best chance of success by showing your face and demonstrating the product in action, which requires having the product in your hands.

Make sure you also identify the most attractive features and benefits listed in the product description and reference them in your review.

4 Scale Video Content Production

Remember, Amazon only lists a maximum of six influencer videos per product. Your best chance of getting featured is to seek out products with fewer existing videos.

At the same time, don’t waste your time on products with zero videos — there’s no guarantee those brands accept video reviews.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to filter products on Amazon by the number of video reviews posted, so this is very much a case of trial and error: keep clicking through products in your niche until you find something relevant with fewer than six videos.

Look out for trending products that are attracting plenty of attention from shoppers. One way is to only target products that have received 10+ reviews in the past week.

Once you’ve found an attractive product, ensure you don’t fall foul of Amazon’s video guidelines. Avoid mentioning prices or promoting your social media channels; don’t give it the “hard sell.” Instead, focus on providing a genuine review that speaks to specific features and benefits.

5 Don’t Start Buying & Returning Products

Jeff Bezos didn’t get rich by encouraging people to return their recent Amazon purchases.

There are plenty of reports claiming that Amazon bans regular customers for making frequent product returns.

So, if you habitually buy and return dozens of reviewed products every month, it’s a safe bet that Amazon will notice. Keep it up, and you’ll likely get kicked out of the Amazon influencer program for good, so don’t risk it.

Instead, buy products you can actually use. And if you don’t have any use for it, resell it via Facebook Marketplace or eBay.

6 Take Advantage of Free Products

If you grow your Amazon storefront, you’ll find Amazon sellers start reaching out to offer free products in return for a review.

You should take advantage of these opportunities as long as you’re happy to associate with those brands and products. Remember to disclose in your videos that you received the product free of charge.

7 Capture Multiple Videos for Each Product

You can increase the visibility of your review content by creating multiple videos for every product you review. Try showing them from different angles and focusing on different features and benefits.

Do you have an old video that’s no longer generating views and clicks? Try re-uploading it for a recency-fueled visibility boost.

Summing Up

Joining the Amazon Influencer Program is a great start to earning money from your social media followers, but you can do a lot more.

Expanding to new platforms, experimenting with new types of content, and improving your affiliate link promotion can take your revenue to the next level.

To learn how to get the most out of your online presence, check out our complete social media affiliate marketing guide.