As an ecommerce entrepreneur, you do everything in your power to get more sales for your products. Since Amazon is one of your top channels, much of your marketing efforts go to getting more sales on Amazon. You run promotions and ads, and you create content. But have you utilized Amazon FBA affiliate marketing to grow sales?
If not, we’re giving you the rundown on how you can find affiliate opportunities for your product and reach out to affiliate marketers directly to forge new business partnerships that are mutually beneficial.
What is Amazon FBA affiliate marketing
Amazon FBA affiliate marketing allows digital publishers to earn affiliate revenue from the products they recommend from their blog posts, social media posts or other content. Affiliates earn 10% for the sale of most products—not only the product they recommended but also anything the customer purchases at that time.
YouTubers, bloggers, podcasters and other types of digital publishers can sign up to be an affiliate marketer and drive traffic to any product they choose, typically something that aligns with the needs of their audience.
Here’s a fee schedule with what percentages affiliate make per certain items and categories. Amazon sellers are not charged additional amounts in order to pay affiliates. The cost is already covered with your FBA fees.
What kinds of FBA products does affiliate marketing work for?
When affiliate marketers drive traffic to your product listings, they’re essentially marketing your product for you, in exchange for affiliate commission. Typically, these content creators earn most of their revenue from advertising (usually Google’s AdSense or from YouTube ad clicks) and they are looking for easy additional sources of income.
The best opportunities for affiliate marketing fall to products like these…
- Hobby products – There are thousands of websites dedicated to helping people learn or master a new hobby like sewing or DIY home renovations. These types of sites are very likely to use affiliate marketing to monetize their content.
- Outdoor or sports gear – Similar to hobbies, products that are outdoor or sports gear are a great fit because there are lots of sites that cater to your target audience.
- Lifestyle, fashion and beauty – Lifestyle bloggers, fashion bloggers, and beauty bloggers regularly make product recommendations and post product reviews, making their content a perfect fit for affiliate marketing.
- Health and wellness – People with a certain health condition or fitness goal are likely to purchase the products that their favorite blogger or YouTuber recommends.
How to find and reach out to affiliate marketers
If your branded FBA product is a good fit for affiliate marketing, the next step is to get more affiliate marketers linking to your listing.
Most Amazon sellers take a passive approach to this. They figure that affiliate marketers will find their product and link to it if they choose. However, you can proactively acquire more affiliate traffic by using an outbound tactic. Reach out and share why your product is a great fit for their site!
1. Search for relevant sites
The first step in getting more affiliate marketers for your product is to find sites that would be a good fit. Search for sites that discuss topics relevant to your product. So if your product is for crafters, search for websites that share crafting tutorials and craft product reviews. Brainstorm dozens of search queries and get searching.
You can also search for things like “best at-home air filter” or “best functional workout gear.” (Or whatever you product or product category is.)
After your search engine searches, you can also search specific hashtags in Twitter or Instagram or specific keyphrases in Pinterest to find more websites that fit. Keep in mind that this will be a little more time consuming, because you’ll encounter social media accounts that discuss these topics and hashtags, yet don’t have an active website.
2. Check that the website promotes Amazon products
Once you’ve found some websites that create content in your niche or topic, the next step is to see if they are already an affiliate. The point here is not to try and convince someone to become an affiliate, but to find website owners who already are Amazon affiliates.
Look for blog posts that feature images and ratings of Amazon products. Also, check for links to Amazon products. You don’t have to click on every link to check. You can hover over links to see the link text.
There might also be legal text like this in the website’s sidebar, showing readers that the site receives affiliate income:
3. Contact them to let them know about your product
Once you’ve checked that…
- The site is in your niche
- The site is most likely an Amazon affiliate (openly states this, or drives traffic to Amazon products)
It’s time to reach out to the website owner!
Here are three ways you can make contact with the owners of affiliate marketing websites:
- Fill out the form on their contact page
- Send them a direct message to the social media accounts (find these in the website footer)
- Find what company runs the site (footer or about page or sidebar) and then go to that website to find their contact information
- Find the website owner’s contact information using a WhoIs search
Here’s a template you can use when you reach out to website owners:
Hi {Name},
I really love your website on {topic}. I’m also a fan of {topic} and that’s why I’ve created a product that {description or value propositions of your product}. My Amazon product has a {star number} rating out of {number reviews} and is one of my top converting products.
I noticed that {blog post or video title} gets a lot of traffic and if you add my product to this page, you’ll likely get even more affiliate sales.
If you don’t think that’s a fit, I’d love for you to include it in your next post or review.
Let me know if you have any questions about the product!
Thanks and take care,
{Your Name}
Tip: Keep in mind that affiliate marketers aren’t likely to link to products with less than 3-star averages or less than 10 reviews.
Examples of affiliate marketing for FBA
Let’s take a look at some websites that are known to make Amazon affiliate income.
CamperReport.com
CamperReport publishes reviews and tips for RVing. Their Amazon affiliate income comes from RV gear and accessories.
KnifeUp.com
KnifeUp posts reviews and tips for a variety of knife-related hobbies: hunting, throwing, fishing, camping and more.
How to outsource this type of marketing
Getting more Amazon affiliates for your products requires cold outreach, and this is a task that can easily be outsourced to your marketing assistant. Depending on their level of skill and proactivity, you can supply them with a list of 20 – 30 sites to contact and your version of the templated email above, or give them this blog post as a training guide.
As an Amazon seller, you want to do everything in your power to get more sales. Affiliate sales come at no cost to you, and this is an opportunity that too many sellers are just sitting on. With marketing, proactivity always wins.
