It’s no wonder so many people want to know how to become an Amazon affiliate. The marketplace has a chokehold on the ecommerce space — 92% of shoppers say they’re more likely to buy from Amazon than other ecommerce sites.

Amazon also offers heaps of benefits to affiliate marketers, including:

  • Flexible commission rates
  • Access to a wide range of products
  • Easy integration with your website or blog

In this guide, you’ll learn the ins and outs of how to get started with Amazon affiliate marketing, from signing up and creating your links to promoting them.

What Is The Amazon Affiliate Program?

The Amazon affiliate program, Amazon Associates, is the most popular affiliate program in the world. According to our affiliate marketing statistics page, 58.5% of affiliate marketers use Amazon to monetize their content.

Anyone with a website or app can join the program and promote Amazon affiliate links — unique referral URLs directing potential Amazon customers to specific landing pages or product pages.

With over 350+ million products on offer including marketplace sellers and Amazon’s own inventory, it caters to virtually any affiliate niche. However, it shines in B2C categories like:

  • Books
  • Fashion
  • Health and beauty
  • Electronics and accessories
  • Home and garden

How Does The Amazon Affiliate Program Work?

Amazon’s affiliate program works as a relationship between three parties:


  1. Amazon sells products and rewards affiliates for referred sales
  2. Affiliates share product links with their audience via their website or app
  3. Customers click those product links and (hopefully) buy something within the 24 hour cookie window, earning the affiliate a commission

Commissions vary between product categories, from 1% on groceries to 10% on luxury beauty and 20% on Amazon Games (at time of writing).


Amazon Affiliate Program Requirements And Rules To Follow

To be accepted into the Amazon Associates affiliate program, you must…

Meet The Minimum Requirements

Avoid Prohibited Activities

  • No cloaking, hiding, spoofing, or otherwise obscuring links
  • No using link-shortening tools, buttons, or links that make it unclear you’re linking to an Amazon Site
  • No buying products through your affiliate links (directly or indirectly)
  • No using bots or software programs to generate artificial clicks or impressions
  • No redirecting or intercepting traffic from other Amazon Associates
  • No posting affiliate links on Amazon sites (e.g. in customer reviews or wish lists)
  • No sharing your Amazon affiliate link via email

(NB an exhaustive list of Amazon’s prohibited activities can be found here.)

Steer Clear Of Prohibited Content

  • No content that promotes violence or contains violent materials
  • No promoting false or defamatory information
  • No promoting hateful or discriminatory materials
  • No targeting children aged under 13
  • No including Amazon trademarks or variants/misspellings of Amazon brands

Hit Amazon’s 180-Day Sales Target

Once you’ve applied, you have 180 days to refer a sale through one of your Amazon affiliate links (remember, they can’t be self-referrals).

Provided you refer three qualifying sales within the 180-day window, Amazon will take a closer look at your application and come back with a decision in a day or two. Your application can be withdrawn if you don’t hit the sales target.

How To Become An Amazon Affiliate

First, you need an online presence to join Amazon’s affiliate program, in the form of an app or (more likely) a blog or website. It doesn’t need to generate huge traffic volumes — it just needs to exist. If you tick that box, follow these steps to join the Amazon Associates program:

1Sign Up For The Amazon Affiliate Program

The first step to create your Amazon Associates account is also the simplest. Just click the signup button on the Amazon Associates homepage:


2Configure Your Account Information

Hand over your name, address, and contact information. If you already have an Amazon account, your details will be pulled through automatically, so you just need to confirm you’re the primary account contact:


3Enter Your Website & Apps

Tell Amazon about all the top-level websites and/or mobile apps you’ll be using to promote affiliate links, up to a limit of 50 sites or apps. Just copy-paste your URL into the address bar then click “add”:


Amazon also asks you to confirm that none of your sites or apps are directed primarily at under-13s.

4Add Your Preferred Associate ID

Next, enter your preferred store ID, which Amazon uses to create your unique Associates Store ID.

Bear in mind that your ID will almost certainly look different to whatever you enter (e.g. “my website” might become “mywebsite-20”). There’s no way around this, so you’ll just have to live with it!

5Add Traffic And Monetization Methods

Understandably, Amazon wants to know about the content you create, including:

  • What can users do on your website? 
  • Who is it for? 
  • What kind of products do you intend to promote?

Add this information to the free text field. When we tried it out, the field had a character limit of 1,022 characters, so you won’t be short of space. You’re also asked to select the category that best describes your content…


…and reveal how you first heard about the Amazon Associates program. Finally for this step, read and agree to the Amazon Associates operating agreement.

Congratulations, you’ve signed up! You’ll be sent an introductory email detailing the steps required for full acceptance into the program:


Along with some useful links and resources to help you get started on your Amazon affiliate marketing journey:


6Include Your Payment Details

You can add your payment and tax information later. But there’s no time like the present, right? 

First off, payment details: Amazon offers three payment methods:

  • Direct deposit
  • Amazon gift card
  • Check 

If you want to be paid by direct deposit, click the “+ Bank account” button and add your account info (IBAN, BIC, account number, sort code):


Then use the drop-down menu to select your preferred payment method:


You can also choose your minimum payment threshold (the amount you need to earn to trigger a payment in the next commission window). This is automatically set to $10 for gift cards and direct deposits and $100 for checks.

However, bear in mind that Amazon won’t pay you until you’ve entered your tax information, too. To submit it, click the button at the bottom of the page:


Then click “View/provide tax information”:


You’ll be asked for slightly different information based on your location and whether you’re a business or an individual (including sole proprietors or single-member LLCs where the owner is an individual).

7Verify Your Identity

Finally, Amazon will confirm you are who you say you are by sending a verification code to the email address and phone number associated with your Amazon affiliate account.

It’ll also ask you to provide a phone number for two-factor authentication — this can be the same number you gave them when configuring your account information.

Amazon provides four ways to create your first affiliate link:

  1. The SiteStripe tool
  2. The Mobile GetLink tool in the Amazon mobile shopping app
  3. The Amazon Idea Hub
  4. The Amazon Associates Native Shopping Ads editor

We’ll explain each of those methods here:

Creating Amazon Affiliate Links With SiteStripe

The easiest way to create an Amazon link is through the SiteStripe tool, because you can create links from any page without visiting Amazon Associates.

The SiteStripe toolbar automatically appears on every Amazon page, provided it’s enabled and you’re logged into Amazon Associates. To check you’ve got SiteStripe switched on, log in to your Amazon Associates dashboard and click SiteStripe in the Tools menu