Introduction to Earning Passively
The Amazon influencer program might be the best way to make money online right now, and here’s what I mean. People have made big amount of money through Amazon Influencer Program.
Getting Started with the Program
- It will guide you on how to get approved for the program.
- You will learn how to make your first few hundred dollars.
- You can achieve significant results by working only a couple of hours a week.
- The guidance is suitable even if you are a complete beginner.
Step One: Approval Process
So the first step here is approval. The Amazon influencer program has two sections for approval, and this first section is what I would call the AI-based section. It is strictly based on engagement on your social media accounts. It can either be TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, or Facebook.
Social Media Engagement
Now that doesn’t mean that you need to have a huge following, and I’ve seen people get approved with a few hundred followers. The main metric that they’re going to be looking for is engagement, so how many likes or comments on your photos and things like that. The good news is you can apply basically an unlimited amount of time, so there’s almost no risk in trying.
Signing Up for the Program
In order to sign up, you can go to the link that’s on the screen right now, or you can just Google the Amazon influencer program and select the top link right here. You’ll be taken here where you can link to any one of these four different social media platforms.
Approval or Rejection
- After logging into one of your social media profiles, you will either get instantly approved or rejected.
- If approved, you can proceed.
- If rejected, you can reapply.
- The blog will provide more information on how to address a rejection.
- There are specific methods and steps to get approved.
- These methods do not involve trying to grow a large social media audience organically.
On-Site Placement Approval
- Once approved, you will be taken to a specific screen.
- This screen marks the beginning of the second step.
- The second step involves getting approved for the on-site placement.
- The on-site placement is a core aspect of the Amazon Influencer Program.
- Approval for this step allows you to post videos directly on Amazon.
- These videos will appear directly on product listings.
Uploading Quality Videos
In order to do this, you need to upload three videos that meet Amazon’s terms in master quality that Amazon is looking for on their platform. So for this step, you will want to take your time and keep in mind that you need to match all of Amazon’s terms.
Video Content Guidelines
It’s just like not calling out to click links or asking for follows, not mentioning price, not showing private information like your phone number or address, and different things like that. You also need to make sure whoever is the person on the social media profile that you signed up with is the same one in those three videos.
Video Quality Standards
That can change after this approval process, but for this section, it needs to be the same person. Then Amazon is looking for basic quality standards. I’ll get more into how to make quality videos using your phone in a minute, but the big thing here is just have a decent mic, which really just means that you will want to be close to your camera or your phone when you’re talking, or you can use a wireless mic system, which I’ll show you in a second.
Technical Requirements for Videos
The product should be in focus in the center of the frame, ideally in the video should be filmed horizontally, and it should be longer than a minute in length. So after you upload those videos, it’ll say processing. Then after a waiting period of about 6 to 12 hours, it’ll either say published or rejected.
Manual Review and Approval
This doesn’t mean that you’ve been approved for the program; it just means that the AI system didn’t detect any issues, and it’s ready for manual approval. After uploading those three videos, you’ll have to wait about 2 to 7 days for somebody to manually review the content, and you’ll either be rejected or approved for on-site placement.
Handling Rejection
If you get rejected, don’t freak out; you still have two more attempts, or else you’ll need to reset the program from scratch. So the thing is, do take your time when you’re making these three videos so you can do them right. If you want to know how to do them right, just stay tuned because I’m going to talk about that.
Monetizing Your Content
So now that you’re approved, you’re ready to post any video that you upload to the program and passes the AI inspection, meaning it shows published, we go directly on the Amazon listing baring their algorithm, and then if somebody watches that video and buys a product, you’ll get paid. And as long as the product is popular, it can continue to earn you money.
Long-Term Earnings
So a video that you upload now can end up making you money two, three years into the future, for example. And this is exactly why one of the most important steps is finding the right products to review. Almost everybody who talks about the influencer program just talks about spamming out content with almost literally any product that they can get their hands on, or they have a selection process that’s really outdated and just not effective.
Examples of Successful Products
So for example, you can see here these are individual products that made me $5,000, $4,000, $3,000 in a year. These are everyday products that most people have lying around their house. You could literally be sitting on a gold mine and just not know about it. So this is just really, really important.
Key Questions for Product Selection
Almost nobody else really understands this, so pay close attention because this information alone can be the difference between making $50 a day and $500 a day with this program. Now there’s a little bit to mastering the skill of finding winning products, but to simplify the process for you, just ask yourself these seven questions:
Product Evaluation Criteria
- How much monthly sales does this product have?
- How much commission is there per sale within that product category?
- How much does the product cost?
- How much competition is on that product?
- Is the product something that people would even watch a review on?
- What is the lifespan of that product?
- Are the influencer videos actually allowed on that product page?
Tools for Product Research
So in order to see monthly sales, you can use a plugin like Viral View or Jungle Scout. These plugins allow you to see monthly sales volumes on products. I recommend Viral View because it was designed specifically for the Amazon influencer program, so you can see things like commission rates and whether there’s carousel videos allowed or carousel opportunities there and how many videos are being shown on the list, any different things like that.
Using Plugins for Insights.
- You can scan your Amazon order history to find opportunities.
- This can be done on your own account, family accounts, or friends’ accounts.
- Take notes of good products you have access to.
- If you prefer not to use plugins, you can use the best-selling ranking.
- The best-selling ranking can give you a basic idea of product performance.
Understanding Commission Rates
You can find the commission rates directly on Amazon. The commission rates are typically either 2% or 4% for the higher commission products. Just keep in mind you can sell half as much and make the same amount, and when you’re thinking about what products to review, you always need to keep in mind what products do people actually want to watch reviews on.
Product Review Strategy
And those are typically one-time purchase type products. So for example, Coca-Cola might be a best-selling item on Amazon, but nobody’s watching a review on Coke. Meanwhile, on the other hand, if you’re going to buy bed sheets, a mattress, and a new phone, a lot of people are going to look at reviews on those to get more information before they buy that product.
Choosing Products Wisely
So review something like bed sheets or technology; don’t review Coke. Now most people tell you not to make videos on products that have a certain level of competition, but that information is really outdated in my opinion. Almost every product that’s going to be worthwhile is going to have some level of competition, so don’t stress about the number of competitors.
Assessing Competitor Quality
Instead, look at the quality of those competitors. If you’re seeing YouTube-level high production value videos, you probably want to stay away. If you’re seeing low-quality, shaky, bad camera work, bad videos, then that might be a good opportunity. Next, you really need to consider the lifespan of a product.
Product Lifespan Considerations
If you’re getting into this and you’re really hoping to make this a legit side hustle, then the videos need to have longevity. Otherwise, you’re just going to be jumping on the hamster wheel chasing that new product to review day after day, week after week, and having to constantly make content in order to make money.
Examples of Product Longevity
So using an example of bed sheets, you can have the same bed sheets selling for 5 years. So if you’re making $10 per day for the next 5 years, that video might make you about $3,500. Meanwhile, if you get some Christmas product that might make you $500 in one month, but the next month you’re making nothing.
Ensuring Video Visibility
So the longevity is better than the one-time payment. And the most obvious and important one is just to make sure that the videos that you make are actually going to show up on the Amazon listing. You can use Viral View or just check manually. For example, I don’t think Apple allows for influencer videos on Amazon listing, so just double-check before actually making your video.
Creating Quality Product Reviews
Okay, so now that you found quality products to review, how do you actually review them? It’s the same steps to make quality videos in order to get approved for the program. There’s four main steps to making quality videos: one is going to be the film quality, two audio quality, and the script quality, which is what you say, and then the thumbnail and title.
Film Quality
For film quality, honestly, you can just use your cell phone; it’ll be completely fine. Just film with natural light with the light at your back versus filming into the light because that will create something called backlighting, and it does not look good. So here’s an example of what I mean.
Lighting and Camera Techniques
You can see these side by side, and it’s a massive difference, literally filmed seconds apart, taken two steps to the left. Simple mistake, makes a huge difference.
Filming Tips
Now if you can’t find anywhere in your house that doesn’t have that backlighting, then just film at night and just keep in mind the more depth behind the product typically will make the product look better, and lighting is way more important than having any type of fancy camera. And the one thing that I recommend for you to pick up in order to improve your phone quality is a simple tripod just like this one.
Audio Quality
To have high-quality audio, again your phone will work completely fine, just as long as you’re within about 3 ft of your phone. So if you want to go further than that, you might want to use a lavalier mic. You can get a cheap one just like this or a better one that might be something like this.
Microphone Recommendations
The mic quality doesn’t matter as much, though, because you can always run it through something like Adobe Podcast, which is a free AI audio enhancer which makes your audio sound significantly better.
Script Quality
With regards to scripting, the key to making good quality videos is to make sure that you check all of these boxes. Okay, so one, you have to make sure you hook in the viewer right away; don’t introduce yourself or start rambling. Second is to make sure that you establish some kind of authority; could be the length that you’ve owned the product, could be your experience using the product.
Scripting Tips
Three is to not waste words, so avoid any long pauses or ums or ahs. Four is to deliver on what the viewers came to see, so that’s commonly asked questions and other things that viewers would be interested in. And five is to keep the video length short, ideally about 1 to 2 minutes in length.
Thumbnail and Title
Now with regards to the thumbnails, you want to clearly showcase the product. You can add text if you want, but just as long as a product is clearly displayed. If you have a product that’s very hard to showcase in an image and you film yourself and you want to be in front of the camera, I personally prefer faceless content because it’s more scalable, but if you do want to be from the cameras, up to you.
Creating Effective Thumbnails
You can always communicate emotions. So for example, if you had a chair just like this chair, you might, it might be hard to show this chair in a thumbnail, so instead, you might sit there, smile, and do a thumbs up or something and be inviting. In this case, you’re invoking the emotion that you want the viewer to have rather than showcasing the product.
Title Creation
It’s definitely best to very clearly showcase the product in the thumbnail, but in those rare events where it’s very hard to showcase the product, you can showcase emotion by using the product and being in front of the camera. Or if you’re making faceless content, you make sure to still try to do your best to showcase the product and clearly show text that could showcase what the product is and what the video is about that way.
Crafting Clickable Titles
So the title of the video should almost always include the name of the product and some kind of clickbait. So for example, is this chair any good, or should you buy this chair, and then just replace the word chair with the name of the actual product.
Scaling Your Amazon Influencer Business
Okay, so at this point, you found good products, you know how to make quality videos, so the next step is to make content with the products that you readily have available to you, starting with the products that you currently own yourself and then work on your immediate family members and then close friends and so on and so on.
Initial Earnings
That will get you to about 1 to 2K per month, but if you want to grow so that you could be making 3 to 10K a month without constantly having to make new content all the time, then you need to know about scaling.
Outsourcing and Automation
All I really do is find the right products to review, lay out the structure, and then the videos are essentially made for me, and then I get paid. And this is a big, big part of how I’m able to make $1,000 per video where most people are making something like $20 per video. So this is how you do this:
Mastering the Process
First, you need to master the steps that I’ve mentioned in this video. You want to make sure that you’re getting the most out of every product that you have. This might take some time and practice.
Leveraging Creator Connection
Second, there’s a thing called Creator Connection, so here brands not only will give you free products for you to review, they’ll give you bonus commissions to make content on their products, and this can be an insane difference. I’m talking about going from 2% to 20% commissions. I’ve seen 50% commission rates, so you can see this page here; it explains more about it. There’s tons of huge brands on here; you can reach out to them directly to get products for you to review.
Brand Collaborations
Third, after you start making content and its quality, brands will start to reach out to you for you to review their products, but only take on products that you actually want or can easily sell after using them. Or better yet, you can charge these brands upfront to make videos if they really want them; that’s an easy additional revenue stream for you.
Strategic Purchases
Fourth is buying things on Amazon or other platforms. You only want to do this when you’re very comfortable with your content quality and the performance of your videos, and don’t buy these products new; try to buy them used to save money. Now a lot of the people you’ll see making videos showing the results on the Amazon influencer program don’t mention the fact that most of the money they made went into buying those products, and this is exactly why I use the strategy that I use because I can turn huge profits per product.
Avoiding Returns
So the revenue numbers that you see are very close to the profit numbers, and I know people are going to think this: why don’t you just buy and return products? You don’t want to do that because ultimately you can get your account banned if you do that. You obviously could buy products at different retailers and try to return things there and do that whole type of thing; it can get a little messy when you do all that.
Outsourcing Tasks
And fifth is outsourcing, so you can hire somebody to help you film or hire somebody to help you edit so you can only work a couple hours per week.
Conclusion and Next Steps
With that being said, there are some other subtle things just like that that can really help your performance. So if you want to quickly be able to get approved for the program if you can right now, if you want help getting approved for the on-site placement, if you want to significantly fast-forward your success with the influencer program with a proven system that has worked consistently with me and has helped so many other people as well so you don’t have to struggle to try to figure out everything on your own, I can definitely help you with that.
Seeking Further Assistance
If you’re serious and want to get results with this program, then just check out the information in the description. So overall, I hope that you found this blog helpful on Amazon Influencer Program. I hope that you learned something, and I look forward to seeing your success with the Amazon influencer program.
