Does AmaLinks Pro work with the Amazon Affiliate UK program?Yes, we do!
Bloggers and affiliates can make money with the Amazon Associate UK program and AmaLinks Pro.
For such a small country, the UK really does punch above its weight as a global eCommerce powerhouse. And, as in many other countries across the world, Amazon is the dominant player in the market. Put the two things together and this means that becoming a member of the Amazon affiliate UK program is a no-brainer for us affiliate marketers.
Whether you’re completely new to affiliate marketing and signing up for your first affiliate program, or more experienced with multiple affiliate websites already and looking to add Amazon’s UK Associate program to your existing online revenue channels, then this article is for you.
Below I’ll explain everything you need to know about Amazon’s UK Associates program, and why you should sign up today – even if you’re based outside the United Kingdom…
Simply put, the Amazon affiliate UK program is a way for website owners to refer traffic from a special affiliate link on their website to Amazon’s UK store, and earn a commission from any qualifying sales.
In order to see how best your business can plug into the Amazon affiliate UK program, it’s useful to understand the broader picture.
Amazon first launched in the UK in 1998 and as such it’s very well established. For many online shoppers in the UK (I’m one of them), Amazon is the first port of call, and in the third quarter of 2020, just over 10 million UK residents were signed up to Amazon Prime – around 15% of the population.
So, regardless of what niche your online business focuses on, there are bound to be highly relevant products on the Amazon UK store, and there are already a huge number of people shopping there. This means that the Amazon affiliate program in the UK is a great way for any website owner to generate income.
Behind China and the USA, the UK is the world’s third-largest eCommerce market. PR Newswire report that eCommerce sales in the UK totaled almost $110bn in 2020. And it’ll come as no surprise to hear that Amazon commands a formidable position within the UK eCommerce market, taking a 30% slice of the pie.
Despite Amazon’s huge market share in the UK, 70% of eCommerce sales do go through other online stores. So before we take a look at what the commission rates are and how you can become a member of the Amazon affiliate UK program, it’s worth taking a quick look at who Amazon’s competitors are in the UK…
According to UK Business Blog, Amazon’s main rivals in the UK are:
It’s worth pulling a couple of these businesses out here to illustrate how Amazon is trying to compete.
Boohoo is a UK-based own-branded online clothing retailer. Launched in 2006 it has grown its sales to over $118m in 2019. Boohoo recently increased its standing through the buy-out of several big-name high street companies – Wallis, Burton, and Dorothy Perkins. The key thing with this buy-out is that Boohoo bought the brand and the online store, but not the brick-and-mortar stores. This sets them in direct competition with Amazon’s fashion category, which is why you’ll see in the chart below that Amazon Fashion has a very healthy 10% commission on Direct Qualifying monthly revenues of less than £15,000 (£21,000).
It’s a similar story for Etsy. Although an American company, Etsy (alongside other similar sites like notonthehighstreet.com) has become the go-to place online to buy those more unique and crafted items. Again, we find Amazon using the persuasion of a higher commission rate for the Handmade category to tempt affiliates to point their readers to Amazon for those kinds of purchases.
Argos and John Lewis are also hugely popular choices for online shoppers in the UK, with a lot of goodwill and nostalgia attached to the brand.
So now that we understand a little more about how Amazon fits into the UK eCommerce market, let’s take a deeper look at what the commission rates are for the Amazon affiliate UK program.
Like every affiliate program, the commission rates with the Amazon affiliate UK program vary depending on the category. Rates also change frequently and so it’s best to never choose a niche purely based on the commission rate.
Updated March 2021
|
Product Category |
Direct Qualifying Revenues per month |
Standard Commission Income |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Direct Qualifying Purchases |
Indirect Qualifying Purchases |
Amazon Influencer Page |
||
| Amazon Fashion Apparel, Shoes, Jewelry, Watches, Luggage, Amazon Fashion Women, Men and Kids Private Label, Prime Wardrobe Purchases |
< 15,000 £ | 10 % | 1.5 % | 10 % |
| ≥ 15,000 £ | 12 % | |||
| Handmade | ‐ | 10 % | 1.5 % | 10 % |
| Home Furniture, Home Improvement, Home, Kitchen & Dining, Patio, Lawn & Garden, Power & Hand Tools |
< 40,000 £ | 7 % | 1.5 % | 7 % |
| ≥ 40,000 £ | 8 % | |||
| Consumables Beer Wine & Spirits, Baby, Grocery, Pet Products, Beauty, Health & Personal Care, Personal Care Appliances, Stationery & Office Supplies |
< 20,000 £ | 6 % | 1.5 % | 6 % |
| ≥ 20,000 £ | 7 % | |||
| Digital and media Books, Kindle eBooks, Music, DVD and Blu-Ray, Digital Video Games, Software, Digital Software, Digital music, Digital video |
< 7,500 £ | 6 % | 1.5 % | 6 % |
| ≥ 7,500 £ | 7 % | |||
| Hobbies & Auto Outdoor Recreation, Toys & Games, Sports & Fitness, Musical Instruments, Car & Motorbike, Business & Industrial Supplies |
< 20,000 £ | 6 % | 1.5 % | 6 % |
| ≥ 20,000 £ | 7 % | |||
| Amazon Devices Fire TV, Kindle and Echo Devices and Accessories |
< 5,000 £ | 3 % | 1.5 % | 3 % |
| ≥ 5,000 £ | 4 % | |||
| Electronics & Computers Computer, Electronics, Camera, Major Appliances, Home Entertainment, Smartphones and Mobile Phones, Video Games |
< 40,000 £ | 3 % | 1.5 % | 3 % |
| ≥ 40,000 £ | 4 % | |||
| Video Game Consoles | ‐ | 1 % | 1 % | 1 % |
| All other Products Categories (excluding Gift Cards) | ‐ | 3 % | 1.5 % | 1.5 % |
| Gift Cards | ‐ | 0 % | 0 % | 0 % |
(source)
The chart above suggests that Amazon has very strong sales in the Video Game Consoles and Electronics categories, which is reflected in the 3% commission rate for both of those categories. Don’t let that put you off though. If video game consoles are your thing and you can create the best, most unique, and helpful content out there, then you should go for it.
The commission rate might be pretty low (and it may well go lower!) but those items have a pretty high retail value, so a 3% commission on a £249 ($347) Sony PlayStation 4 is going to be £7.77 ($10.83). Compare that to a 10% commission on a Large Mango Butter Conditioner Bar with Lemon at £6.99 ($9.76). This will generate a commission of £0.70 ($0.98), meaning you need to sell 11 of those to match the commission earnings from just one PlayStation sale.
If you’re not based in the UK but find your content is attracting readers from there, then you could be missing out on those international commissions.
Let’s say you’re already a member of the Amazon US affiliate marketing program, but you realize from your analytics that a portion of your audience is from the UK. When those readers click your US-specific Amazon affiliate links, they will not automatically be redirected to the UK store, which means that you may not earn a commission on those referrals.
The way to fix this is simple.
Once you’ve signed up you need to ensure that your US and UK Amazon Associates accounts are linked together. We recommend Geniuslink for this. When a user clicks an Amazon affiliate link in your content, Geniuslink automatically directs each user to the most relevant store for them, whilst keeping your affiliate link intact.
To ensure you’re not leaving money on the table, check out our in-depth look at link localization here.
How much you earn through your Amazon Associates UK program is really down to you. How much work are you able to put in? Some niche sites earn over £10,000 per month, others less than £10. Building successful affiliate sites is hard work – don’t let anyone tell you it’s passive income! Affiliate marketing all comes down to how much quality content you are able to produce, how many visitors you can attract to your site, and how good you are at converting those visitors into customers.
AmaLinks Pro is an incredibly powerful WordPress plugin that helps you to convert those readers into customers. It connects to your Amazon Associates account, allowing you to create different types of affiliate links with ease – without having to go into your Amazon Associates dashboard. And the great news is it works perfectly with the Amazon affiliate UK program!
Offering a suite of different link options including product showcases, comparison tables, and fully customizable CTA buttons, AmaLinks Pro is an investment that can pay for itself quickly! And we can prove it…
Converting standard text-only product links to much more impactful product boxes is a far better way to promote products, get a higher click-through rate, and thus increase sales. And to prove it, Matt has been doing some A/B comparison testing on live websites to show what a difference using AmaLinks Pro’s classy product boxes and showcases can make.
Results so far have shown increases in CTR of between 256% and a whopping 384%.
Check out these customer case studies. All three customers were able to increase the number of people clicking their Amazon affiliate links INSTANTLY by using the AmaLinks Pro Product Showcase Boxes and Product Comparison Tables.
Check out this case study where we increased a customer’s click-through-rate by over 256% using our product showcase boxes!
Here is another case study where using our product showcase boxes resulted in a 386% increase in Amazon Affiliate link clicks for one of our users.
On one of our customer’s full product review style posts, we increased the click-through-rate by a whopping 263%!
Signing up for the Amazon affiliate UK program is both free and easy – and you don’t have to be based in the UK to sign up.
Get your website built and fully functional – WordPress is by far the best website builder and the plethora of incredible plug-ins can help your online business to really take off quickly.
Once the bones of your website are made, it’s time to flesh it out with content. I’d suggest you need at the very least 10 high-quality blog posts. At this point, be sure to spend the time doing keyword research so that those first posts give you the maximum chance of getting some eyeballs on them. Also, leverage your social media sites to direct people to your website. The faster you attract some readers, the faster you can move onto the next step…
When you have some content uploaded, it’s time to look at your analytics to see just how many visitors you’re getting. If your analytics tell you your site is getting at least some regular visitors, now is the time to sign up for the Amazon affiliate UK program. Although you can sign up for an affiliate account at any time, Amazon has a few criteria that new Associates have to meet.
So you can see that if you sign up to the program before you have any regular readers, your chances of making those qualifying sales are low, regardless of how enticing your affiliate links look.
Once you’re all signed up, go through your content and add affiliate links to refer your readers to the products you recommend on the Amazon store. AmaLinks Pro can really help your product links to look professional and enticing. Check out all of the fantastic benefits here.
One of the real benefits of AmaLinks Pro is that all of the features work even if you don’t have access to Amazon’s API. When you first sign up for the Amazon Associates UK program, you won’t have API access until you hit the magic number of 3 sales in 180 days. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t use AmaLinks Pro’s powerful features to help you generate more clicks through to Amazon.
Check out this post for more details on how to use AmaLinks Pro without the API.
The UK’s status as a global eCommerce powerhouse continues to grow, and with Amazon being the biggest player by far, then the Amazon affiliate program really is a fantastic way for you to earn commissions from your online affiliate business.
So if your content is attracting readers from the UK and you’ve not yet joined its UK affiliate program, then sign up today – it couldn’t be easier.
And if you’re new to affiliate marketing and are wondering if Amazon’s affiliate program is right for you to start making money online, then I hope this article has helped to answer your questions. In short, it’s a fantastic way to leverage your content and earn money from your website!
Whichever camp you fall into, there’s a smorgasbord of content on the AmaLinks Pro blog that has been written to help you achieve your goals.