Alongside the more traditional product recommendation route of affiliate marketing, there is another way to make extra money online. The Amazon Bounty program allows website owners, content creators, and social media influencers to earn even more by promoting Amazon’s programs and services.
It really is a brilliant way to boost your affiliate income. And the beauty is that with so many different bounty programs to choose from, no matter your niche, you’ll be able to find something that will resonate with your audience.
There are a few small differences and some important do’s and don’t regarding bounties that you really should be aware of though.
What Is The Amazon Bounty Program?
Simply put, the Amazon bounty program is a way for Amazon affiliates to earn extra money by promoting Amazon’s services and programs, alongside its products, to their audience.
The only real difference from traditional affiliate marketing is that instead of earning percentage commissions on sales of recommended Amazon products, the Amazon bounty program pays a fixed advertising fee for each transaction.
What Are Amazon’s Services And Programs?
Amazon has a great selection of services and products, some of which are much more well known than others. While there’s a very strong chance that many of your audience will already be Amazon Prime members, don’t be put off as there are a surprising number of other programs to choose from.
Here is a full current list of bounties on U.S. Amazon, along with the commission fee earned:
- Prime Wardrobe – $3 for every Amazon Prime customer you drive to ship their first Prime Wardrobe box
- Audible Plus – $5 for a free trial and $10 for paid membership
- Personal Shopper by Prime Wardrobe – $4
- Amazon Business Account – $15
- Prime Discounted Monthly Offering – $3
- Kindle Unlimited Membership Plans – Unspecified
- Amazon Prime for a 30-day free trial – Unspecified
- Give the Gift of Amazon Prime – Unspecified
- Create an Amazon Wedding Registry – $3
- Audible Gift Membership – $10 for 12 months, $8 for 3 or 6 months
- Audible Premium Plus – $5 for a free trial and $10 for paid membership
- Amazon Family – $3 for a 30-day free trial)
- Amazon Prime Music – $3 for a 30-day free trial
- Amazon Prime Video – $3 for a 30-day free trial
- Prime Student 6-month Trial – $3
- Create an Amazon Baby Registry – $3
Some of the bounty programs are evergreen and stay around all the time, while others are temporary, ending as other bounty programs begin. It’s worth monitoring regularly to check for expired offers as well as find new ones.
On its bounty overview page, Amazon labels evergreen bounty programs as ‘ongoing’ and gives both a start and end date for anything that’s not permanent.
How To Use The Amazon Bounty Program
It couldn’t be simpler to get started. Head on over to the Amazon Bounty page and check out the services available. Once you’ve decided which ones fit with your niche, there are two options for promoting the programs – a good old-fashioned text link or a banner ad.
There are more than 20 different banner sizes to choose from – including responsive – so even if you promote a service more than once, the banners don’t need to look the same.
Given that some of the bounty programs are evergreen, it could make sense to promote these – if they’re relevant to your audience – in the header and footer sections of your website. Those same ads could also be linked to contextually from within appropriate posts using either a text link or another banner ad.
If you’re promoting via social media, then a shortened text link would definitely be the way to go.
Don’t forget to include an affiliate link disclosure. This is very important and not doing so could result in you being disqualified.
Bloggers should add the disclosure to every post, and YouTuber’s should include it in the video itself as well as the video description. If you’re a social media influencer, then include this information in your profile. The key thing is to make it obvious.
Where Can I Use Amazon Bounty Links?
The special links generated from Associates central are the same regardless of which platform you share them on and are subject to the same rules as all other special affiliate links. For example, they can’t be used in emails, but can be used on your own website and social media platforms.
Specifically, Amazon stipulates the following criteria:
The network is public and widely accessible, and does not require access through paid applications. Anyone should be able to access it or view it without requiring special permissions (more information later on discussion groups and forums).
You are the sole moderator of the account that you plan to post to, and otherwise compliant with the OA and Program Policies.
If in doubt, it’s best to contact Amazon directly and ask – much better to spend a little time doing that than getting banned for an honest mistake.
So now you know where you can promote Amazon’s bounty program, let’s take a look at how best to make money from it…
How To Make Money With The Amazon Bounty Program
Promoting Amazon services will be a relatively easy thing for most of us to introduce into our content. There’s a good chance that a lot of your audience will have an Amazon Prime membership already, showing that they trust Amazon with their money. They are therefore even more likely to trust it with a little bit more – or at least take out a free trial to see if the service is of use to them before signing up for the full membership.
That said, the services you promote should resonate with your followers…
Stay Relevant To Your Audience
Seeding text links and banner ads onto your website or social media accounts needs to feel genuine in order for it to work best. If you’ve built trust with your audience through your great quality content delivered in a tone that they like, then randomly promoting an Amazon bounty program would feel jarring and unnatural. The bounty program still needs to connect with your niche and be relevant to that specific piece of content for it to work best. Let’s take a look at a few examples…
Blogger
Let’s imagine you’re an outdoor enthusiast who blogs about her adventures in the wilds. Your posts traditionally tend to highlight the awesome gear that you’ve used on that specific trip, with affiliate links to those pieces of equipment.
In order to seed an Amazon bounty program into your content, you could write a post enthusing about your favorite travel and adventure films that you’ve watched on Prime Video and then seamlessly link to an Amazon Prime Video sign-up.
Or you could simply mention a book that you were reading during a particular adventure, and very naturally promote Kindle Unlimited to your audience.
Organically adding these types of ads in is going to feel natural, rather than jarring, and won’t make your audience think you’re just trying to make more money.
YouTuber
Maybe you’re a stay-at-home dad with a YouTube channel giving super-useful advice and tips for other stay-at-home parents. Let’s say that one of your videos is all about the cool audiobooks you and the children have listened to together during the summer holidays. It’s a very natural segway then to talk about the Amazon Audible Plus program without it feeling unnatural to your audience. The bounty link can simply be added to the video description.
Instagram influencer
If you’ve been successful enough on Instagram to have achieved Influencer status in Amazon’s eyes, then huge kudos to you.
Maybe you’re a couple with a passion for fashion, posting shots of yourselves modeling the latest trends? Well, there are several ways you can promote an Amazon bounty program using Instagram.
The simplest way would be to add a link in the caption using Amazon’s link shortener. Although the link won’t be clickable, it’ll be short enough for readers to type in.
If you’re a fan of using Instagram’s Stories feature, you could very easily link through from your Stories via swipe-up to programs such as Prime Wardrobe or Personal Shopper by Prime Wardrobe.
And if you use a linking tool like linkin.bio then you can link directly to the bounty programs through those clickable posts, too.
How Much Can I Make On Amazon Bounty Programs?
As the list above shows, in the US the fees earned currently vary from $3 to $15 per qualifying sale, depending on which of the Amazon bounty programs you go for and which option customers choose to sign up for.
If you think about this compared to the standard affiliate rates, the commissions are pretty good. Many of the Amazon bounty programs offer a $3 fee if you drive someone to a free trial sign-up and $10 for a paid membership.
So if we take an average regular product affiliate commission rate of 4%, that would mean the value of the sale needed to generate a $3 commission would be $75. With a service like Audible Plus costing just $7.95 per month, and cancellable at any time, then the price point that each person needs to meet to generate that $3 fee for you is very low.
Even better is the fact you can get a $3 fee for driving a person to sign up for a 30-day free trial – you can earn a commission without your reader spending anything!
There are a few programs, such as Kindle Unlimited and Give the Gift of Amazon Prime that don’t have a bounty fee listed. There are also a few extra criteria that some of the programs and services stipulate. For more details on this, check out Amazon’s clear guide to all available bounties.
How Do I Know How Much I’ve Earned on Amazon Bounties?
Amazon helpfully allows us to view the amount earned from bounty fees. Simply log in to Associates Central as normal, then under the ‘Reports’ tab, click ‘Earnings Report’, and then beneath that select ‘Bounties’. This allows you to see which programs resonate with your audience, and which don’t, allowing you to tweak your approach.
Is the Amazon Bounty Program Worth It?
The wide range of bounty programs Amazon offers is a veritable gold mine of extra revenue for your online business, providing a great opportunity for you to make more money online. The range of services on offer means that most niches are covered without banner ads and links feeling unnatural.
So find a bounty program or two that you know your audience will love, then go back through your most popular posts and add a few links and banners. In your next YouTube video find a way to talk about a service or program naturally and link it up in the description, and then add links to supporting social media posts, too. Then log in to your Earnings Report and see how much bounty you’ve landed.
If you’re then left wondering what to do with your extra cash, AC has already written a list of suggestions!
And if you want to boost your Amazon affiliate income, even more, sign up for our free Level Up Series today.
