I’m going to share with you my first 30 days on the Amazon Influencer program. I’m going to share:
- exact timeline, week by week
- my process for creating SO many videos so fast
- what I’ve learned (prob most valuable part)
- frequently asked questions
- how I made over $1k in 30 days
It’s a big post. Because I think this is a HUGE opportunity for content creators. That’s why I jumped on it once I learned more about it. Don’t want to read it? I made a video on YouTube where I share everything – you can watch it instead if you prefer.
Amazon Influencers: You don’t need a website. You don’t need traffic. You just need a social media presence (which you should be building anyways).
Full disclosure – I was helped by a course I purchased from Matt Donely called Jungle Influencer. It’s really good. I can honestly attest my rapid growth to his course, as it gave me a process to follow (and made sure I didn’t get rejected in the process!).
PS – he’s offering 10% off with the code “JARED”. (These are affiliate links I am providing). I don’t know how long the discount will be live, to be fair.
In this post, I’ll share the high level details to succeed here. But Matt puts you on the fast track. Ok, lets get into it. Here is the timeline!
- Friday, May 19th: purchased Jungle Influencer course
- Monday, May 22nd: filmed first 3 videos and submitted to Amazon
- Thursday, May 25th: 3 videos approved, now qualified for Shoppable Videos
- Sunday, May 28th (Day 3): Made my first dollar ($3.51)
- Thursday, June 1st (Day 7): published 100th video
- Thursday, June 8th (Day 14): published 166th video
- Thursday, June 15th (Day 21): published 200th video
- Saturday, June 30th (Day 30): 229 videos published in total
And my revenue? Well here you go:
Here is a breakdown of earnings day by day. You’ll see that it only took a few days once my first 3 videos were approved to make money. You’ll also see that there are dramatic swings across various days:
But., as you step back and look at the month as a whole, things flatten out. My path to earning just over $1k actually seems very linear. Here is a day-by-day breakdown of TOTAL earnings:
Ok, lets get into the details about EXACTLY how I did this:
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What Is the Amazon Influencers Program?
The Amazon Influencer Program, an extension of Amazon Associates, connects influencers that have meaningful social media followings to consumers on Amazon.
It offers a platform for influencers to recommend products, enabling them to earn affiliate commissions on qualifying purchases.
Amazon may display the content from your storefront to its shoppers, offering you a chance to increase your follower base and earn from new customers.
For the sake of THIS post… content = Shoppable Videos. Typically 1-5 minute videos long about a specific product.
How Much Do Amazon Influencers Make?
Now that I’ve been on the program for 10 months, I can share with you exactly how much money I make on the Amazon Influencers Program:
- June (Month One): $1,025
- July (Month Two): $2,868
- August (Month Three): $2,125
- September (Month Four): $2,334
- October (Month Five): $1,760
- November (Month Six): $4,266
- December (Month Seven): $4,026
- January (Month Eight): $1,482
- February (Month Nine): $1,810
- March (Month Ten): $3,917
So, here is how I break down the totals:
- Your First Few Months: since it will take you awhile to get a solid base of videos live, I would not expect to make much money.
- Months during Q1, Q2, and Q3: I have averaged just under $2,000 per month.
- Months during Q4: This is the holiday shopping season, and I averaged closer to $4,000 per month.
Remember that how much money you make as an Amazon Influencer is heavily dependent on several things:
- Number of Videos: The more videos you make, the money opportunity you have for money. Its a pretty direct correlation… more videos = more money. In other words, I think its best viewed as a Volume game.
- Types of Products: I’ve found that lower priced products don’t make you as much total money as higher priced products. I get the math… maybe lower priced products will sell more and make up for it in volume? Not in my case. Plus, lower priced products get returned more frequently, which gets pulled from your commissions.
- Quality of Videos: The better your video quality and content, the more shoppers will trust your recommendation and purchase as a result. I see so many Influencers post videos with lousy audio and shaky video. Its not hard to fix this, and your conversions will thank you!
How Do You Make Money on Amazon Influencers?
Honestly, the specifics are a bit vague. But they’re clear enough:
- Your videos appear on Amazon product pages. They’re always playing with location, so you’ll often have to scroll around to find them.
- IF a shopper watches YOUR video for a certain period of time (30 seconds or longer is often the number used) AND then buys the product, you get paid a commission. There is plenty of debate about this 30 second watch time, and I’ll admit that I do not know for sure if this is the case. I share it anyways, because its a great concept to keep in mind – create videos that people want to watch!
- Commission rates are published here. Certain products are 3x-5x more so pay attention to this!
- You get paid 60 days after the period that the sale was made in. Remember – you get your commission credited when the product ships (not when its sold). And, you get dinged if they return the product!
- That’s it! There’s nuances (I answer a lot in the FAQ below) but those are the basics.
The Amazon Influencers Process
1. Get Approved
Step One is getting accepted into the program – you need a qualified social media following to do this. Amazon doesn’t publish the exact qualifications, but it appears to be a combination of followers + engagement.
They accept Tiktok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. It looks to be somewhere between 1k-10k followers, depending on the level of engagement you have on your account.
It’s too bad I couldn’t use my Twitter following – I’m nearing 12k followers and get lots of engagement there.
Thankfully I started a YouTube channel for one of my niche sites during the pandemic! That channel has over 10k subscribers and is nearing 2 million video views!
If you don’t have enough followers to qualify, Matt has a smaller (cheaper) course to help you get accepted
The approval process is instantaneous and you can check every day!
2. Submit 3 Videos for Approval to Shoppable Videos
Once approved, you might think you’re off to the races. Wrong. You still have Step Two.
You see, you were approved for the Influencer program, and you can now fill out your “storefront,” which is kind of like your Influencer landing page. But, that page doesn’t matter – no one will go to that.
You need to get Shoppable Video approval so you can show up in the individual product listings on Amazon.
To do this, you have to publish 3 reviews that are manually reviewed for a variety of rules. They’ll get accepted or rejected (usually takes 3-7 days right now). Here’s the kicker… you only get three shots at this. If you get rejected three times, you’re out of the program.
This is one of the big reasons I signed up for Matt’s course. He walks you through exactly how to film and submit those first three videos.
And, his tips were perfect – all three of my videos were approved the first time around!
3. While You Wait: Get Organized
BEFORE you get accepted, I’d recommend getting organized and creating a plan. Here’s what I did:
- Start with what you bought on Amazon: Kaitlin came up with a cool way to download everything you’ve purchased on Amazon. Filter, sort, and get filming!
- Move on to things you own that are available on Amazon: You probably own products that you bought somewhere else but they are available on Amazon. You can make videos about these too!
- Seek our neighbors and family to film their Amazon products: Once you run out of products in your house, hit up some family, friends, and neighbors. I recently filmed my neighbor’s $900 espresso machine!
Line as much of this up ahead of time as you can so you’re ready to go.
4. Start Cranking out Videos
You’re in! Time to start cranking out videos. And I do mean crank… my strategy was to go heavy on video creation from the start.
Remember, you need to blend creating high quality videos… fast. For me, here’s what I typically do:
- Cheap products (under $10): don’t usually make a video. The commissions are literally pennies
- Low priced products ($10-$25): one-take video that is 1-2 minutes long
- Mid priced products ($25-$75): one take video that is 2-4 minutes long
- High priced products ($75+): several takes with B-roll, edited together, 3-8 minutes long
But you can do it your own way. That’s just my own way. I know people who film everything they have, with no concerns for how much it is.
I know others who only film high commission % products. To each their own.
The most important thing is to film and upload lots of videos.
How to Create Amazon Influencer Videos Fast
This is another area I leaned heavily on Matt’s course. He gives you a super solid outline to follow for each video.
You don’t just want to hit record, because if you don’t say the things Viewers need to see (and know), then they won’t convert. And views without conversions don’t lead to money!
No, these aren’t your standard product reviews. They’re a bit more like “show and tell”.
And, I’m lucky – I have a substantial background in media from my previous photography career. Plus, I host a podcast, so I’m talking on camera several times a week, always on the fly.
So, I’m faster than most. At least out of the gate. But you can get there! That’s the thing – these aren’t heavily produced, so you film lots of videos, and gets lots of practice.
In essence, you get good fast.
What I Learned After 30 Days
- Dopamine is for real: Growing websites through content and SEO is my typical path to monetization. That is a long, slow process where the feedback loop is months (often years in the beginning). This is the opposite, and that was quite refreshing (more so that expected). Publishing a video and seeing it make money a few days later (in some cases) is a great shot dopamine (and motivation to make more).
- It’s not as easy as it seems: Don’t get me wrong, the videos are pretty easy to make. But you DO have know what you’re talking about with the product. And, you can’t stumble your way through it. So, it does take some practice. My first 3 videos took me almost 5 hours. Most take me under 10 minutes now.
- The process is everything: Because this is a numbers game, every part of your process matters. Matt’s course does a great job giving you a process to follow, and then I tweaked it according to my preferences that I learned as I went. Don’t stray, stick to your process and you can produce videos efficiently.
- It gets old… fast: Look, it’s not exactly thrilling stuff. Recording videos about grill cleaning brushes and solar lights is not very exciting. Find something that makes it fun. For me, I’ve started to focus on sharing something incredibly unique about each product. It’s a bit of a game, but it keeps me (slightly) engaged. Haha, I know, I’m a bit of an idiot, but you get what I mean.
- Go for high ticket items: Once you have a few videos under your belt, focus on high ticket items where possible. Your earnings are just so much higher, and the competition isn’t always relative (meaning competition could be worse for that $20 sweater you bought!). Once you’re fast and efficient, it makes more sense to record videos for lower priced products.
- Returns suck, plan accordingly: And by this, I mean people returning purchased products. They pull your commissions back (which makes sense – that’s what they do for Amazon Affiliates). Avoid high return items like clothing until you run out of products to shoot (just my opinion).
Frequently Asked Questions (The ones I had)
- What if the shopper watches another video after yours? No dice. They get the commission. Think about this as you make your videos.
- What if the shopper returns the product? No dice. Just like with Amazon Associates, the commission would be taken from your account.
- Does the shopper really need to watch 30 seconds? Supposedly yes. I can’t find clear documentation about that from Amazon, but that is conventional wisdom at this point.
- What if I make a video less than 30 seconds? Supposedly you’ll get paid commission if they watch the ENTIRE length of your video less than 30 seconds.
Ok, phew, there it is! I hope this post is helpful. And don’t forget – if you want to take advantage of the Jungle Influencer course, get 10% off with the code “JARED”. I don’t know how long that discount will be live.
He has two options for you:
- A cheaper Starter Course if you’re not accepted yet to the Influencer Program
- A Full Course if you are accepted with everything included (I bought this one)
I plan to continue adding videos and growing my Amazon Influencer account. Are you going to dive in? Or, is it not worth your time? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
