Amazon Associate Affiliate Settings - Get Your Web Affiliate Program Settings Right
72You'll Never Make Money Online if Your Web Affiliate Program Settings Are Wrong!
Amazon is one of the many companies on the internet that offer an affiliate program or associate program as they call it. I'm not sure it's the best affiliate company out there since they only offer up to 8% comission on sales and at most a 24 hour cookie. But regardless of this, whether your an article writer, affiliate marketer or website developer there's something you need to know about how the Amazon Affiliate Program works.
It's has taken me over 6 months to find this out, so you could call me stupid, thick or just plain dumb - I don't care and really I deserve it, but I don't want you to miss out on potential sales by making the same silly error.
Many thanks to Don W for asking this question in the forums because this is what prompted me to check my amazon affiliate settings and I'm so glad I did.
I thought that signing up as an Amazon affiliate would be the same as signing up for Adsense or Ebay, in that one affiliate code would cover the whole globe, and that no matter where someone lived, when they clicked on my Amazon products it would magically show them products from their part of the world. NOT SO!
Each Countries' Amazon is Separate
Each country has it's own seperate Amazon business which means that if you are signed up for Amazon.co.uk then people living in America (or in any other part of the world) will not be able to buy your products. I made this mistake on my hubpages account and my website. Only those living in the UK were able to buy from my website which is pretty rubbish seeing as most of my visitors come from the US.
Amazon Affliate Settings for Web Developers
Basically the same rules apply for webmasters and bloggers as for hubbers. If your site targets US customers then you need to make sure your amazon associate account is with amazon.com and not with any other countries' amazon.
The way to find out which Amazon business you're affiliated with is to log into your amazon associate account and look to the left of your screen to view your tracking ID. This should end in the number 20 if you are selling in the US - 21 if you are selling in the UK.
Amazon currently operates in these countries but will deliver to a lot more:
- USA
- UK
- Canada
- Germany
- France
- Japan
Amazon Affiliate Settings for Hubbers
This knowledge is especially important for hubbers as Hubpages will only show products from Amazon.com which is based in America. So if you have diligently typed in your amazon.co.uk, amazon.jp or any other countries amazon code in your affiliate settings it will look like it's working fine but you will not make a bean!
How to Check your Amazon Affiliate Settings in HubPages
Go to My Account, then click on Affiliate Settings. Scroll down to where your affiliate codes are. Your amazon affiliate code should end in the number 20. If it does then everything is fine, as 20 is the number that shows an amazon.com affiliate code. If your affiliate code shows any other number at the end then you have your settings wrong and you will need to apply for an amazon.com associate account instead.
Now that you know this, all you have to do is sign up to be an amazon.com affiliate (or associate) as they like to call us. Click here to go to the sign up page. On the right of the page click on "Join Now for Free." If you are not sure what to type in for your website profile etc use this guide from HubPages.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Make the Most of Being an Amazon Associate
It wasn't until I was searching for answers to Don W's question that I stumbled onto the Amazon Associates forums which I had never seen before. This was ultimately where I found out that each amazon is a seperate business and most of the rest of the imformation I have related here.
There is a great deal of useful information there to help us improve our amazon sales and really get to understand what we're working with. Go to the Amazon Associate Homepage, and on the right underneath the box where you sign in there is link to the discussion boards.
There are also many indepedent Amazon Affiliate Forums out there. Here are just a few:
And finally.....
Good luck with your Amazon sales and may we all make our fortunes!
Please remember to:
- Rate this up if you found it helpful.
- Share it with your networks
- Leave a Comment
vote upvote downshareprintflag
- Useful (33)
- Funny
- Awesome (5)
- Beautiful
- Interesting (1)
CommentsLoading...
Thanks, need to check this out!
Thanks for this. Just checked my account number and it ends with 20. Very useful Hub
Love and peace
Tony
Yep, mine ends in 20. You definitely are going to help many hubbers in our community having written this, Susana S. Thanks!
Thanks everyone for your comments. If you signed up to amazon through hubpages you should be ok - (I do hope so), but many of us already had amazon affiliate codes and just pasted them in (like I did), not really thinking about which amazon we were signed up to. I'm glad I've got it sorted out now and I hope this hub will be useful to the non US hubbers in our community.
Yep my is a 20. I guess I will have to put a LARGE CLICK HERE on my hubs, as nothing happens. Plus I can not work out how to add an Amazon store.. which I think is best.
Thanks for this Susana. A great help to the slowbos like me.
Hey PearlDiver - the only amazon sales I've had are from a hub I wrote specifically selling products from there. Didn't make lots of money yet, but heck, it's a sale! Is it possible to put an A-store in a hub? Didn't know that! I've got one on my website which was easy enough to do. Email me if you want any help with that :)
Wow. I never knew that. Fortunately, mines a US one, but that's more a function of living here than knowing anything about anything. Is this the same for Canada? (If you know?) If my link sends them to Amazon.com but they ship to Canada do I lose my affiliate end?
thanks alot. This whole thing if full of traps. Generous to share information.On the other hand does this mean that only Americans in America can buy books?? I am a Brit living in France. I suppose on my web site I should have uk Amazon? Or can I put the French one on French pages??? Information overload
Hi Les Trois - what it means for your hubpages is that you can only sell to Americans from America (and poss canadians I'm not sure). That should be ok as most of HP's visitors are from america.
For a website you run, my advice would be to check where most of your visitors come from - that is the most important thing. If most come from France then get an amazon.fr associate code. If from UK a amazon.co.uk code and so on. If there's an even distribution maybe think about having a different sales page for each country.
Hub LLama - You should get a percentage of any sale you refer to amazon.com no matter where it's shipped to.
It's just that when someone not in the US sees the shipping charge they may decide to go onto their local amazon and find the product and buy from there instead. In that case you would not get a percentage.
Is it possible to have an affiliate Amazon account in various countries ?
Hi Ellen, yes you can but you need to sign up to each one individually. There isn't a global amazon affiliate account. I have both amazon.com and amazon.co.uk accounts but at the moment i'm only using the .com one on my website because i can't be doing with the fuss of having to have different pages or link modules for different countries.
On HP you can only use an amazon.com acount.
Wow....Thanks for the tips...I now need to check my settings.
Just posted my first hub and had fallen into the "trap" of just carrying my existing UK affiliate code over so this info was just perfect for me. Much appreciated - thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much! I'm using your hubs as a resource - This is a subject I need to learn about - have just stared a dot com and really need more information on how to make it work! Kartika
thank you so much for posting this - I asked a question on the subject in the help forum this morning and then came across this, it's answered my question and I've posted a link to this page under my question for anyone else who was wondering :)
fortunately I dumb enough not to know that there are so many amazon!
There is no amazon.com.au
If you blog with wordpress I think there is a plugin that will automatically show visitors either your .com or .co.uk amazon associate ads depending where their IP indicates they are located.
Very interesting hub. I've got a 20 code luckily. But these information will help a lot of newbies like me. Thanks.
Thanks everyone for the comments :) Glad to be of help!
Susana, I never thought about that but it is really important information for anyone outside of the US. I'm in the US so mine is correct. But thanks to you, I went and checked just to be sure.
eBay has the same situation. I belong to eBay-US and I bet readers anywhere else will not be able to buy from my eBay Capsules. No wonder Amazon and eBay do so poorly with revenue. Thanks for a very enlightening hub.
Damn - Wish I had read this half an hour ago!! Thanks for the info... off to Amazon.com I go!
I had been wondering about this.
Thank you for the information. :)
Hi Susana thanks for the info. mine has a 20 at the end but my affiliate status says "set" instead of active like my adsense says. should it say active also? if so how do I get it to say active?
Thanks,
G.
Grant - this is a common question and I don't know why they have chosen to use different words for the same thing, lol! Set and active are both good :)
Excellent to know. Thank you.
Cheers.
You're very welcome :)
This was really helpful. Thank you so much!
No probs KaylaJay - glad it helped you :)
That is probably why I have a big 0 from Amazon since I signed up as I am from Canada -does it nake a difference --mine ends in 20
Hi Jonathan, 20 is right for amazon.com. To make sure it's set up right click on one of your own amazon ads (you can do this with amazon, but not adsense) and then check back later in your amazon affiliate account to see if the click has registered.
Amazon has got its amazon associates program for USA,UK,CANADA,GERMANY,FRANCE and JAPAN.What if an INDIAN (or for that matter any individual from any other part of the world becomes an amazon associate) for US or CANADA site then as per your statement in your hub "Each country has it's own seperate Amazon business which means that if you are signed up for Amazon.co.uk then people living in America (or in any other part of the world) will not be able to buy your products".If its true then its really rubbish on part of Amazon.Myself from INDIA and being an amazon associate for both amazon.com and amazon.uk.As per your saying I can't earn even a penny from either.It's really shameful as part as amazon is concerned.
Hi Hubbybucks, I think you've misunderstood me. It doesn't matter where you live, but if you want to sell products on hubpages you need to make sure you're signed up for amazon.com and always use this ID for any amazon products placed on your hubs.
If you have an external website or blog you can choose which amazon ID's to use depending on where your main traffic comes from. So if you have a UK based website you will want to use your amazon.co.uk ID.
Hope that makes sense :)
Hi Susana S
You had me checking mine.
How do's it go if you hope to sell to both markets from Hub Pages. I supose you would have to have two accounts, and I don't think you can do that, if it was the case then you've have to have two diffrent hubs to sell the same product.
The more I write the more it shouts at me, pick one country!
Good information
T
Hi Tony, as far as I know the only way you can sell amazon.co.uk products at HP is by adding an amazon text link - a UK ID won't work in an amazon capsule. You do have to pick one country to put in your affiliate settings and it has to be the US or .com. You'll probably find that most of your traffic comes from the US anyway, so it's no sweat really.
One thing to ensure if you write amazon product hubs is to make sure you do your keyword research specific to the US market.
Thank you for the information. I am signed up with amazon.ca , and my amazon affiliate code ends in 20. which according to you it should work fine. but like I said I got the email from amazon.ca saying that I have not refer a sale yet. and on my account it doesn't show any clicks on any of amazon products.
another thing, I was signed up with amazon.com before ,but when I wanted to enter my bank information it only allowed my to enter an address in the U.S. I live in Canada. that's why i close my account with .com and signed up with .ca
any advice here?
Hi Nady - the first thing to do is click on some of your amazon links in your own hubs. (This is fine for amazon, but not for adsense!) Leave it a while and then go check your amazon account and see if the clicks are showing. If they are then it should all be working fine.
If you do find the clicks are not showing on your account, then you may need to re-apply for amazon.com, but instead of setting up payment through bank transfer, you will need to choose one of the other options: either cheque or gift certificate. I get paid via cheque since I'm in the UK.
Another thing you can do is go to the amazon associate forums and ask there. If you log into your account, you'll see the discussion board link on the left handside of the page. Hope that helps :)
Thx alot susana. That helped alot
Glad to hear it Nady :)
I'm back Susana :) another related question, and hopefully I wont bother you more. I did the clicks thing and it still didn't show on my amazon account. So I closed my account with amazon.ca and they sent me a confirmation email about it.
Now it's still showing in my affiliate setting on Hubpages that it's "set".
With that showing would I be able to sign up with amazon.com?
Hi Nady - don't worry about bothering me - you're not :) Yes, you can still sign up with amazon.com. Once they have sent you your associates ID, simply go to your HP affiliate settings, click edit >> delete your old ID and paste in your new one >> click set or activate and it's done.
Thx a million :)
Wow! Thank you -- I am so relieved to find out that my affiliate code ends in a 20!
I was so wrong on this. I did not use an amazon capsule simply because I was not sure, now I know. I will be joining the USA amazon and adding the capsules.
Thanks
This is really informative and I am encouraged to have a go at adding my Amazon affiliate ID to a few of my hubs - something I have never tried.
Thanks!
I was in confusion whether I put the correct amazon ID to my hub page account , it is clear now.
Very helpful information , thank you .
Wow thank you your hubs have some great information especially for a new hubber like myself
mine ends in a 20 and i haven't made a bean. I'm clearly thick... Obviously we don't past html code into hub pages...so if i've got the code is that enough, and if so how many clicks to I need to make anything at all?
Hi Tom,
With amazon you don't get paid per click, you get paid when someone buys something having come directly from an amazon link on your hub. You'll need to add amazon capsules to your hubs and add relevant products. Here's a hub I wrote about making money with amazon on hubpages that you might want to read :) http://hubpages.com/hub/amazon-affiliate-program-s
Genius! It had me worried when adsense says active and Amazon only said set. Wasted 3 weeks with that!
Hi Susana, not sure if this is entirely relevant but hope you can help.
I use hubpages for a few things, but more often I use wordpress blogs for sites. I am an amazon.com affiliate and link to many amazon.com products throughout my sites.
Ive heard that if, for example a uk visitor tried to buy through my link, then Id get the commission assuming the seller ships to the uk. If the seller did not ship to the uk, then the visitor would be informed that the seller does not ship to their address. So if they then go to, or are redirected to the uk amazon site, Id lose out on commission wouldnt I.
I think I understand this concept fine enough. USA visitors, no problem, but a Uk or any other country who is either unable to buy through my link, or changes their mind and goes to the uk site, or clicks the banner on amazon.com which says "click here to shop at amazon.co.uk", then I will lose out... is this 100% correct??
If so, what is your opinion on the amazon localizer plugin - seems all you have to do is put your associates id into it, for each country, and it puts their id into the code for each product... while this may seem like a solution, Ive also heard that it works on a product description and simply replaces the .com to .co.uk (etc) and changes their associates id.
I can see the positives in this as well, but Ive also heard that the plugin will have issues if the actual description for the product is different on each Amazon site.ie it would fail.
On top of that its not always possible to get the exact same product at both the .com site and the .co.uk sites.
What is your opinion if this plugin? good points, bad points?
Sorry for all the questions- truthfully I am trying to have a plugin coded that will sort this problems out once and for all and there are these few questions that have been bugging me.
Thanks
Shaun
Hi Shaun - Sorry but I haven't used the plug in. Hubber thisisoli uses it though and is very happy from what he's said recently. Drop him a line, he's a friendly guy and will probably give you some advice.
Nice job! Thank you for sharing.
Thanks so much for this info. I checked mine and I had a UK affiliate. Fortunately I have only just started on here so was able to change it. Thanks again.
Thanks very much for the useful info. All your hubs are extremely useful!!!
Thanks for writing this hub. Just sent it to a friend who is attempting to sign up and it should be of great help to her.
Thanks for the excellent information. Very informative and useful.
i live outside Uk, is that possible to be affiliate amazon.uk? is there any good way to get UK traffic for my site with domain from us.
This was really useful - thanks!
May we become rich by amazon affiliate sales!
Amen!
Great information. Thank you once again for amazoning me. I do hope we in Africa are not left out f this goodie.
Hi I just wanted to confirm it I know you mentioned 20 but this is my code is it fine?
hubpXXXXX-20
Yep 20 is fine :)
Yep 20 is fine :)
Thanks Susana :)
I'm waiting for my holidays in Jan will do a personal 60 hubs in 20 days challenge (as I have just 20 days holidays :))
But I'll just keep high quality instead of quantity :)
great information and much needed. this is extremely useful information for newbies. thank you for sharing a nice hub written wonderfully and easy to understand.
Pete Maida Level 1 Commenter 2 years ago
Thanks for telling us about this. I will be checking my settings.