If you do any shopping on the internet, chances are that you have used Amazon.com at some point in the past. Currently ranked as the number one e-commerce website on the internet, tens of millions of shoppers flock to Amazon every single month, in the hopes of finding the best deals on everything from electronics to home décor. The dirty little secret about Amazon, however, is that it works much like eBay – while Amazon does stock and ship some items, the vast majority of inventory listed on there is sold by other retailers. If you have a successful site up and running, we will show you how to integrate Amazon Associates to earn extra passive income.

The Basics

Amazon Associates is a program open to all webmasters who wish to sell and advertise related products on their websites. Using just a bit of custom code and specified interests, you can quickly set up advertisements that display products for sale on Amazon – whether they are visiting on their phones or pinging on iPads – that may be of interest to your viewers. By doing so, you will be rewarded each time a visitor purchases an item through your Amazon advertisement. The commissions vary based on the category of item, but some categories can net you up to 10% of volume. Having this type of related advertising displaying to your users is a great way to build up a stream of passive income.

Signing Up

With 300 million Amazon users already in existence, signing up for an account is a no-brainer. Signing up for the program is fairly simple; you will need to have an existing website in place in order to be accepted. After an Amazon employee approves your request, you will receive an email detailing how to get started. By specifying a few details about your site and the type of products you would like to sell, you can quickly input the code into your website and have Amazon ads appear on each page. While it may be tempting to sell anything and everything, research shows that you should target your ads to match the interests of your site’s visitors.

Added Benefits

Besides earning profit on items that are advertised on your site, the Amazon Associates program uses cookies to give you credit for any items purchased by the referred user. Here is an example: a user is pinging on iPad your site, browsing its content. From here, the user clicks on an advertised item and decides to purchase it. In the midst of checking out, they decide that they would like to purchase three other items as well. Not only do you get credit for the original item, but you also get credit for the other three items. This type of referral can drive much more commission your way than may be obvious at first glance.

Using Amazon Associates is a free and easy way to generate passive income for your website. While you may have to tweak settings ever so often, you will find that it is worth it when advertising on a premium optimized site that already has an existing customer or user base.