Even though Amazon ships out over 66,000 orders per hour, this e-commerce giant wants to pay you for bringing in even more traffic to their platform! The Amazon Brand Referral Bonus program is a way for Amazon brand owners to earn extra cash for very little effort.
It’s pretty easy, just create a specialized link and use it for your external paid advertisements, which is the most common and effective way to utilize the link. People also use it for social media posts, email newsletters, and more!
We’ll show you how the Amazon Referral Bonus Program works, how much you can earn, how to get it set up, and how to measure your performance in this blog post.
What is the Amazon Brand Referral Bonus Program?
On July 15, 2021, with the aim of bringing more traffic to the platform, Amazon launched the Brand Referral Bonus Program as a way for sellers to earn extra income by referring visitors to their own product listings from outside of the site.
Eligible for the program are Amazon US sellers who have their own brand approved in Brand Registry.
When members of the program direct non-Amazon marketing traffic to their Amazon product listings, they can earn a bonus averaging 10% of the sale of the product that they directed the traffic to. However, the bonus varies by category of the product that was promoted.
A bonus is also given to sellers for any products purchased by that particular customer from your store in the following 2 weeks after they click on your initial ad. The bonus is received as a credit for a brand’s referral fee (the small percentage that Amazon takes for every order placed).
Where Does Amazon Measure My Bonuses?
Bringing traffic to a seller’s product listings works through an Amazon Attribution Tag, which is a special link that is able to track the performance and provide data for sales collected through clicks to the link.
It is all measured and compiled on Amazon Attribution, which is defined by Amazon as:
“An advertising and analytics measurement solution that gives marketers insight into how their non-Amazon marketing channels perform on Amazon.”
It shows sellers how their sales on Amazon are affected by marketing outside of Amazon. Non-Amazon marketing includes (but is not limited to):
- Social Media
- Paid advertising (Bing Ads, Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Pinterest, etc.)
- Emails
- Display
- Videos
- Brand sites/blogs
- Affiliate/influencer marketing
It may also keep track of traffic sent to a different website, which converts on Amazon.
When you use Amazon Attribution, it can track:
- Clicks and Impressions of your listings
- Page views in detail
- Purchase rates
- Add To Cart rates
- Your Total sales
Understand Amazon Attribution much better through our video, What is Amazon Attribution & How to Get Started
Why Did the Amazon Referral Bonus Program Get Launched?
With the complexity of the internet, nowadays, people are able to discover new brands from a plethora of sources like the news, social media, Google search result ads, emails, app browsing, online videos, and more.
Among popular choices for sellers to direct their traffic are Shopify, Walmart, Ebay, and others. Amazon wants to take advantage of web surfer’s internet habits and bring more traffic to them specifically, in an attempt to monopolize where sellers direct their audience towards.
Benefits of Participating in Brand Referral Bonus
- Minimal effort, earn extra even while you sleep
- Gain new customers through the process of referral
- Fits in well with your existing advertising efforts
- Allows new Amazon customers to discover your brand first before others
- Makes up for many sellers’ complaints of low margins due to referral fees
- Sellers are reimbursed for a percentage of referral fees for off-Amazon traffic if the customer makes additional purchases up to 14 days after the initial ad click
- Helps sellers have more to invest in their paid advertising, and/or it is a return on ad spend
- No risk, as there are unlimited referrals possible per year
- Creates higher organic rankings in search results
- Potentially lower your ACoS
How to Start In the Brand Referral Bonus Program
First, take a look and see if your products fall into the qualified categories provided by Amazon’s article:
- Amazon Device Accessories
- Amazon Explore
- Clothing & Accessories (including active wear)
- Books (including Collectible Books); Music; Software & Computer/Video Games; Video & DVD; Collectible Books; Home & Garden; Kitchen; Mattresses; Musical Instruments; Office Products; Outdoors; Sports (excluding Sports Collectibles); Pet Supplies; Toys & Games; Luggage & Travel Accessories; Shoes, Handbags & Sunglasses; Everything Else
- 3D Printed Products; Industrial & Scientific (including Food Service and Janitorial & Sanitation)
- Camera and Photo; Cell Phone Devices; Consumer electronics; Full-Size Appliance; Personal Computers; Video Game Consoles
- Tools & Home Improvement
- Automotive & Power sports
- Baby Products (excluding Baby Apparel); Beauty; Health & Personal Care (including Personal Care Appliances)
- Collectible Coins
- Electronics Accessories
- Entertainment Collectibles
- Fine Art
- Furniture (including outdoor furniture)
- Grocery & Gourmet Food
- Jewelry
- Sports Collectibles
- Watches
- Gift Cards
You can read more about the Estimated Bonus Rates for each Category on Seller Central Help.
Then, decide which product(s) you want to promote. Understand the target market you are going for. If you want to continue the momentum of a high selling product, use that product to promote. If you want to boost rankings for a product that doesn’t sell as well, use a product that needs a bit of a push.
Next,
- Sign up for Amazon’s Brand Referral Bonus program. Here, you will fill out a tax form that is required to receive your bonus. While signing up, choose the brand to use the program for.
- Sign up for Amazon Attribution if you haven’t already.
- On Amazon Attribution, create tags by clicking on Create New Order. It will ask you the ASIN to promote and the channel you would like to promote it on.
- Launch your advertising effort
You will be able to see the conversions within 24-48 hours of your launched order.
Be aware that traffic is only counted for the bonus if it has an Amazon Attribution tag!
For a step-by-step on How To Send Traffic from Google Ads to Your Amazon Products, watch our video tutorial!
How To Track Your Performance
You can track your performance on Amazon Advertising or by downloading a more thorough report.
Campaigns page
Log in to Seller Central and access Amazon Attribution.
Under your Orders, you will be able to view some basic metrics, like
- Click-throughs – A click on an advertisement that directs the user to a destination outside of the creative)
- DPV (Detail page views) – The number of views of the advertised product’s detail pages on Amazon
- Purchases – The number of times any amount of a promoted product or products are included in a purchase event. Purchase events include video rentals and new Subscriber & Save subscriptions.
- Product Sales
For a more detailed look at your metrics, you can download a complete report.
Detailed report
- Log in to Seller Central and access Campaign Manager from the Advertising option on the main toolbar
- Click on Measurement & Reporting, then Amazon Attribution
- There, you can choose the Campaign to download a report for with a date range.
Conclusion
You are likely already investing in paid external advertisements to promote your Amazon products, so why not use a specialized link that helps you earn extra money?
If you are an Amazon brand owner, the Brand Referral Bonus program is a great way to get more brand exposure while earning extra money. Sellers tend to complain about referral fees, and they can be reduced by taking advantage of this program.
If you’re not already participating in this awesome opportunity, we encourage you to because of its minimal effort for high rewards!
We hope this blog post was helpful and informative, share it with your Amazon seller friends and leave a comment to let us know how much you have earned back from the program.