If you are still undecided about which affiliate program to join, I have come up with a comprehensive comparison between Walmart Affiliate vs Amazon Affiliate program.
In this blog post, I will discuss Walmart and Amazon’s affiliate programs, including their requirements, how to join the programs, their commission rates, and payment terms to help you better understand the two affiliate programs.
You’ll also learn about their pros and cons so you can make a wiser decision between the two. I will also explain the different types of affiliate marketing to help you choose the one that will suit you best.
Be sure to read the entire post and learn how you can benefit from affiliate marketing, find out about some of the highest paying affiliate programs, and how to choose the right affiliate service provider so you can maximize your earnings.
Walmart Affiliate vs Amazon Affiliate Program
To find out which one has a better affiliate program between Walmart and Amazon, let’s take a deeper look at how each program works.
Walmart Affiliate Program
With the Walmart affiliate program, marketers can add banners and text links to their own web pages or social media accounts. The main purpose of this program is to refer customers to use and promote Walmart products and services. In return, marketers can earn a commission.
Walmart Affiliate Program requirements
All can join the Walmart partner network. It may be an excellent opportunity for bloggers or webmasters who want a way for Walmart product sales through the internet. Here are some of Walmart’s requirements to become an affiliate.
You will need to have at least an active blog or website. However, it cannot be just any kind of website or blog. It should be related to promoting the products and services of Walmart.
Examples of this could be about helping users find information about Walmart pharmacy hours, locating their stores, or Walmart’s grocery delivery.
There are also websites that are not allowed to join the Walmart affiliate program, such as the following:
- Promotion of sexually explicit materials.
- Contributes to illegal activities, gambling or lottery, violence, and alcohol.
- Promotion of investment schemes such as pyramiding.
- Discriminatory websites.
- Sites that are not live or under construction at the time of application.
- Websites that are not based in the U.S. or have target audiences that are not based in the U.S.
You can check Walmart’s guidelines for the complete list of unsuitable websites for their affiliate program.
How to Join Walmart affiliate program
You can join the Walmart affiliate program by following these simple steps:
- Visit the Walmart affiliate landing page.
- On their affiliate landing page, click on Become a Member, and you will be redirected to Impact, their network partner.
- Fill out the necessary information, such as user information, company information, promotional methods, and media properties, then click on Submit Application.
After completing the application form, wait for at least 24 hours, and someone from Walmart’s approval team will reach out to you.
Walmart Affiliate Program Commissions
How much does the Walmart Affiliate program pay? Depending upon the category, your link may require some planning and some adjusting as necessary.
Some affiliates have the lowest commissions at 1% but can earn as much as 4% in some categories, which is closer to the average for other affiliate programs. The Walmart affiliate program awards 4% to users in a variety of categories.
Walmart’s commission structure based on category:
| CATEGORY | COMMISSION PERCENTAGE |
| Books | 1% |
| Electronics | 1% |
| Movies | 1% |
| Music | 1% |
| Video Games | 1% |
| Baby | 4% |
| Beauty | 4% |
| Clothing | 4% |
| Home | 4% |
| Gift & Registry | 4% |
| Health | 4% |
| Patio and Garden | 4% |
| Jewelry | 4% |
| Sports and Outdoors | 4% |
| Photos | 4% |
| Toys | 4% |
| Others | 4% |
| Contact Lenses | 10% |
Payment Terms
Sales are invoiced on the third of the month after the month in which they are tracked, and they are locked two months after the end of that month. Then, one month following the conclusion of the month in which they lock, approved transactions are reimbursed.
In addition to any refunds, sales taxes, or shipping and handling fees, Walmart only pays commissions on monthly net sales.
Walmart Affiliate Program Cookie Duration
Walmart affiliate program has a three-day cookie window on all qualified purchases. The cookie duration is the timeframe or window where a sale or conversion can be allocated to an affiliate.
This means that when anyone clicks any of your product links, and the customer purchases the product within three days, you can earn a percentage from that sale.
If the customer who clicked your link purchased the product after three days, you are no longer eligible to earn a commission from that sale.
Amazon Affiliate Marketing Program
Now, let’s move on to the Amazon affiliate program. Nevertheless, Amazon is a very large affiliate-only shopping program in America. The Amazon Associate Program gives content developers, third-party sellers, publishers, and bloggers access to monetization gridlocks.
The Affiliate Marketing Service enables users to offer simple links to their recommendations and then make a profit with investments and programs.
Amazon Affiliate Program requirements
Similar to the Walmart affiliate program, Amazon also has a list of requirements that affiliates should meet and maintain to remain an affiliate. Amazon has a more complex requirement compared to Walmart, but here are some of them:
- You’re responsible for your site’s operation, development, and maintenance.
- The website should contain original content and be publicly available.
- Your website should not contain violent materials and illegal activities.
- It should not contain sexually explicit content.
- It must not violate any Intellectual Property (IP) rights.
You may check the Amazon affiliate program policies for the complete list of requirements.
How to Join the Amazon Affiliate Program
Similar to most affiliate programs, joining Amazon is also easy. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do it.
- Visit the Amazon affiliate homepage and click on Sign up.
- Provide the necessary information about your Amazon account and apps or websites where you plan to display widgets, display banners, text links, and other Amazon Associates ads.
- After that, you will be asked to provide details about your affiliate website, products on Amazon you wish to promote, how you monetize your website and your strategy for driving traffic to your site.
After you have provided the necessary details and have submitted your application for your affiliate account, you can now use Amazon Associates Central.
However, it doesn’t mean that Amazon will review your application right away since you first need to drive three qualifying sales for the first 180 days of joining.
This is actually a bit difficult, especially for website owners who have no experience with how an affiliate program works.
Amazon Affiliate Program Commissions
Amazon’s commission rate may be a bit more confusing for some people than Walmart’s. However, they have a higher range of commission rates. If the Walmart affiliate program pays between 1% to 4%, Amazon Associates Program pays between 1% to 20%, which is pretty high.
However, most of their product categories are only between 3% to 5%, which is still higher than what Walmart offers. Aside from that, affiliate marketers can earn more money online through Amazon’s special commissions by promoting bounty products and bonus events.
Although the commissions are not that high, it’s still a great way for affiliate marketers to earn extra from their online business. Examples of bonus events and bounty products are the following:
- When a customer successfully registers for Amazon Kids+ Free Trial through your affiliate link, you can get $3.
- When a customer purchases from the Amazon Pet Food and Supplies store for the first time you can earn $3.
- When you get a customer to complete a 12-month Kindle Unlimited Membership purchase, you get $5.
- If a customer successfully registers on Amazon’s Audible Premium Plus Annual Membership, you can earn $25.
These are just some examples, but you can find more opportunities to earn a passive income through Amazon Associates Program by visiting their Associates Program Commission Statement.
Payment Terms
When you reach at least $10 through the Amazon affiliate program, they will pay you after 60 days, more or less after the end of the month that you are being paid via direct deposit. For instance, your earnings for the month of May, you will be paid around the end of July.
If in case, you prefer not to be paid via direct deposit, you have the option to receive payment via check or Amazon gift certificate. However, you need to reach at least $100 for check payments.
Amazon Affiliate Program Cookie Duration
Amazon only offers a 24-hr window for their affiliate program cookie duration. This means that customers who click on your affiliate link have a 24-hour window to decide to purchase the item.
It may seem like a short timeline, but in reality, conversion is actually high since most Amazon shoppers will instantly purchase the items on their cart.
In addition to that, if you read the Terms and Conditions of Amazon’s affiliate program thoroughly, you’ll see that if a customer added the product to their shopping cart within the 24-hour window, you could still be eligible to earn a referral commission.
The only condition is the order must be placed within 90 days or before the Shopping Cart expires.
However, the referral commission will only be credited to your account when the customer has bought the product, received the item, and payment has been remitted in full payment to Amazon.
While the 24-hour cookie duration may seem like a short time, you still have a better chance of getting affiliate sales through the Amazon affiliate program because they have a higher conversion rate. Customers also tend to place items in their cart within 24 hours.
Pros and Cons of Walmart and Amazon Affiliate Program
The battle between Walmart vs Amazon affiliate program is not over. Now that we’ve covered how the two affiliate program works, it’s time we discuss their pros and cons to see which company has the better offering.
Walmart’s Affiliate Program Pros
- Since Walmart is a trusted marketplace, it is easy to promote Walmart products and services such as Walmart store locator, grocery delivery, and more.
- There is a huge range of services and products you can promote through your Walmart affiliate link.
- The registration process is pretty easy for new Walmart affiliates.
- Walmart also has great affiliate support, including the Walmart Deals Chrome extension, product newsletters, banner ads, and more.
- You can also have your Walmart affiliate links shortened through link cloaking.
Cons
- Short cookie duration.
- Has a lower conversion rate than Amazon and other affiliate programs.
- Commission rates are a bit low in most categories.
- You need to choose products that are not available in your local Walmart store.
Amazon’s Affiliate Program Pros
- Biggest online marketplace and one of the most trusted brands, which means there’s a huge range of products to offer.
- Higher conversion rate compared to Walmart and some other affiliate programs.
- You can still get paid even if a customer clicks on your affiliate link using a mobile phone and then purchases the item on a desktop.
- You still have a chance to earn a commission when a customer adds the product to their carts within 24 hours and checks out within 90 days.
Cons
- Commission rates on most categories are a bit low.
- Their Terms and Conditions are too long and confusing. It may be hard to remember all of them and be banned without even knowing you violated one of their terms.
- The cookie window of 24 hours is a bit short, even if there’s a possibility of extension.
What are the Different Types of Affiliate Marketing?
There are three types of affiliate marketing and they are related, involved, and unattached. Now, let’s take a look at each one of them.
Related Affiliate Marketing
This type of affiliate marketing is where the affiliate marketer has some kind of relationship with the service or product he is promoting. The relationship can be with the affiliate marketer’s niche or skills which gives him the authority or influence to market the service or product.
However, it doesn’t always mean that the affiliate is actually using the service or product he is promoting.
Involved Affiliate Marketing
The involved affiliate marketing demonstrates a stronger relationship between the service or product and the affiliate. It’s either the affiliate marketer is currently using it or has previously tried the product or service they are marketing. Their experiences serve as advertisements.
However, one downside of this type of affiliate marketing is if some users have experienced anything negative or any issues with the product, their reputations may be jeopardized.
I fall under this type of affiliate marketing since I promote some Amazon eCommerce tools, such as Helium 10, which I also use.
If you are interested to learn more about this software, I have articles on some of their best tools, including Helium 10 Cerebro, Adtomic, Black Box, and the Helium 10 Magnet tool.
Unattached Affiliate Marketing
Among the three types of affiliate marketing, the unattached advertising model is when the affiliate marketer has no connection at all with the service or product he is marketing. They don’t have the skills, authority, or experience to share with potential customers.
While they may be uninvolved, the good thing about this type of affiliate marketing is that affiliates are not obligated to give advice or recommend the product or service. Since the affiliate is not connected with them, it also gives readers a more honest view of the product.
What are the Benefits of Affiliate Programs?
Here are some of the benefits of joining affiliate programs.
- A great way to make extra money and earn passive income.
- Easy to set up, implement, and manage.
- Risks are low to nonexistent.
- You don’t always have to be an expert or user of any of the products you promote.
- There are a lot of affiliate marketing programs that you can join simultaneously.
What is the Highest-Paying Affiliate Program?
While Walmart and Amazon may have great affiliate programs, there are better-paying programs out there. Some of the highest-paying affiliate programs out there that are worth checking out are the following:
- Refersion – Affiliates can get a commission of 15% who registers with Refersion or by simply responding to an email for their direct-billed subscription.
- Fiverr – Commission rate varies depending on the product. But more or less, you can earn between $15 to $150.
- Canva – You can earn at least $26 when a new subscriber signs up for their Pro plan. For users who signed up for a monthly plan, you can get a monthly commission of 80% in the first two months. If a user signed up for their annual plan, you’d get a one-time commission of 25%.
- SEMrush – Affiliates can get $200 for each new subscription sale and $10 for each new trial. They also offer $0.01 for every customer who signs up.
- ConvertKit – Has a recurring commission of 30%
Some of the things you need to consider when choosing the right affiliate program are checking their affiliate tools, their commission rates, their products and services, and also the affiliate program reviews.
Conclusion
So, which do you think has a better affiliate program, Walmart or Amazon? Well, both have their own advantages and disadvantages, and it’s highly dependent on your personal preferences.
Since both are trusted companies and have a wide variety of products and services to offer, you may want to focus on their commission rate, cookie window, and the support that you can get from them.
Do you have any experience with any of the two affiliate programs? Please share your experience in the comments section below and help others earn extra money online. Also, don’t miss my complete Amazon FBA guide article to help you better understand what Amazon FBA is and how you can succeed.