Redheaded Jill

A brief history: In 2017 I quit a soul sucking job as a teller in one of our small town banks and started teaching English to children in China through the computer. It was one of the greatest jobs I’ve ever had. I did this for two years till rona happened and all of a sudden I was jobless. (Nobody could afford our classes.)

I have been a nanny, a baker, run a farmer’s market booth, been a para, an owner of 3 different etsy shops, a substitute teacher and more. (Yes, I have a college degree. A completely useless and VERY expensive college degree.)

Recently I started learning about affiliate marketing.

I kept seeing ads on Instagram. I finally watched some videos. My first discovery was affiliate marketing through amazon. Now, I went through a phrase where I was all about mom and pop shops and saw big box stores as “the problem”. Then someone pointed out to me that small business use amazon to make a living. It was an eye opener. I let go of the guilt of amazon and started researching how I too could make a living using this most massive of resources.

Through Amazon affiliate marketing I have made some mistakes. So many. mistakes that I am currently on my THIRD store front, trying to make a go of things. There are rules. Lots of tiny, detailed, silly rules. And I want to share them with you. I want you to see how and where I make mistakes, so that if you want to try you can succeed more quickly by not repeating my mistakes.

1. Read the terms of service. They’re not that long.
2. Find someone on youtube or on a blog specifically about amazon affiliate marketing and read what they say. The terms of service change continually and you’ll need to be kept updated.
3. Pinterest does NOT like affiliate links, so they will not promote your posts.
4. Amazon does not allow you to alter their affiliate links using bitly or other tools.
5. If you share photos of the product they HAVE to be taken from the same place you get your affiliate link. You CANNOT just screenshot or save photos from a listing. They MUST be the html code offered through your specific amazon link.
6. You must have a disclaimer telling people that you make money using amazon. Ex. “As an amazon associate I earn a commission based on qualifying sales.”
7. You cannot have your friends or family buy items from you to get good standing. Amazon will know and they won’t count towards your numbers.
8. You have to sell a certain amount of items within 90 days to keep your account active and in good standing.
9. You will need to have different social media platforms where you promote amazon products so they can see if you’re effective or note.
10. This is similar to what influencers do, only you don’t have to be an influencer with a million followers to make a decent living.
11. The commissions are small. Like… pennies per item. But those pennies can add up!

These are all off the top of my head. I will continue to update the post as I learn, and I welcome any advice that y’all have learned on your own amazon affiliate journey.