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Amazon Influencer Program and Influencer Marketing: Unlocking New Opportunities
The launch of Amazon's Influencer Program offers a new way for brands to capture attention and drive sales.
If you don't take advantage of this program, competitors' videos will appear on your Amazon product page, potentially diverting customers away from your brand. It's a scary thought, but with the right strategy, you can use the Influencer Program to your advantage, ensuring your product stands out and boosting sales.
In this article, you'll learn what Amazon's Influencer Program is and how to use it to your benefit.
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Key Takeaways
- Why try the Amazon Influencer Program? The program helps brands capture attention and drive sales on Amazon through informative video reviews.
- How should the program be used for the best results? To create effective campaigns, brands must select influencers who align with their brand values. In addition, they should optimise their Amazon storefront with high-quality images and compelling product descriptions.
- What rules and regulations should you follow? Influencers must adhere to Amazon's strict guidelines, including following content approval processes, disclosing ads, and avoiding the promotion of counterfeit products.
Amazon Associates' Ecommerce Domination
Amazon Associates, Amazon's affiliate program, has long been the go-to ecommerce site for affiliate links, the pay-by-commission links for directly creating product sales.
These links bring additional commerce through Amazon, which offers 1-10% of the product price as a commission to the advertiser, usually a blog or review website, for those links.
Websites were the platform in mind for the original Amazon affiliate program. Now, social media platforms have knocked traditional blogs off their pedestal. Increasingly, consumers seek out YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok content before deciding which e-commerce products to buy rather than blogs.
The rise of niche influencers has created an abundance of expert opinions. Viewers highly respect these creators' endorsements, who often have professional experience or qualifications that give credibility to their perspectives.
For Amazon, this poses a problem: shoppers leaving the platform to research products. As a result, to keep people focused on the platform, Amazon is launching its Influencer Program worldwide.
Learn more about affiliate marketing here.
The Amazon Influencer Affiliate Program: A Gateway to E-commerce Success
The Influencer Program gives brands wanting to leverage influencers a new opportunity to reach shoppers where they have strong buying intent.
Here are a few of the features and how they promote sales:
- Influencer Videos as Recommendations Amazon will show influencer videos featuring a similar product to shoppers. This gives brands an opportunity to poach customers while they are browsing.
- Influencer Video Carousel: A brand's product page will feature a carousel of videos featuring influencers reviewing the product. This strengthens social proof and clearly demonstrates the product's benefits.
- Influencer Storefronts: The influencer Program allows members to create their own storefronts. Essentially, the influencer curates an online boutique featuring their recommended products. It even comes with a unique URL that influencers can personalise to match their brand. This feature encourages customers to return to the influencer's shop and helps the them build their brand.
- Amazon Live: Amazon Live allows influencers to host real-time product demonstrations, Q&A sessions, and interactive content, which engage viewers and drive sales.
Building Your Brand with Amazon's Influencer Program
To effectively leverage Amazon's Influencer Program, start by identifying influencers who align with your brand values and target audience. Don't just focus on follower count; deeper metrics like high engagement rates and niche position provide better insights into how connected an influencer is with their audience.
A platform like Kolsquare can give you all the data you need about influencers. It's especially useful if you want to tap into niche markets through multiple micro or nano-influencers. These creators often have highly engaged audiences who trust their recommendations. However, you need to analyse many different influencers to find those with real power.
On Kolsquare's platform, you can quickly search through large numbers influencers, filtering by engagement rates, platforms, audience location, and more. It reduces the complexity of launching a successful campaign and helps you ensure your content will truly engage your target audience.
There's no need to commit right away, Simple book in for a free demo and learn how Kolsquare can benefit you.
Once your campaign is launch, with the right influencers you can develop genuine partnerships, giving influencers the creative freedom to present your products naturally. This authenticity will mean that the influencer can create content that resonates with their followers and Amazon shoppers.
Leveraging Amazon's Tools for Influencer Growth - Storefront and Live
Amazon tools can also help influencers grow their follower count and strengthen their relationships through great product recommendations. Features like Amazon Live and Storefront, in particular, offer significant benefits.
Amazon Storefront makes it easy for followers to explore and purchase recommended items. A well-organised storefront with high-quality images, compelling product descriptions, and a clear brand narrative can reinforce an influencer's brand and build a loyal customer base.
Influencers should optimise their storefront by featuring both best-sellers and new arrivals to maintain interest and engagement. In addition, they should ensure that all promoted products are high-quality to build trust and encourage repeat purchases. In addition, remember to update your product selection to keep it relevant and appealing.
Amazon Live enables influencers to host real-time product demonstrations, Q&A sessions, and interactive content. These live sessions engage viewers and drive sales, providing a dynamic way to connect with the audience.
Amazon also pays influencers a commission giving them a chance to enhance their earnings while growing their brand.
Measuring Success: Analytics and Performance Tracking
It's difficult to truly understand or improve how a campaign is performing without data. The essential key performance indicators (KPIs) for the Amazon Program are:
- Viewer Engagement during Amazon Live Sessions: This measures interactions and interest during live broadcasts.
- Conversion Rates from Storefront Visits: Tracks the percentage of visitors who make a purchase after visiting the storefront.
- Overall Sales Generated through Influencer Links: Calculates total revenue generated from clicks on the influencer's links.
Possessing this data kicks off a continuous improvement cycle. It allows the influencer to continue recommending popular products that enhance their brand and build respect with their followers. It also ensures that both the influencer and brand make the most of the collaboration.
Staying Compliant: Adhering to Amazon's Policies and Regulations
As an established business launching a new platform, Amazon is prepared with a wealth of regulations for its Influencer Program. Failure to comply with their policies may result in the immediate removal of all non-compliant content, the refund of any payments from Amazon, and the suspension or termination of the influencer's account. Amazon underlines its seriousness, stating that it is willing to take legal action against those who do not comply.
Anti-Counterfeiting
Amazon affiliates must follow Amazon's strict anti-counterfeiting policy, which states that promoting counterfeit or inauthentic products is not allowed. An influencer should not say that a product is a "dupe," "fake," or "faux" of another product. Instead, affiliates can use terms like "shop the look," "inspired by," or "similar to."
Honest Content
Videos that are adverts should be labelled honestly with #ad or #sponsored. This is similar to the recommendations by the UK governing bodies over influencer marketing.
In addition, The Federal Trade Requirements should be followed. Amazon won't accept content with unauthorized images of children, political content, computer viruses, links to external websites, or offensive content.
Amazon-Only Content (No YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram content
On other social media platforms, you can cross-post content without any problems. However, Amazon is taking a different approach, stating that content posted on Amazon should not be posted on any other platform.
Keeping children Safe
Children under the age of 3 must not be shown in any content, and those under 13 should not be featured unless approved by Amazon. Content for the Amazon Teens experience must target older teens, using age-appropriate products, and should avoid featuring inappropriate items like graffiti tools, tobacco, weapons, alcohol, and dietary supplements.
Amazon Creator and Brand FAQ
Here is a FAQ for both brands and influencers.
Get approved: How many followers do I need to be an Amazon influencer?
There's no set number of followers stated by Amazon. However, the general number stated is 1,000 followers to be an influencer. All on a single platform, not 200 here and 200 there.
Is it hard to get accepted as an Amazon influencer?
Influencers need a meaningful social media presence to be accepted by Amazon.
- Social Media Presence: You need a strong and engaged following on one or more major social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.
- Content Quality: Consistently producing high-quality, engaging content that resonates with your audience makes it more likely Amazon will accept your application.
- Relevance: Your content should be relevant to the types of products sold on Amazon.
Sign up: How to use the Amazon influencer program?
Influencers can upload videos worldwide, here's how to get started:
- Apply Online: You can apply through the Amazon Influencer Program website by linking your social media accounts.
- Review: Amazon will review your application, looking at your follower count, engagement rates, and content quality.
- Approval: If you meet their criteria, you will be approved and can start creating your own Amazon storefront.
What are the typical commission rates and earnings for influencers?
While becoming an Amazon influencer can be rewarding, it often takes time and consistent effort to start making significant money. Influencers must create high-quality content consistently to see substantial earnings. This can be a slow process and may require considerable patience and dedication.
In the beginning, influencers might earn modest amounts, often under $100 per month, as they build their audience and refine their content strategy. As commissions increase, this can reach as high as $5,000 per month.
However, for brands, partnering with Amazon influencers can be highly beneficial. Influencer videos and posts can significantly boost product visibility and sales. Influencers' authentic recommendations can resonate well with their followers, driving more traffic and conversions for brands on Amazon.
Is the Amazon influencer program worth it?
Yes, the Amazon Influencer Program is worth it, but it requires considerable effort and dedication. The program offers potential for significant earnings for influencers through paid sponsorship and commissions.
For brands, it is an excellent opportunity to up visibility and boost sales. The journey can be challenging and time-consuming, but for those who are committed, the rewards can be substantial, making the effort worthwhile. Brands can benefit greatly from the authentic recommendations and increased visibility that influencers provide, leading to higher sales and enhanced presence on Amazon.
About Kolsquare
Kolsquare is Europe’s leading Influencer Marketing platform, a data-driven solution that allows brands to scale their KOL Marketing strategies and implement authentic partnerships with KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders). Kolsquare’s technology enables marketing professionals to easily identify the best Content Creators profiles by filtering their content and audience, and to build and manage their campaigns from A to Z, including measuring results and benchmarking performance against competitors. Kolsquare has built the largest community of influencer marketing experts in the world, and offers hundreds of customers (Coca-Cola, Netflix, Sony Music, Publicis, Sézane, Sephora, El Corte Inglés, Lacoste, …) the latest Big Data, AI and Machine Learning technologies to drive inspiring partnerships, tapping into an exhaustive network covering 100% of KOLs with more than 5,000 followers in 180 countries on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. As a Benefit Company, Kolsquare has been pioneering Responsible Influence by championing transparency, ethical practices, and meaningful collaborations to inspire change.
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