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You’ve probably come across both the Amazon Associates and Amazon Influencer Program as popular ways to earn money online.
In this post, I’ll break down the fundamental differences between the two based on my firsthand experience, having earned multiple five figures from both programs since 2017.
By the end, you’ll know exactly which program is right for you and how they can complement each other to maximize your affiliate income.
🔑 Key Differences
📈 Traffic Generation
The most significant difference between the two comes down to one thing: where the traffic comes from.
With the Amazon Influencer Program, 100% of your earnings come from on-site traffic.
A shopper already browsing Amazon with the intention of buying lands on a product page.
They watch your embedded review video on the top carousel or bottom, and make a purchase, earning you a commission.
Now compare that to the Amazon Associates Program (off-site).
Amazon Associates earn commissions by sending traffic from outside of Amazon—through blog posts, YouTube videos, social media, and more.
If someone clicks your link and makes a purchase within 24 hours, you earn a commission on everything they buy, not just the product you recommended.
📝 Requirements to Join
To join the Amazon Associates Program, you’ll need a marketing property like a website, YouTube channel, or social media profile.
- ✅ No minimum traffic or follower count required
- ✅ Instant access to affiliate links after applying
- ⚠️ You must make 3 qualifying sales within 180 days
- ✅ After hitting the sales requirement, your account goes through a manual review for final approval
- 🔓 Once approved, you unlock additional features like Amazon Bounties
To join the Amazon Influencer Program, you’ll apply with a YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook profile.
- ✅ No website required
- ⚠️ You’ll need an established account with good engagement and follower count (1,000–5,000 followers is a safe minimum)
- 🔍 The review process is more selective—accounts with low engagement, minimal content, or brand-new profiles may be rejected
- 🚨 3 qualifying videos needed after applying
💰Commission Rates
On average, Amazon Associates pays approximately 85% more in commission rates than the Amazon Influencer Program across comparable categories.
This by itself doesn't automatically make the Associates program better, just different.
Amazon wants to reward Associates for the work they're doing bringing off-site traffic to Amazon.
Amazon Influencers are compensated for boosting the conversion rate of Amazon product pages through shoppable videos, but to a lesser extent.
Here’s a quick side-by-side of the current commission rates.
Another important distinction is that Amazon Associates pays commissions on any product they buy after visiting you link, whereas Amazon Influencer will only payout for the linked product or a very similar one.
🛍 Amazon Storefront
Something unique to the Amazon Influencer program is that you'll gain access to an Amazon Storefront.
It's a public page hosted at a custom URL like: https://www.amazon.com/shop/thelovinsisters.
These storefronts allow you to curate collections of your favorite products by category.
If someone makes a purchase after browsing your collections, you'll earn the listed commission.
🌍 Monetizing International Traffic
Amazon has over twenty different storefronts with affiliate programs, which can make directing international affiliate traffic difficult.
For Amazon Associates, you can join multiple regional affiliate programs (like Amazon UK, Canada, Australia, etc.) and connect them using Amazon’s One Link feature or Geniuslink.
Once it’s set up, your affiliate links will automatically geo-redirect based on where your visitor is clicking from—sending them to their local Amazon store. That means you won’t miss out on commissions just because someone’s in the U.K. instead of the U.S.
It’s super helpful if you’re building a blog, YouTube channel, or content site that attracts traffic worldwide.
Check your marketing analytics to get an idea of the geography breakdown of your audience.
The Amazon Influencer Program isn’t as seamless internationally—at least not yet.
Assuming you have an international audience, you'll need to create an Amazon Storefront for every single Amazon marketplace. You'll also need to reupload Amazon Influencer videos to each international Amazon Influencer program which is a one time job, but time consuming.
You can apply to multiple Amazon influencer programs (like .ca, .co.uk, etc.) and include all your Storefronts in your bio or link-in-bio tool.
The most advanced affiliates use Geniuslink to redirect international traffic to the right international storefront from one call to action button.
🤷 Which One Should You Do?
It's possible and common to be both an Amazon Influencer and Amazon Associates, but this is not something available to Associates by default.
For affiliates thinking long term, building diversified traffic sources, the Amazon Associates program is going to be the better bet.
For creators on fixed income looking for a side hustle, the Amazon Influencer program is a great fit.
When I ran my scuba diving media company, I used a blended strategy.
I posted long-form content in the form of YouTube with affiliate links in the description to capture off-site commissions. But I also uploaded review videos to Amazon to earn on-site commissions.
Use content you’re already creating and distribute it across both platforms.
Austin Tuwiner
Austin has worked in the affiliate marketing industry for ten years, with experience as a publisher, technology provider, and now affiliate management. Based in Miami, Florida, when he's not at a computer, you'll find him spearfishing South Florida's reefs, lifting something heavy, or on the tennis courts.
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