How to Unlock Amazon Revenue With External Affiliate Traffic

The teams from Right Side Up and Levanta come together to discuss the nuances of Amazon Seller affiliate programs and the platform’s unique suite of tools to help sellers acquire customers and revenue. Check out Right Side Up’s webinar on the topic to get the full scoop.‍

DTC e-commerce brands have embraced affiliate marketing to help reduce costly advertising and unpredictable acquisition strategies for years.

They’ve forged trusted partnerships with affiliate marketers, creators, and influencers alike.

They’ve successfully driven high-converting traffic. 

And they’ve done so at a fraction of the cost of traditional ads. 

Now, Amazon Sellers are following suit, tapping into the same playbook to unlock new revenue streams and optimize their marketing efforts. In fact, more than 50% of marketers consider external affiliates a primary channel for both customer acquisition and revenue growth in 2024, with that number growing into next year.

As competition intensifies and internal Amazon ads get more crowded, affiliate marketing offers a scalable way for Sellers to drive external traffic, boost organic rankings, and enhance their bottom line using tools like Levanta as well as internal affiliate program management tools native to Amazon’s platform, like their Search Query Performance Dashboard (among others!).

As you gear up for a busy holiday season and look ahead to 2025, are you tapping into the impact affiliate marketing could have on your strategy as an Amazon Seller? More importantly, are you equipped for the influx of both new and returning customers it could bring to your business?

Making the Case for Amazon Sellers to Embrace Affiliate Marketing in Their Broader Strategy

It’s likely that you and your competition are fishing in the same pools for potential customers. Not only will external affiliate traffic bring fresh customers to your Amazon store and product pages, they’ll unlock a suite of other benefits, too:

Diversify your traffic

Historically, Amazon Sellers have relied heavily on internal traffic, be it organic or through paid ads. But these channels are highly competitive now, and Sellers often find themselves competing for the same group of buyers. 

External affiliate marketing allows Sellers to reach new, untapped audiences outside of Amazon, driving high-intent traffic that converts more efficiently​.

Acquire more customers (cost) effectively

Unlike cost-per-click (CPC) advertising, affiliate marketing operates on a cost-per-acquisition (CPA) model. This means Sellers only pay commissions when a sale is made, providing more predictable and controllable costs.

Affiliate marketing tends to require lower upfront investment than advertising, allowing Sellers to scale their programs based on performance.

Boost your organic search rankings

External traffic is highly valued by Amazon’s algorithm, and it significantly impacts a product’s Best Seller Rank (BSR). 

As affiliates drive external visitors to your listings, your products gain more visibility, leading to improved organic rankings. This external boost can drive additional organic sales and create a compounding effect that gets you more business, more often.

Receive Amazon’s Brand Referral Bonus

Through Amazon’s Attribution API, 3P Sellers who drive external traffic to their Amazon listings are eligible for a Brand Referral Bonus. This bonus gives Sellers a kickback on Amazon’s referral fees (typically 10%) which further reduces the cost of running an affiliate program. This added incentive can make a significant difference in profitability.

Who Will Benefit From Amazon Seller Affiliate Programs the Most?

Amazon Seller affiliate programs are beneficial for a wide range of brands, but especially for:

• Brands looking to diversify traffic: If you’re overly reliant on internal Amazon ads or organic traffic, affiliate marketing offers an alternative channel to reach new customers and boost sales​.
• New Amazon Sellers: Sellers who are relatively new to Amazon but already have some traction–especially from external channels–can benefit from affiliate marketing to boost visibility and accelerate the growth of their product listings during the critical "honeymoon period"​ (more on that below).
• Brands with recurring or subscription-based products: If you have a product that encourages repeat purchases, affiliate marketing can be especially effective. Affiliates help drive that initial sale, but the lifetime value (LTV) of a customer will grow with each subsequent purchase.
• Sellers of high-intent products: If your product falls into a category where customers tend to do a lot of research and consideration prior to purchasing, such as electronics or high-ticket items, working with content creators or influencers who review and recommend your product can move the needle.

Affiliate marketing is a powerful tool for Amazon Sellers, but it works best when used alongside other strategies like paid ads. It can be tempting to launch affiliates or ads right away, but Sellers should first focus on perfecting their listings before even launching on Amazon.

To maximize success, Sellers should take advantage of Amazon’s "honeymoon period"—the first 30-60 days after launching a product—when Amazon gives new items preferential treatment in search results. Because of this, ensuring your pages look great, have the right images, and the proper keywords are critical - before you launch.  During the honeymoon period, you should prioritize tweaking product pages, gathering reviews, and maximizing traffic to your products that will convert a sale.

Adding affiliate marketing can help steer high-intent traffic to your product, increasing conversions and boosting your overall success.

While the goal may not be immediate profitability, the long-term benefits of improved rankings, higher sales, and stronger brand recognition make affiliate marketing a key piece of a broader Amazon marketing strategy.

How Amazon Affiliate Programs Work

Amazon Seller affiliate programs operate differently from the traditional Amazon Associates Program, offering Sellers more control and visibility over their partnerships. Here’s how they typically work:

Affiliate partnerships: Sellers can partner with a range of affiliates, from influencers and bloggers to media buyers and content creators. These affiliates promote your products on their channels—whether through blog posts, videos, or social media posts—and earn a commission for every sale they generate.

Amazon Attribution API: By using Amazon’s Attribution API, Sellers can track the performance of each affiliate, measuring the amount of traffic and the number of sales each affiliate partner drives. This transparency helps Sellers optimize their programs by focusing on the highest-performing partners​.

Brand Referral Bonus: As mentioned earlier, 3P Sellers can earn back up to 10% (depending on the Seller category) of the referral fees Amazon charges when they drive external traffic. This bonus is applied to Sellers who use Amazon Attribution to track external affiliate traffic.

While receiving the Brand Referral Bonus isn’t required to run a successful affiliate program, it definitely adds fuel to the fire and makes the channel both more exciting and more lucrative.

Now that you know how the program works, take these six steps to start your own affiliate program (if you haven’t already!) or look at this as a checklist to optimize your current program:

6 actionable steps to start your own Amazon Seller affiliate program

Optimize your Amazon listings

Before launching or driving traffic, you’ll want to make sure your Amazon listings are fully optimized. Add high-quality images, compelling product descriptions, and competitive pricing. Start the Vine process to gain reviews. Affiliates are effective if and only if your product page converts once the traffic actually arrives.

Set up Amazon Attribution

Register for Amazon Attribution ahead of time to track affiliate traffic and sales. As mentioned earlier, this tool allows you to monitor the performance of each affiliate and ensures you qualify for that Brand Referral Bonus​.

Recruit the right affiliates

Not all affiliates are created equal. It’s important to find partners that align with your product and brand. Influencer and affiliate marketing have really met in the middle in 2024 (and will continue to do so in 2025), so it’s important to know where your prospective customers are online, what they’re consuming, and how your product relates to that content. 

For example: If you primarily sell products to expectant mothers, you likely won’t partner with affiliates or media outlets who make gaming content.

Create attractive commission structures

To entice affiliates, create commission structures that are competitive but also sustainable for your margins. Keep in mind that many Sellers offer around 15% commissions, knowing they’ll get 10% back from Amazon’s Brand Referral Bonus​.

Leverage special events

Events like Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday are prime (pun intended) opportunities to ramp up affiliate efforts. Create promotional deals, increase commissions temporarily, and encourage affiliates to heavily promote your products during these high-traffic times.

Provide affiliates with product seeding

Offer your affiliates free product samples or access to exclusive deals so they’ll create authentic content around your products, which often resonates better with a digital audience. Considering we know that half of consumers purchase products based on what influencers say, it’s important that your affiliates are hyped on your products, educated on their benefits, and ready to speak about the reasons they love them at a moment’s notice.

Dive even deeper by checking out Right Side Up's webinar, Unlock Amazon Revenue With External Affiliate Traffic, to hear from our team of experts as well as the team of Amazon affiliate experts at Levanta.

Maximizing Success: How to Drive External Affiliate Traffic That (Actually) Delivers Results

Start small and scale 

Meet your customers where they are (often on Amazon). If you’re new to affiliate marketing, start by working with a handful of affiliates and scale up as you see success. This way, you can manage the program efficiently and grow it sustainably.

Work closely with other teams

Amazon Sellers should ensure that their affiliate marketing efforts are aligned with other channels like paid social and search ads–even organic social media and content efforts. By working together, you can create a more cohesive strategy that leverages data from both internal and external traffic​.

You can also collaborate with your PPC team to maximize traffic and conversions, or with your SEO team to find less competitive keywords and see where affiliates are ranking for your competitors’ products.

Diversify your affiliate mix

Different types of affiliates work well for different types of products:

High-ticket items: Perform best with media buyers, especially those using paid search.

Low-cost items: Work better with long-tail or mid-tier influencers and content creators on YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok, who promote low-consideration products.

Source, recruit, activate, monitor, and optimize performance

Source and recruit a breadth of partnerships. Develop and launch efficient partner onboarding and communication processes to turn new partners into productive relationships. Use Amazon Attribution to track and optimize affiliate performance. 

Another solid read: Affiliate and influencer marketing programs swim in the same lanes. This article on How to Measure Success for an Influencer Marketing Campaign could be a great place to understand performance for this initiative.

Focus on early growth but optimize for long-term value

Affiliate marketing is a powerful tool for driving those initial sales, but consider the other benefits: boosting organic rank, lifetime value (LTV) from recurring customers, and overall brand awareness. External traffic has a higher conversion rate and influences Amazon rankings, so it’s an absolutely essential player in your greater marketing strategy.

Getting Real: Can You Predict Attribution or Revenue Growth From Amazon Affiliate Traffic?

We’ll be honest: Predicting a revenue boost from your Amazon affiliate program can be tricky. It depends on a number of factors, like how actively you engage with affiliates and whether you manage the program yourself or use a platform. 

Tools like Levanta can help by offering free revenue projections, especially around big sales events like Amazon Prime Day as well as Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Given the high demand on Amazon, affiliate marketing is a smart way to drive growth.

Amazon’s Attribution API will make sure that sales tracked through Seller affiliate programs aren’t counted twice, so you won’t be charged for the same conversion more than once. This doesn’t apply to the Amazon Associates program, where Sellers can’t see those affiliate relationships. However, if you're using both Levanta and Creator Connections, there’s a chance of paying twice for the same sale. To prevent that, you can use Levanta’s tools to make sure you’re not working with the same creator on both platforms.

If you’re just starting your affiliate program as an Amazon Seller, it may not be entirely possible to predict revenue or attribution growth at first. As you scale, however, and grow a sustainable program that works with recurring affiliates or with partners who can replicate success again and again, you’ll be able to see that impact on your bottom line—especially in relation to your other marketing efforts.

Because affiliate marketing is also more cost-predictable, you can more easily factor the spend into your marketing budget and better understand ROI more immediately.

Leverage Affiliates for Acquisition and Revenue Growth on Amazon

Amazon Sellers can tap into serious revenue by partnering with external affiliate marketers. 

From driving diverse traffic to cutting down on acquisition costs, boosting your organic rankings, and cashing in on Amazon’s Brand Referral Bonus, affiliate marketing is a game-changer for growing your business. 

As a quick refresher? Optimize your listings, recruit the right affiliates, and track your results to build a program that delivers long-term success.

Interested in unlocking additional Amazon revenue with external affiliate traffic? We’d love to chat — click here to meet with our team and learn about how you can work with our strategic Amazon affiliate partners.