Amazon Influencer Program Evolves into Paid Media Distribution Channel
The Amazon Influencer Program is an exclusive tier of the Amazon Associates program that allows social media creators to earn commissions by promoting products on their curated storefronts on Amazon's own domain.
The program has two distinct revenue streams: conventional, where a shopper follows a link from Instagram or YouTube and buys something, earning the creator a percentage of the order; and onsite content, where videos and photos uploaded to the storefront are placed on product detail pages and search results across Amazon, with a lower commission paid when a shopper watches the content and buys.
Eligibility for the program is opaque, with no publicly disclosed follower count or engagement metric thresholds. Once approved, creators have two Store IDs: one tracks referred traffic, while the other, prefixed 'onamz', tracks onsite earnings and requires separate tax and payment details.
The rate tables diverge sharply between referred traffic and onsite content, with the former earning up to 10% on luxury beauty products and the latter paying 4% on the same category. Attribution also differs, with referred purchases running for 24 hours from click time and onsite commission applying only to Direct Qualifying Purchases.