How to Increase Your Amazon Affiliate Earnings with Email Marketing

Here’s a truth: Just anybody can do affiliate marketing, but not every affiliate marketer can increase their affiliate earnings through email marketing. Why? An individual may receive up to 15 or more emails daily. You can only convert a recipient if your email is opened. Hence, your email open rate influences the success of your email marketing effort. This is why experts emphasize the need to learn how to increase your Amazon affiliate earnings with email marketing.

If done right, email marketing can be one of your major sources of affiliate revenue and traffic (aside from organic) to your affiliate website. It offers the opportunity to have more personalized conversations with your audience, build good relationships, and offer helpful product recommendations.

This guide provides practical strategies for increasing your Amazon affiliate earnings with email marketing. It covers what you need to know about building a targeted email list, creating engaging newsletters, and optimizing your email campaigns for conversions.

Understanding Email Marketing to Increase Your Amazon Affiliate Earnings

Unlike social media, whose algorithms constantly change and might not fully support consistent direct messages to your audience, email marketing allows you to have full control over how and when you engage with your audience. 

It allows you to create direct and personalized communication with people who are already interested in what you do. This means that every email sent is a new opportunity to drive clicks, build trust with your subscribers, and boost conversions. According to a report by Litmus, email marketing generates $42 for every $1 spent, which means it’s also a cost-effective way of promoting your Amazon affiliate marketing products.

Also, one of the advantages of adding email marketing as a strategy to your affiliate marketing effort is that sometimes, your audience might visit your blog and browse a few articles, but they may not make a purchase right away. Your emails help keep your brand at the top of their mind, especially when they are interested in your niche and its products. This way, they can easily get back to your website and are more likely to make purchases through your affiliate link

Another interesting fact about learning to increase your Amazon affiliate earnings with email marketing is that it enables you to announce time-sensitive discounts or coupons to your subscribers, allowing them to purchase at a fraction of the price through the affiliate links on your website.

Understanding how to increase your Amazon affiliate earnings with email marketing stems from understanding the basics of giving your audience reasons to sign up, building a target list, creating your newsletters, and, importantly, using your “Amazon affiliate advantage” to drive engagement and sales. The following section guides you through how to achieve this.

7 Ways to Increase Your Amazon Affiliate Earnings with Email Marketing

1. Build a Targeted Email List

Having a broad, uninterested list of subscribers won’t get you the clicks or conversions you want. Hence building a targeted email list is the foundation or first step of successful email marketing. This simply means that you are only getting sign-ups from those genuinely interested in the products you promote.

How to Build a Target Email List to Increase Amazon Affiliate Sales

Use Lead Magnet to Get Subscribers

A lead magnet is a valuable resource you offer to your visitors in exchange for their email addresses. It is also called an “opt-in bribe” or “digital incentive.” This is the first step in filtering your subscribers because a subscriber will only exchange their email to download the resource if it is valuable to them.

A lead magnet could be a free e-book, a guide, a checklist, or even a short video tutorial related to your niche. For example, if you’re in some of Amazon’s most profitable niches like the kitchen gadgets niche, you could offer a free e-book titled “10 Essential Kitchen Gadgets for Busy Moms.”

To promote your lead magnet, you can either use a button or a Call to Action block to add it to your blog post (within the body or at the end) or at the end of the page, with the link to the lead magnet’s landing page.

Select an Email Service Provider (ESP)

It is also important to search and choose an email service provider that makes your entire affiliate marketing effort seamless. Check their reviews to know what users are saying about their services. Also, consider features like automation, segmentation, and analytics when choosing an ESP.

Email Service Providers like Mailchimp, Sendgrid, Visme, ConvertKit, and GetResponse offer features that make email marketing easy and effective, especially for affiliate marketers. These ESPs help you manage your email list, create and send newsletters, and track your results.

Include a Call to Action to Join Your Email List/ Opt-in Form

In cases where you are not using lead magnets to get subscribers, you can use opt-in forms to make it easier for your audience to subscribe to your newsletters. Place these forms in strategic spots on your website. This can be in your sidebar, at the end of your blog posts, or as a pop-up.

Virtually all Email Service Providers have the opt-in form feature that can be easily added to a website or blog. Lastly, use persuasive copies in your call to action (CTA) to easily encourage sign-ups. For example, instead of saying “Subscribe,” you could say, “Get Instant Access to Our Exclusive Deals.” This makes it value-focused yet persuasive.

2. Segment Your Audience When Necessary

In cases where your Amazon affiliate website is not niche-specific, so you have multiple products from different categories on Amazon, or the niche is broad like Sports/Fitness with varying products, you should segment your email list to ensure you reduce the amount of unsubscriptions that may arise because of conflicting interest. 

The best practice for making audience segmentation seamless is to provide a multiple-interest or product category option in your opt-in form. This allows users to select their interests while filling out the form. Segmenting enables you to send targeted emails that are more relevant to each subscriber. 

This makes it easier to increase affiliate sales on your website because everyone is getting mailed what interests them, whether it is a promotional email of the products selling out, discount offers, or a weekend summary of some product reviews or comparison you published within the week.

3. Create Engaging Newsletters

An engaging newsletter begins with the subject line and preview, then the inside content, and the call to action. This is because it is when the subject line or preview engages the subscriber that makes them click to open and subsequently click on the links or CTAs in the newsletter.

Here are some of the ways you can create engaging Newsletters:

1. Create Compelling Subject Lines and Previews

I believe the subject line and preview are among the most crucial elements of a newsletter. They determine whether the email will be opened. In other words, they impact your click-through rate and overall conversion. Here is how to enhance your subject line and preview to make them more engaging and click-worthy:

• Keep them short. Ideally, it is recommended to keep your subject line’s character count between 30 and 50, while previews should be between 30 and 90.
• Add emojis when necessary. Emojis can complement your subject line and make it more readable and engaging. At most, use 2 emojis in a subject line or preview, but it is most recommended to use just one.
• Personalize your subject lines and previews. This can be done using a script that automatically inserts the name of the recipient. Another way is using the 2nd person pronoun.
• Prompt curiosity by providing a titbit of information that makes your recipient want to know more. Have you ever been given a half gist that makes you not want to miss any other detail? That’s how you can create curiosity and activate the fear of missing out (FOMO) in your recipients.
• Another way to pique your recipient’s curiosity and engage them is to transform your subject line into a question. The question must be relevant to the content of the newsletter so that they can build trust and be confident enough to open subsequent newsletters with subject lines in question formats

2.  Use a Conversational Tone

One of the best practices for using a conversational tone in your email is writing as though you are talking physically to your recipient. Though your English teacher might cringe at that format, it’s one of the tricks that help your readers stay glued to your newsletter content, increase your click-through rate, and even keep them longing for your newsletters.

3. Include Storytelling

Stories are magical. Aside from being one of the ways to make your affiliate marketing emails more engaging, they have a high rate of increasing clicks and conversions. For Amazon affiliate marketers, including storytelling in your emails won’t be as hectic as you might have thought.

In cases where you published a product review on your affiliate website sharing your experience using a product (sharing your verdict) or simply comparing multiple products, it’s easier to give them a glimpse of the story and ask them to continue reading on the blog.

The goal of including storytelling in your Amazon affiliate email marketing strategy is to make your emails easily digestible, relatable, and optimized for conversion.

4. Share Helpful Resources in Newsletters

Would you keep up your subscription to a newsletter if you barely find anything helpful in that newsletter? For me, it’s a no. There are times when I just go through emails and simply unsubscribe to some, while there are just some that I eagerly anticipate their delivery in my inbox.

What’s the difference? The value! Don’t limit your email to only promotional content. Offer helpful resources like how-to guides, best practices for maintenance or installation, and product demos, the list is endless. If you’re in the fitness niche, you could share workout routines, healthy recipes, and tips for staying motivated. This helps you establish yourself as an authority in your niche and builds you a loyal community of subscribers who can easily refer you to family, friends, and colleagues.

5. Share Frequently Asked Questions

Imagine the joy your subscribers feel knowing some of the emails they receive from you answer some of their questions. This can make them feel valued, hence building their trust in your recommendations. This can be one of the strategies that sets you apart from other affiliate marketers.

At the end of your email, you can request they send in their questions so you can answer them in subsequent newsletters. This keeps them engaged and anticipative. This is a sure way to increase your Amazon affiliate earnings with email marketing.

4. Share Coupon & Discount Offers in Your Newsletters

Your subscribers might want to purchase a product on Amazon but just like what everyone would love, they would want to get it at a good deal (discounted rate) if possible. Since you promote these products and are likely to be more aware of time-limited discount offers or coupon deals, this allows you to be the bearer of glad tidings to your subscribers.

When you share these deals with them, save them the stress of going through the long lines of texted terms and conditions by summarizing them to them. This makes it easier to know if they are qualified for the coupon deal and discount offer, or not. 

The importance of adding or summarising the “terms and conditions” details in your email is that it shows your honesty and commitment to providing relevant promotions to them rather than just seeking clicks.
To further enhance your effort, add these coupon deals or discount offers to your blog posts or pages throughout their availability using a coupon block or notice block. If there are multiple coupon offers, you can use the list or grid coupon blocks to add them to the page or post.

Sharing these exclusive coupon and discount offers can significantly increase your Amazon affiliate earnings with email marketing.

5. Include a Compelling Call to Action in Your Newsletter

If you have something you want your recipients to do after going through the newsletter, add a clear and compelling call to action to tell them exactly what you want them to do.

Preferably, use a button to add your calls to action to make them easily noticeable and interactive. Here are some best practices in adding calls to action in your email:

• Keep it short and clear.
• Use action verbs.
• Create urgency (only when necessary).
• Make the CTA buttons visually appealing and easy to click.

6. Include A/B Testing in Your Strategy to Optimize Your Result

One of the best ways to increase your Amazon affiliate earnings with email marketing is to include A/B testing in your email marketing strategy. This involves creating two versions of a single newsletter and sending each version to a different segment of your email list to analyze which version performs better.

Let me help you understand it better; version A might have a different subject line and preview from version B, or the email content and CTA can differ from version B. When sending it, it automatically splitsthe  subsets and your email list into two and sends version A to the first half and version B to the other half.

Monitoring the metrics like open rates and click-through rates helps you understand what works for your audience and which version performs better. You can also use these insights to improve your subsequent email newsletters or email drips.

Other Benefits of Using Email Marketing for Amazon Affiliate Marketing

1. It Allows for Personalized Communication

One of the major benefits of email marketing, aside from increased affiliate earnings, is the ability to personalize your communications based on your subscribers’ interests. As stated earlier, when you provide interest options in your signup forms, it allows you to segment your subscribers based on their interests or even behavior.

This means you can send highly relevant product recommendations to each segment of your list, which significantly increases the engagement and conversion rates.

2. It Builds Your Credibility and Your Audience’s Trust

When you consistently provide valuable content, recommendations, and offers to your subscribers, it builds their trust with you, and your credibility. In cases where you answer their questions and offer product recommendations and alternatives, they become less likely to unsubscribe to your newsletters. This often translates to higher click-through rates, increased conversions, and even repeated purchases.

3. It Builds a Community of Loyal Customers

A community of loyal customers often translates to higher conversions, repeated purchase potential, and referrals. This is one of the major benefits of email marketing. It builds a community of subscribers who are genuinely interested in your niche or what you promote, making conversion easier.

4. It Increases Engagement

Email marketing allows you to engage with your audience regularly. This consistent engagement will keep your affiliate website at the top of the minds of your subscribers. This also allows you to drive more engagement to your published product reviews or other variations of articles.

For some articles where you share some product pros and cons or simply a review of your experience using the product, you can ask your subscribers who have used the products as well to share their reviews, particularly those products you know are efficient. Aside from their engagement on the blog post, their reviews can boost potential buyers’ confidence.

Conclusion

A successful email marketing strategy builds your credibility in a community of loyal customers and increases your affiliate earnings. Implementing these six strategies to achieve successful email marketing campaigns begins with understanding how to implement them whether your Amazon affiliate website is generic or niche-specific.

To further enhance your effort, ensure your product reviews or recommendations on your website are well-structured and displayed using affiliate product display blocks so that your readers can easily assess the products’ features, including the images. This helps them make more informed purchasing decisions.

Frequently Asked Questions