Amazon is giving back to sellers who drive external traffic to its platform. This is a good opportunity for sellers to reduce their Amazon fees and boost their revenue. In this blog, we discuss the recently launched Amazon Brand Referral Bonus program and how to get started. Let’s get into it!
If you’ve just landed on my blog for the first time, my name is Ian Smith, and I run an Amazon Marketing Agency called Evolve Media Agency.
What We Do At Evolve Media
We help Amazon sellers optimize their Amazon listings with photos, videos, and copy to get their listings converting as high as possible through product photoshoots, video shoots, on and off Amazon marketing, Email Marketing, and Google Ad campaign management.
To book a free strategy and consulting call with us, visit EMaamz.com.
If you’re a DIY Amazon seller and want to optimize your Amazon listing on your own, we’ve got a powerful Amazon listing checklist for you at EMAamzchecklist.com. We broke down all of the different sections of an Amazon detail page and created different sales strategies for each area of a listing. You can check these items off as you and your team implement the different sales strategies.
Now, back to the blog.
What is the Amazon Brand Referral Bonus Program?
The Amazon Brand Referral Bonus program gives brand-registered Amazon sellers a rebate on seller fees for traffic that sellers drive to the platform outside of Amazon. The bonus is an average of 10% on product sales that sellers bring in. The 10% is taken off the referral fee for that sale. So, instead of paying 15% to Amazon, sellers registered to the program will pay just 5% in fees. Sellers will also receive the same bonus when customers make additional purchases from their brand within 14 days after clicking the ad.
Note: The 10% rebate is an average and depends primarily on the price point and the product category. Different product categories have different bonus rates. Learn about the various product category rates here.
We highly recommend driving external traffic like Google Search and Social Media ads to your listing pages. This approach is crucial to improving your organic Amazon ranking and bringing in more sales. Running PPC ads on Amazon, though ideal, can be highly competitive. Beginning your marketing outside of Amazon through ads and driving that outside traffic to your listings helps minimize competition stealing away your sales. Having a bridge page or a landing page that shoppers can view before going to your listing also helps get shoppers warmed up and pre-sold on your products, boosting their chances of purchasing them when they land on your listing pages next.
Who is Eligible for the Amazon Brand Referral Bonus Program?
Only Amazon brand owners selling on Amazon are eligible for the Amazon Brand Referral Bonus program. It also requires that you actually register your brand on Amazon. However, brands not registered and selling on Amazon’s US store can be eligible to enroll. Sellers should visit the Brand Benefit Eligibility to enroll their brand in Amazon Brand Registry through the Brand Self Service Identification program.
Registering your brand on Amazon unlocks many other features that allow you to optimize your brand and products on Amazon. Brand-registered sellers can add videos to their product listings, create Enhance Brand Content for their listings, build a storefront for their brand, and participate in Amazon Posts.
Sellers who are not brand owners should join the Amazon Associates Program, Amazon’s affiliate network, to earn commissions on the sales they generate.
How to Sign Up for the Amazon Brand Referral Bonus Program
There are four steps to joining the Amazon Brand Referral Bonus program.
- Register for the Brand Referral Bonus program.
- Enroll in Amazon Attribution if you’re not already enrolled.
- Create tags for your promoted products using Amazon Attribution. All traffic you send to your listings must have an Amazon Attribution tag to qualify for the bonus. Learn how to create an Amazon Attribution campaign here.
- Launch your advertising and off-Amazon marketing effort using the link from Amazon Attribution.
When and How Do You Receive Your Referral Bonus?
Amazon has a two-month wait time to accommodate for order cancellation and customer returns before crediting bonuses. For example, if a qualified sale happens in July, the bonus will be credited to your account in September. Amazon deducts the bonus from the referral in fees for September. The following months follow in that sequence till you exhaust your bonus. Remember that the bonus is a rebate or credit; it’s not a check that you’re getting from Amazon.
It’s also important to mention that not all purchases qualify for the Amazon Brand Referral Bonus program. The bonus only applies to brand-owned products with an amazon attribution tag originating from a non-Amazon marketing effort. Registered brand owners can find their balance in two ways. First, earned bonuses are shown in the Seller Account transaction details. Second, sellers can download their Bonus reports to see their remaining balances.
Summary
Unless you’re a huge seller, doing like six figures a month, you may not see the most significant amount of cash back or credit from the Amazon Brand Referral Bonus program. Depending on your price point, each sale can be anywhere from $1 to $3 per sale. But by all means, do it, as it can offset a little bit of your ad spend and boost your profit margins.
We hope you found value here. If any of this is unclear, reach out to us on a FREE consulting call, and we’ll help you set up. We also have a FREE Amazon Listing Checklist that should also help you optimize your product listings and boost your conversion rates all by yourself. Thanks for reading!
