Updated February 13, 2020

Affiliate marketing can be a lucrative source of revenue for just about any business type. From Bloggers and influencers to the New York Times, affiliate marketing is a great way to earn revenue without ever selling a product.

Amazon Associates is the name of Amazon’s affiliate program. It’s easily one of the most popular programs because it’s incredibly easy to use, is connected to one of the largest marketplaces in the world, and the conversion rates on Amazon links are very high.

What makes it even more interesting is that you don’t even need a website to take advantage of Amazon’s program.

Facebook provides access to millions of customers. Whether you’re using an existing audience you’ve built up, or using Facebook Ads to promote to a new audience, you can get a post in front of people relatively easily. But can you use Facebook to promote your Amazon affiliate links? Yes and no.

Amazon Affiliate Marketing On Facebook: Rules Need To Follow

Short Answer: You can use most affiliate links (including Amazon) in your personal or business-page posts and updates. However, you can not use Facebook Ads to promote those links. Instead, use Facebook Ads to promote content pages off of Facebook that promote the affiliate links. 

Facebook can be tricky. Its terms change frequently and aren’t always easy to find or understand. And their terms regarding promoted and branded content are especially in flux as content creators and marketers continue to evolve how they communicate with their fans and customers. All of this affects the way in which you can use affiliate links–including Amazon affiliate links–without getting into trouble with Facebook. 

If you want to make money on Facebook with affiliate links, you have to make sure you understand the process and follow both Facebook’s and Amazon’s rules and guidelines. 

The following pieces of information are some of the most important policies to understand before you dabble in Facebook affiliate marketing.

Can I Post On Personal And Business Pages?

Yes. Facebook’s TOS and Amazon Associate’s Terms of Service (TOS) allow you to post affiliate links on your personal profile or your business page. 

If you use a different affiliate network be sure to check its TOS to ensure that posting your affiliate links on Facebook is okay. In most cases, it will be.

One easy way to increase the reach of your posts on your Facebook business page is to share the post on your personal profile. This allows your own friends and family to help increase the post’s exposure through likes, comments, and shares. And more shares and engagement on your posts can increase your reach, which hopefully leads to more conversions from the affiliate links.

Importance Of The Branded Content Policy

Facebook’s Branded Content Policy is a bit unclear when it comes to using Amazon affiliate links. The policy mentions that only verified pages and profiles – those with the blue verified badge – can post branded content, which is content that talks about other brands and products from third parties. This sounds a lot like affiliate marketing.

However, Facebook further explains that branded content “features or is influenced by a business partner for an exchange of value,” which is different than affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing can be content that features or is influenced by a business partner, but instead of in an exchange of value, it’s for a percentage of shared revenue. It feels like a small difference, but it’s a pretty significant switch in the business model and arrangement between the two parties. 

Thus, it is widely interpreted to mean that non-verified users are allowed to post affiliate links, but not to do branded promotional content as part of a paid campaign. 

Facebook does require any businesses or individuals that post branded content to tag the third-party’s page and disclose their relationship. Despite the fact that we just discussed how branded content is different than affiliate marketing, it’s a good idea to adopt this practice for your affiliate links as well. 

Which leads us to…

Are Affiliate Links Allowed On Facebook With No Disclosure?

When you place an affiliate link on your Facebook profile or page, you’re essentially promoting the product that you’re linking to. Not only does the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have strict policies regarding disclosing anything from a third party that you promote or were paid for, but Facebook also requires a transparent disclosure.

When you place an affiliate link on Facebook, you need to be clear that you’ll get paid if someone clicks on your link and purchases the product. There’s no specific terminology you need to use, but it does have to be clear that your link is an affiliate link. Even saying something as simple as “This is an affiliate link” before you place the link can suffice. It’s very common to see the phrase “aff link” in parentheses, and that may be enough, but if you’re interested in being 100% compliant, we recommend using the full language to avoid any confusion or debate about if you’re being compliant.

Importance Of Facebook Page SEO For Affiliate Marketing

For affiliate marketers that plan to use Facebook as their primary platform for marketing, it’s key that you consider how SEO will affect your results. If you don’t use the right keywords or content strategies, it will be hard for the right people to find your posts or pages.

And if no one makes it to your pages, you won’t be making any affiliate sales!

It is important to think about keywords and ranking in the same way that you would when working on general SEO marketing when you are posting content on Facebook. While the content on Facebook is typically found in-app, it does still show up in relevant searches through other search engines.

For example, if your affiliate links are focused on promoting a very specific type of sound tool used by DJs and you post about it on Facebook, a Google search done looking for that tool could lead someone to your page.

Even though you aren’t running a complete website, SEO still matters! Facebook is doing some of the work for you by hosting your content, but you still need to focus on SEO to follow through with the best marketing strategy.

Thankfully for you, marketers around the world have been learning about how to effectively market on Facebook for years! There are many things to consider, such as whom to target and where to reach them, and Facebook has a suite of tools that can help you to narrow in your focus and see growth.

Is Amazon Affiliate Facebook Advertising Okay?

Affiliate marketing on Facebook using Amazon links is allowed. But, Amazon will not allow you to promote Facebook posts that have its affiliate links in them. In other words, you can place Amazon affiliate links within your Facebook posts, but you cannot use Facebook Ads to promote those posts.

Instead, what many affiliate marketers do is use Facebook Ads to promote the content on their websites that use their Amazon affiliate links. This technique is acceptable because you aren’t promoting direct affiliate links. But, direct linking to a product on Amazon and using Facebook Ads to promote it can get you booted from the Amazon Associates Program.

However, other affiliate networks might allow you to promote your links via Facebook Ads. Facebook does allow the practice if your affiliate links fall within its advertising guidelines, which typically does not allow promotion of illegal, adult, and unsafe products.

How To Make Money With Affiliate Marketing On Facebook

Now that you know what rules you need to follow to use Amazon affiliate links in your Facebook posts, you need to know what to do with them! There are several ways to use these links effectively that can garner more attention than simply placing a link on your page or profile with a few words about the product. Instead, try one of these five tips:   

1. Make Image Galleries

Images tend to have a much higher reach on Facebook than text posts. Most people scrolling through their news feeds see eye-catching photos easier than they see text posts. You can create an image gallery by posting appealing photos of the product you want to promote in one post, along with a thorough description or review of the product, followed by your affiliate link.

Be sure not to make your page or profile scammy, though. If you post these frequently, your Facebook reach can suffer, and you could risk losing followers who don’t prefer to see so many promotional posts. For the benefit of your Facebook followers and reach, it’s a good idea for you to post a variety of text and text plus image posts to your page or profile.

2. Create Video Reviews And Link Products You Used

The more variety you have in the types of post you create on Facebook, the better. So, you could stand a better chance of drawing in a bigger audience if you add some video content to your Facebook page. Videos are a good way to engage your audience and you can create reviews or tutorials focused on the products you want to promote via affiliate links.

Within the text area of your post, place your affiliate links to the different products you used or talked about in your video. You can also do this in a comment, which may help your post engagement and reach.

3. Promote Your Business Posts On Your Personal Page

After you create posts with affiliate links on your business page, you should get into the habit of sharing them on your personal profile. Your friends and family will usually help you get more engagement out of your posts, which directly affects your post reach, by commenting, liking, or sharing them. You can also encourage your friends and family to help support your business endeavor by sharing at least one of your Facebook posts weekly.

4. Link To Your Blog Content On Facebook

Promote your blog content that includes affiliate links on your Facebook business page and profile. But, don’t just share the link. Instead, make it meaningful so that you gain a higher post reach. In your Facebook content, explain what your new blog post is about, how it can help your audience, and some of the helpful products that you’ll talk about in your article. Link to a couple of them within your Facebook content, too.

5. Make A Facebook Group For Links And Conversation

Facebook groups can, in some cases, receive a lot more engagement than pages. Although it’s important for your business to have a Facebook page, you can create a group for additional engagement from followers who are invested in your business. Groups are perfect for having conversations with your followers and, as the admin of the group, you can establish yourself as an authority figure.

Doing so can make it easier for you to promote products via your affiliate links to those who may have an interest in them. You can endorse them with your expertise and carry out conversations that can help others learn why, and how, to use the products.  

Alternatives To Facebook For Amazon Affiliate Marketers

If you feel like trying to promote your affiliate links on Facebook isn’t a good fit for your style, you’re not alone! Many people prefer to use other platforms to market their links rather than trying to work within the constraints of Facebook.

There are two primary ways to do this. First, you can make your own niche site. This takes a lot of time, and a new site will take a few months to get good search rankings. Once established, however, a powerful niche site can bring in more affiliate buys than many other platforms.

If you aren’t interested in building your own site at this time, you can work around this problem by publishing content that includes affiliate links on established content sites such as Medium, YouTube, and LinkedIn. When publishing to these sites, it’s important to make sure that you are following all advertising rules.

By publishing on established sites with the right keywords in play, you’ll be able to take advantage of the site’s powerful name and your pages may be more search-friendly.

FAQs: Amazon Affiliate Marketing On Facebook

Can I Do Amazon Affiliate Marketing On Facebook?

Yes! As mentioned above, it is okay and possible to do Amazon Affiliate marketing on Facebook as long as it is done through pages, groups, and other organic means. Facebook does not allow Amazon Affiliate links to be run directly as ads on Facebook. If you are looking to do ads, you will need to link to a page that promotes your link to market the links indirectly.

Remember that links should always be disclosed when you are marketing with affiliate links. If you do not properly mark links, Amazon or Facebook could prevent you from continuing to work with their sites.

How Do I Become An Affiliate Marketer For Amazon?

To become an affiliate marketer on Amazon, you will need to directly join the affiliate program. Anyone can sign up to join this program, and it is relatively easy to do. There aren’t many specific requirements, but you will need a home address, identity information, and to read over their membership requirements thoroughly.

Once you’re a member, you will need to find or make a platform to promote the affiliate links to make a small percentage off each link. You must make a sale within 180 days for your account to stay open. If you do not make a sale, you will need to reapply and may need to give more information the second time around.

To make sales, you will need to start marketing your links. Some people choose to do this via a website that they create themselves; others choose to promote on already established sites that host free content such as Facebook or Medium.

How Much Money Can You Make As An Amazon Affiliate?

The amount of money that you are going to be able to make from the Amazon Affiliate program is completely dependent on how many products you help sell and ship each month. There is a sliding scale, so the amount that you make could vary between huge extremes. You could make a couple bucks, or you could make a couple tens of thousands of dollars.

If you are a total beginner to affiliate marketing and want to learn more about the various ways that you could get involved, check out our easy guide to affiliate marketing. It will help you get more clear information about what to expect.

How Long Does It Take To Be A Successful Affiliate Marketer?

The most successful affiliate marketers are those that run a variety of well-ranking niche sites that are used to promote their affiliate links. There isn’t a specific amount of time that it takes to build those sites or promote that content, and the way that the process is handled will vary.

Building those sites can be done quickly if you know what you are doing and have experience. Even with experience, however, it will take between one and three months for the most well-made pages to start ranking well in search results. Pages that struggle to solidify their SEO tactics could take even longer to really see results.

Generally, it will take a few months to start seeing progress as a new affiliate marketer, and it will take a year or longer to truly feel like an expert in this field. You can find out more about how to successfully promote your affiliate website and reach success in this guide.

Conclusion: Amazon Affiliate Links On Facebook

Amazon affiliate links and Facebook make great partners when you follow the guidelines for both platforms. You must be transparent with your audience in your use of affiliate links so that you don’t violate Facebook policies or Amazon Associates’ Terms of Service.

Keyword research can also help you find the best keywords to target for your affiliate links in your blog and Facebook posts. Long Tail Pro can provide you with the best keywords for your content to broaden your audience and improve your affiliate marketing conversions.