6 Things to Know About the Amazon Brand Referral Bonus Program

In theory, listing products on the Amazon marketplace gives sellers access to a massive audience of potential buyers. In practice, simply listing your products won’t necessarily get you far in an environment as competitive as the Amazon marketplace. For many Amazon merchants, that means it pays to do additional advertising and marketing off Amazon to drive interest in the products you sell on the platform.

And now, the marketplace is giving sellers an extra incentive to do just that through the Amazon Brand Referral Bonus Program.

What is the Amazon Brand Referral Bonus Program?

The Amazon Brand Referral Bonus Program is Amazon’s new initiative for rewarding sellers when their off-Amazon advertising drives buyers to the platform. The program encourages brands to invest money and effort into ads that direct people to their product pages on the Amazon marketplace. Each time those efforts pay off in a sale, the seller/brand gets money back, ensuring it makes more of a profit at the end of the day.

6 Things to Know About Amazon's Brand Referral Bonus Program

The Brand Referral Bonus Program is probably sounding pretty nice, right? Yet to know if it’s truly worth it, you need to know what else is involved. Here’s some of the main information about the program to be aware of.

1. Bonuses Average Around 10% of Sales

For the return to be worth what you invest in advertising offsite, you need to know how much you’ll be getting back. While the specific amounts will vary, Amazon has shared that the average amount of a bonus is 10% of the cost of the sale. That can potentially add a lot to your overall profits.

2. Bonuses Apply to Sales Made Within 14 Days of Clicking on an Ad

Sometimes when a prospective customer clicks on an ad, they’re not immediately ready to make that purchase. Once a shopper has found a product they like though, many will make their way back to it in time. Amazon’s bonus program ensures you get credited with any sales of your products that happen within 14 days of a consumer clicking on your ad.

3. The Bonus Rate Depends on the Type of Product

Knowing the average bonus rate doesn’t tell you the whole story because the amount you get paid for each sale depends on the type of product. Amazon provides a chart that outlines the percentages by product type. Some examples of common product types are:

Amazon Device Accessories: 30%
Clothing and Accessories: 11%
Books: 10%
Movies and DVDs: 10%
Software and Computer: 10%
Consumer Electronics: 5%
Gift Cards: 14%

The majority of products fall into the 10% categories but review the whole list to make sure you know what to expect for the specific products you sell. To estimate what your bonus will be for each sale, multiply the number of qualifying sales by the minimum bonus rate in the relevant category. Amazon will also provide a weekly bonus report to help you keep track.

4. Bonuses are Paid Out Two Months After a Sale

You don’t make the money immediately with the program. To account for order cancellations and customer returns, Amazon waits two months before providing sellers with the bonuses they’ve earned. Instead of cutting a check, the bonus is applied as a credit to your Amazon account, essentially reducing the amount you pay in fees to Amazon.

5. All Brand Owners Selling Products on the Platform Qualify

The Amazon Brand Referral Bonus Program is specifically for brand owners, so resellers can’t participate. If you are a brand owner, all you have to do is make sure you’re enrolled in the Brand Registry to qualify.

Note: Resellers aren’t entirely out of luck. There’s also a separate program incentivizing offsite marketing and advertising for resellers: Amazon Associates.

6. Amazon Provides Analytics to Help You Improve as You Go

With any marketing effort you invest in, you want a way to measure your success. Amazon now offers Amazon Attribution to help you track how well your offsite advertising efforts pay off. With the analytics provided, you can figure out which strategies are contributing to the most sales and improve your results over time. That can lead to more sales, bigger bonus payouts, and higher profits overall.

Should Your Business Participate in the Amazon Brand Referral Program?

For any brand working now to drive traffic to your listings on Amazon, the brand referral program simply gives you an extra way to make more money from the work you’re already doing. Enrolling is an obvious choice.

For brands that sell the same products on Amazon that they also sell through their own website, paying to drive traffic to a third-party site rather than your own may not make much sense. If you ultimately profit more from the sales customers make directly through your site, you may want to stick with advertising and marketing investments that get more visitors to your own site rather than Amazon. In that case, the program may not fit with your primary brand strategy.

How to Get Started

You can register for the Brand Referral Program in Seller Central. If you aren’t already enrolled in Amazon Attribution, do that now. It’s a necessary step in making sure the traffic your efforts produce is counted. Then, start advertising and analyze your success as you go. It’s as easy as that.