Walmart and Amazon generate billions of dollars in sales through affiliate marketing. Choosing the right affiliate program is important.
Affiliate marketing programs that provide beginners with tools are the most effective and lucrative. Your product must be useful, and your audience must be interested in your niche and willing to buy your product.
To help you decide which affiliate program is right for you, we have compared Walmart’s and Amazon’s. In addition to commissions, cookie length, and product selection, we will look at other factors.
After reading this article, you will be able to determine which program works best for you!
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Take a moment to learn what affiliate marketing is for those who are new to it.
There are many online referral programs, and generally speaking, they are based on commissions paid to affiliates (also known as “publishers”) by businesses (Amazon and Walmart, for example) once their customers make a purchase on their site.
Affiliate marketing is basically this. There are of course many permutations and conventions, but in essence it’s this. Let me illustrate how affiliate marketing works with this diagram:
How Much Can I Earn?
Whether you’re an affiliate full-time or part-time, it’s all about what you can earn.
Affiliate commissions have been a reliable source of income for bloggers and webmasters for years, with earnings peaking in the last five years with Amazon.com, which claims it has generated up to 40% of its revenue from affiliate commissions. The question now is whether Walmart will follow suit?
Fees are completely up to the retailer, so they can change at any time, such as Amazon did earlier this year when it restructured its affiliate commissions.
The company introduced a commission structure based on categories, rather than by volume, which means you will get the same rate whether you sell one item or one million.
Amazon affiliates were rewarded for selling high-value products at low volumes, but there was no clear impact on those selling low-value products. Sales in the lower categories, on the other hand, are expected to have declined for those with high sales volumes.
What is Walmart Affiliate Program?
Walmart’s affiliate program provides a great opportunity to promote Walmart.com products. Affiliate programs enable you to earn commissions on qualifying sales that are made as a result of your website or blog.
Walmart affiliate program requires that you be approved by the company in order to become a member. You will be provided with access to a variety of banners and links to products once you are accepted into the program. You can use these banners and links on your website or blog to promote Walmart products.
The Walmart marketplace consists of two different programs: Walmart Affiliates and Walmart Marketplace. Walmart Affiliates, allows individuals with websites or blogs to become Walmart affiliates by linking back to Walmart through those sites, while Walmart Marketplace is an online marketplace where third-parties can sell their goods.
Walmart Affiliate Program Requirements
Everyone is welcome to join the Walmart affiliate program. This could be a great opportunity for bloggers and website owners who want to promote Walmart products through their sites. To join, visit Walmart Affiliate Program Apply.
In order to join the Walmart affiliate program, you have to meet the following requirements: An active website or blog is a requirement.
Your website should have relevant information about Walmart services and products, such as Walmart grocery delivery, Walmart pharmacy hours, Walmart store locator by zip code, etc. A site without a direct link to Walmart products and services will not be approved.
How to Join Walmart Affiliate Program?
Joining the Walmart affiliate program is simple and straightforward. There are no fees involved.
Selling Walmart products for a profit is free for anyone.
The following steps can be taken to become a Walmart affiliate:
- The Walmart affiliate program can be signed up by visiting the Walmart affiliate program page and clicking on the link.
- While registering, you will be asked to provide information such as your name, address, location, company name, and URL.
- After signing up, you will have to wait about 24 hours for your affiliate account to be approved.
- Your website will be equipped with all kinds of banner ads and text links so you can promote Walmart products.
- As a Walmart affiliate program member, you can receive information on their top-selling products and use this information to advertise them on your website.
Walmart Affiliate Program Commission Structure
The reason Walmart’s affiliate commission rates are so low is that the company loses a lot of money on advertising, shipping, production, and other expenses.
Walmart affiliate commissions vary and depend on the category of products you promote.
Walmart offers a commission rate between 1% and 4% on most categories. Furthermore, Walmart allows cookies to last for three days. As long as they buy the product within three days of clicking on it, you’ll still get an affiliate commission. This is different from Amazon, which offers only a one-day cookie period.
Product categories and commission rates at Walmart
- Cosmetics and Baby – 4%
- Films, Electronics, Music, and Books – 1%
- Home, Clothing, and Health – 4%
- Home, Clothing, and Health – 4%
- Accessories, Jewelry and Toys (4% each)
- Lenses 8%s – 10%
- Photos and Video Games – 1%
- All Others – 4%
What is Amazon Affiliate Program?
Online affiliate programs such as Amazon’s are the most successful and popular. As one of the earliest online affiliate programs, Amazon Associates has been around since 1996.
The Amazon associate program allows you to promote Amazon products and services on your website. You will earn a commission from Amazon when someone purchases the product through your link.
Create an Amazon associates account for free on their website to become an Amazon associate. One of the great things about this particular site is that it offers everything from books to electronics to digital products!
After you’ve created an affiliate link, which you can find on Amazon’s affiliate dashboard, you can place it in your own web pages, blog posts, ads, buttons, or wherever you like.
Upon sales through this link, Amazon will track the revenue you earned and pay you a commission. Amazon affiliate program does not require you to buy products yourself to earn income – you simply need to create a relevant link to a particular product on Amazon.
The Amazon Affiliate Program: How To Join?
Become an affiliate with Amazon by following these steps.
- In order to apply to become an Amazon affiliate, you will need a blog, an app, a website, or a YouTube channel.
- Click the link to sign up for the Amazon affiliate program now.
- Logging into your Amazon account is the next step if you already have one. Creating an Amazon account is the alternative.
- Click on ‘new customer’ to start your affiliate profile.
- Please provide information about your website, app, blog, or YouTube channel, as well as your name, address, and phone number.
- If your audience is likely to buy from Amazon, enter your store ID and choose a topic/niche.
- You will receive an affiliate code.
Amazon Affiliate Program Commission Structure
Depending on the category of products you promote, Amazon offers you different commission rates.
According to their website, cookies last for 24 hours (1 day). For you to receive a bonus for that sale, your referrals must purchase the product within 24 hours of clicking on your affiliate link.
Commission rates based on Amazon product categories
- Electronics, computer products, consumer electronic products, and accessories (excluding data storage devices) – 5%
- Food & Groceries – 8%
- Personal Care – 6%
- Home Products – 9%
- Home Improvement & Tools – 9%
- Sports, Automotive, Lawns, & Gardens – 6%
- Video games, movies, music, and large appliances – 5%
- 5% Electronics & Communications, 5% Office & Industrial Products, 5% Pet Products & Toys
- Mobile Accessories & Musical Instruments – 4%
- Watches, shoes, and apparel – 5%
- A 2% market for health, beauty, and personal care products and appliances
- Jewelry (Excluding silver & Gold coins) & Gourmet – 5%
Benefits of Walmart Affiliate Program
Products of a wide variety
There are many products available at Walmart. Various products can be promoted including entertainment, educational materials, decorations, and more.
Walmart offers affiliate marketers a variety of niches to choose from, which is an important aspect when choosing an affiliate program.
Access to deep linking
You can deep link with Walmart’s affiliate program. Deep linking refers to directing visitors to specific product pages instead of sending them directly to Walmart’s home page when they click on your affiliate link.
You can boost affiliate campaign conversions this way.
Higher Conversions
When it comes to retail shopping, Wal-Mart is considered to be one of the most reliable and trustworthy companies in the world. As an affiliate program with over 2 million members, they offer a fair and high conversion rate as compared to most other affiliate programs.
Adequate Promotional Materials
Among the promotional materials Walmart provides you with are banners, ads, and links for your convenience to ensure you have what it takes to successfully market their products.
Link Cloaking
It is possible to cloak your affiliate links with the Walmart affiliate program. Instead of sending your customers to a long, ugly affiliate link, you can have your affiliate links shortened to fit the size of your affiliate links.
I’m not a big fan of Amazon’s affiliate program in my opinion, although I think Walmart’s affiliate program is better than Amazon’s.
Cookie Duration
One of the things I love about the Walmart affiliate program is the ability to create custom landing pages. This affiliate program allows you to have a cookie duration of 3 days.
As a result, for you to receive your affiliate commission, you must place an order with Walmart within three days of clicking on the link you provided.
Disadvantages Of Walmart Affiliate Program
Extremely Low Payouts
A bit of a downside to Walmart’s commission and payout structure is its structure for payouts and commissions. I mean, being paid 1% for making a sale on a video game is quite a low figure.
The good news is that there is a Walmart affiliate program niche with high commission rates, so if you want to sell to them then you can.
For a beginner, the choice is overwhelming
For a beginner it might not be the best option to sign up for Walmart’s affiliate program. As a beginner, you will need to learn a great deal about affiliate marketing in order to be successful.
There is little to no educational content for a newbie on Walmart’s affiliate website, such as blogs, podcasts, ebooks, or videos, in comparison with Amazon.
Benefits of Amazon Affiliate program
Popular Brand
As the world’s largest e-commerce brand, Amazon is among the best in the world. Amazon is probably one of the most well known internet companies and represents a variety of products and services.
If you are an affiliate marketer, you will have a great opportunity since people like to buy from websites they are familiar with, trust, and have (in all likelihood) used before.
If someone clicks on your links or ads and goes to Amazon’s website, they’re probably familiar with the brand, have heard of it, and knowing what it does might make it as good as it gets for you since you are sending them there.
Highly Converting Website
Selling goods is something Amazon does well. They have not only put millions into conversion and machine learning, but also have a very good shipping policy.
The moment someone clicks on the link you have created that is going to Amazon.com, you are leveraging the money and efforts that have been spent by the most talented marketing people worldwide to build the Amazon funnel.
Every aspect of the website is optimized to make sure the customer purchases something before they leave, starting with the follow-up emails to the “buy it now” button and even related products. When this happens, affiliate commissions are paid out to you.
Staying logged in is common
When people are on the internet, they are typically logged into their accounts. This is one of the advantages of the Amazon affiliate program.
When the customer clicks on your link for Amazon and has already created an Amazon account, the checkout process becomes very easy since the customer already has an Amazon account.
Selecting the “Buy It Now” button is all they need to do.
Fantastic Tracking Capabilities
A smart cookie allows you to earn revenue even if a person clicks your link on mobile, but then makes a purchase at home via a desktop computer.
24 hours after the click, your affiliate cookie keeps track of the customer. Usually, this isn’t a long period of time, but it’s long enough for customers to buy, and you get your commission.
Numerous Products Available
On Amazon, there are 200,000,000 products that can be promoted, based on Scrape Hero. A new product is added every day, on average.
There are many products available on Amazon. As a result, chances are the product isn’t worth promoting if it’s not available on Amazon.
Likewise, if someone clicks on a link leading to a ” lounge” and instead buys a set of chairs, you’ll get paid affiliate commissions on all those products (that’s Amazon’s funnel at work for you).
Good Commission Rates
Even though you may or must have heard people complaining about Amazon’s commission rates, it is still respectable and what you can expect from most affiliate programs that offer physical products.
With physical products, the cost of shipping and production make it impossible to get a higher commission rate.
Trusted Affiliate Program
In certain situations, affiliate programs close down and commissions also disappear.
Amazon is unlikely to ever go bankrupt, even though it’s not impossible. Since Amazon’s affiliate program contributes so much to the company’s impressive growth, it’s unlikely they’ll stop it.
Beginner-friendly
A beginner can learn affiliate marketing by participating in the Amazon affiliate program, which is among the best affiliate programs available.
Beginners can rest assured they are promoting a great product and a great company with this straightforward and legal program.
Disadvantages Of Amazon Affiliate Program
Timeframe for tracking is short
The 24-hour cookie window for getting a customer to make a purchase is thought to be a short time frame by many.
That’s the case. Your referral only earns commissions when the purchase is completed within 24 hours of the link click.
PayPal is not accepted
Amazon affiliate programs have this con as one of their biggest disadvantages. To receive payments, affiliates outside the US are generally required to use PayPal.
Amazon does not accept PayPal as a payment method. Rather, they accept bank transfers, gift cards, and checks.
Which affiliate network is best for you?
It is a good idea to use Walmart as an affiliate network if you would like to promote a variety of products and services.
If, however, you’re seeking a network that pays higher commissions, Amazon Associates would be a good choice.
Furthermore, Amazon Associates’ cookie duration is shorter than Walmart’s.
You must consider your niche, region, and which affiliate programs have the highest conversion rates before you start your affiliate website.
Conclusion
As an affiliate, you can promote a wide variety of products through Walmart affiliate program and Amazon affiliate program. Promoting Walmart products in the US is ideal for those based in the US.
Because Amazon has a global presence, it is best suited for people who live anywhere in the world. Amazon Associates is the right affiliate network if you’re looking for higher commission rates.
Hopefully, you found this article about Walmart affiliate program Vs Amazon affiliate program helpful in deciding which affiliate network is best for you.
