← The Think Media Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, before we jump into the episode, quick heads up. If YouTube growth matters to you, you can't afford to keep guessing. The YouTube Growth Sprint is a free three day live online event that's happening January 27th through the 29th. It's designed to give you clarity, focus and real momentum fast. And we're also giving away cameras, microphones and creator software during the event. So you could register for free right now@ytsprint.com that is the letters YT, the word sprint.com. all right, let's jump into today's episode. What if you could earn an extra $100 per day talking about the products that you already use and love? In this episode, we're pulling back the curtain for the latest Amazon influencer strategies for 2026. How to get approved fast. Unlock your storefront. Tap into the very powerful new features that most creators don't know exist, exist. And whether you've got a thousand followers or 10,000 followers, this guide will show you how to build real income step by step. So let's dive in. Our guest today is Kathleen Coble, and she is an Amazon selling expert with 15 years of experience elevating brands and creators through strategic selling and consulting on the platform. This year, what does it take to qualify and get approved for this opportunity? And before the qualifications, what really is the Amazon Influencer program?
- [01:32]
B
So the Amazon Influencer Program, if you're new, you haven't heard about this, it's very similar to the Amazon Affiliate or Associates program where you become a part of the program. You're able to share links for basically almost anything that's available for sale on Amazon, share those links, people click through your links, they buy the thing, and then you earn a commission, pretty much like your standard affiliate program. What makes the Amazon Influencer program different though, is that once you get into that side of this program, you are actually able to create an upload content directly to Amazon, which is where this content lives. And then Amazon does a lot of the legwork and really the hard part, which is the marketing. So they are putting your content in front of their customers who are already deciding, should I buy this item that you've created, now created this content for?
- [02:22]
A
Okay, so how do you qualify? What are the eligibility requirements for this?
- [02:27]
B
So Amazon doesn't necessarily tell us it's not a black or white. You need this many followers on this particular platform. What they are looking for is that one of your social media platforms has high engagement. So engagement is definitely more important than followers. I've had people who have 10,000 YouTube subscribers that haven't gotten in. But then I have people who have 150 TikTok followers who have gotten in because they are posting consistently and they have that engagement that Amazon is looking for.
- [03:01]
A
So define engagement.
- [03:03]
B
So engagement is not only you posting frequently. So Amazon does like to see that, you know, you are posting daily, maybe even two or three times a day if you're still trying to get into the Amazon Influencer program. But they also want to see that even if you have a small amount of followers, those followers are liking your videos or your posts they're commenting, but also that you're interacting with them as well. So you want to, when you're trying to get approved, you want to create content and post that really elicit that engagement, whether you're asking them questions or, you know, something like that, and then go respond to them. And then the nice thing about, you know, applying for the Amazon Influencer program is you can apply as many times as you want.
- [03:46]
A
What are the platforms that Amazon supports? I mean, you could use any social media platform. Ultimately this podcast is usually about YouTube. But as an Amazon influencer, which ones do they, do they have a preference or can it really be anywhere?
- [03:58]
B
So they offer four options, YouTube being one of them, TikTok, Facebook, business page and then Instagram as well. So you can apply with any of those four. But I will say, and I've been doing this for quite a while now, and I also teach it right, so the people that are getting in with brand new accounts or with a lower follower account, those are all people coming from TikTok. And I would say even if you have a YouTube channel, which I know most people listening do, just go ahead and apply with your YouTube channel first because you could get in, right, and not even have to worry about TikTok. But if you don't, don't worry because start a TikTok or just keep applying.
- [04:38]
A
I do want people to know you are the number one expert on this. And there's an even deeper dive free class that you have atvideoreview class.com this is breaking down how you earn over $10,000 every month by creating simple video content for Amazon. Let's talk about next then unlocking on site commissions. We've touched on this, but this is kind of the step two. Step one, you get approved for the Amazon Influencer program. Step two, now you got to unlock on site commissions and you upload your first three videos, those get approved. Let's unpack that a little bit. Is there anything you mentioned Engagement. But that actually would be off platform to get improved. These are now on platform videos, correct? Is there any tips on getting these improved?
- [05:24]
B
So, first off, you want to do. For your first three videos, you want to do one product per video. So you're looking for three products. Create one product for each video. And in the beginning, you know, I don't. You don't need to do a whole bunch of product research for your first three videos. Later on, when you really want to work strategically, that's when that comes into play. But for your first three, you want to find products that you already have in your home, items that you use and love, that you can speak to very honestly and authentically about why you use and love them, maybe how they've improved your life. But on top of that, you also want them to be safe products in that you're not making any sort of claims that would potentially get that video rejected by Amazon. So, you know, we say safe products. We stay away from things like supplements or even band aids. You know, anything that you would make any sort of claim about, you just want to stay away from that. So I always say do home items, kitchen items, you know, clothing, shoes, things like that you use and love that are just safe. That would be easy for you to just talk about organically for a minute or so.
- [06:34]
A
Take me through your routine. You get up, you make a cup of coffee. I'm not sure if you drink coffee and you figure out what the product is, you pull out your phone. Is it vertical? How long is the video like? When you think about some of the things your students are doing or what you've done for these first three videos, walk me through kind of those steps.
- [06:53]
B
I like to consult my order history. I tell people and, you know, pretty much all the students, right? And in my programs are like, should I go buy, you know, what should I buy? What should I do? It's just look through your order history. Amazon makes it very easy. Go to your order history and type in Kitchn, you know, or type in something, and you'll have a whole bunch of items that you may or may not even remember that you purchased from Amazon. But find those first three items. Just jot down three to five things you want to talk about on that product, right? Is it durable? Was it easy to assemble? Is it easy to clean? You know, do you like the color, the size, things like that? Just again, you want to be really focused on the product and just hit record, right? Hit record. Maybe do the video once or twice just to make sure that you're saying everything you want. It can be between 30 seconds and two minutes is what I recommend. And I also recommend you film horizontally. You can do vertical if you want, especially if you're big on platforms that primarily have vertical videos. But I film horizontally because I always have been. That's the orientation that seller videos are. That's the orientation that YouTube likes. Right. And those are my primary platforms. So that's why I recommend horizontal. And I just want to say, don't think too hard. Just come across authentic, talk about the product and don't go more than two minutes, especially for your first three. And then as far as editing goes, minimal. A minimal goes a long way because you don't want it to be too highly produced. You actually can't use music. Amazon will reject it if you have music in there. I would stay away from text on screen. Just all you need to edit out is anything you mess up, saying any ums, any kind of downtime. And like I said, minimal editing, not super highly produced. And then when you're happy with the result, upload those to Amazon saying that.
- [08:50]
A
If I just got behind my phone, filmed, talked for two minutes, and they never saw me on camera and uploaded that video, would that be legitimate?
- [09:01]
B
Yes, most definitely. That is definitely good enough for Amazon.
- [09:05]
A
And so that's like the no editing side. If I jump into editing, what app do you like?
- [09:11]
B
If I'm editing on desktop, I'll use Camtasia. If I'm editing on my phone, I use either Cap Cut or Canva.
- [09:17]
A
And should I be on camera, would that be more powerful? Even if I am going to focus on the product, should I kind of, you know, introduce myself, make that connection?
- [09:25]
B
I do think that you have a bit more credibility with the Amazon customer if they can see your face. It also kind of depends on the product. To be honest, when I'm. When I'm recording a video for a product that's say like $30 or less, I don't feel like I necessarily have to have my face in the camera because it's more of a quick, impulsive purchase. Whereas when I'm filming videos for, you know, Items that are 50, 100, anything over a hundred dollars, I'm going to put my face in there because they can see the person who's using it. And with those higher price items, people are watching content, right? There's a higher purchase consideration rate. So they might watch my video and someone else's, they might buy from my video because I'm showing them my face and me using it and they're going to feel more secure about spending that money.
- [10:14]
A
And is there any calls to action? How do you get credit if someone watches your video, how do you earn that commission? Do they need to watch a percentage of it? Why would your video convert better than somebody else's?
- [10:26]
B
We don't know exactly how long someone has to watch our video in order for us to earn that commission. We speculate, but Amazon calls it a qualifying purchase. But what I see is my top converting the products that sell the most, the videos that promote those products. Viewers are watching more than 50% of the time, at least 50% of the time. So we speculate kind of in, in the influencer community that a customer has to watch your video for at least 50% of the time, buy the item, and then you get credit for that sale.
- [11:01]
A
What about building your Amazon storefront? What is an Amazon storefront and what are some of your tips there?
- [11:06]
B
Yeah, so an Amazon storefront is like your personalized Amazon content page. So any content that you upload to Amazon will show up on your storefront. But you can do a lot of really cool things, especially, you know, like creating idealists and curation. So especially when you promoting your content off Amazon. I actually just had one of my students was telling me that so whenever she posts a video onto YouTube, right, she'll put the affiliate link in there, but then also further down in the description, she'll link to an idealist that has related products to the product that she's talking about in her video. And so I thought that was really smart because you can create these idealists, you know, for example, for seasonal items, for holiday items, you know, my favorite Mother's Day gifts, best Father's Day gifts, you know, back to school items. And you can have these lists and curations on your storefront and then you're also able to pin them, right? So you can make it relevant to what's going on now, seasonality, or you can simply just have, you know, my top Amazon finds pinned right up at the top and it makes it much easier, especially when you're promoting off site, for your followers to be able to go to your storefront and kind of find the products that you are talking about in your content.
- [12:25]
A
My one other question is, are you doing shoppable photos? Are you using those or any other tips on the storefront side?
- [12:32]
B
Yes, I am using shoppable photos mostly because it's just so easy to create those if you're already doing the videos right. Take a couple pictures and the Reason why I'm doing them is because they're easy. But also Amazon is constantly testing placements for all types of content, whether it's photos, shoppable videos, live streams, they're constantly testing. And so especially whenever I see photos coming through, you know, there was a while where anytime I'd buy something on Amazon on my phone on the thank you page, it would be a bunch of influencer photos. So that's really when I was like, all right, I need to make sure that I'm, you know, uploading at least two photos for each video that I'm uploading to Amazon. Because I would see these photos, they were all relevant. If I bought, you know, a pair of shoes, they were all similar shoes. And so it was very relevant content, but it was photos, you know. And so while we can't necessarily, we don't know if a sale is coming from a photo, if it's on site, it'll just kind of get lumped into everything. Right. We don't necessarily know if they're converting if we have videos for the same products. Right. But it's just so easy if you're already creating a video, you're doing the video work, snap a couple photos and upload those. It's. It's a small amount of time for potentially a few extra sales.
- [13:54]
A
You could see that the rabbit hole goes pretty deep on this stuff. And definitely follow Kathleen. But don't miss her deep dive class as well. She's got a free on demand class on how she is earning over $10,000 every month by creating simple video content on Amazon. But that brings us to how to reach a hundred dollars a day. If we're trying to hit a grow to a hundred dollars a day from Amazon income from driving traffic, off site things you're doing. And I know your students are doing TikTok and Instagram, so we can't cover it all. Obviously you cover that deeper in your stuff, but what are just a few thoughts on the driving off site traffic?
- [14:34]
B
So I'm Sean, I'm very much in your camp as far as YouTube goes. I just, I am not consistent with Facebook and Instagram. I find it overwhelming to post multiple times a day and find all the content. So for me, my primary off site platform is YouTube. And while I'll be the first to admit I don't have all the YouTube strategies, that's why I learned from you, Sean. But it's also a reason why I film horizontally and I do my product research because I can take that video that I'VE created for Amazon and upload it to YouTube. And now I can link with my associates link and my YouTube description. I can drive people that way. I can post an idealist underneath there to drive people to my storefront. And I like YouTube because it is a search engine, right? Just like Amazon, you know, Google owns YouTube, right? So when people are searching for certain products, my video or another influencer video may come up in Google search results because it's a YouTube video, right? So YouTube is my first and foremost or my best platform for posting off site because of the searchability, because the videos can, you know, they're ideally there forever. And so I've been able to consistently, month over month, increase my clicks and my off site earnings just by taking my Amazon videos and repurposing them on YouTube.
- [16:00]
A
And this is why your stuff is such a perfect fit for our community. It's like go all in on YouTube, go all in on Amazon and like growth hack each other. Do both. Which one should I focus on? Well, both like they, they can so work together. So I love hearing those nuances. We've covered a few on site content tips, but is there any like one nugget of consistently high converting review videos that you've learned?
- [16:24]
B
Something that I'm doing at least, you know, once a month is I'm looking to see what videos that month got the most views and then that gives me information about not only, you know, what kind of products are, are working well for me, but I will sort that and I'll find, I'll start those videos and I'll say what, what was the format like? What is working in these videos and how can I replicate that for my future videos for Amazon? And so there was, there was a point where I had like, you know, 10 of my most viewed videos. They were getting over 50% watch. They probably accounted for like 60% of my revenue, you know, that particular month. And, and it was, you know, my face wasn't in it at all. It was just me saying, you know, this is the reason why I bought the product, like right in the beginning. And then I got into actually the product and how it worked and all that. But just giving that one liner of like the reason why I bought it. It must have resonated with the customer base, right? And so I would say, you know, you can take that and run with it or you can go look at your own videos and what's converting well for you and, and what's the structure? What did you say in the beginning? How did you Hook people to make them watch for at least 50%. And how can you replicate that for all of your future content?
- [17:42]
A
Okay, last thing, so last big tip on here for how to reach $100 a day is some of Amazon's hidden tools. And Amazon's trying to kind of almost they're trying to incentivize creators, trying to give opportunities to creators and it's not just so linear like one product linked in a YouTube video and you make a commission sometimes around a certain time of year there's they raise the percentages. So how do you track with all this stuff and what are some of the opportunities that exist?
- [18:10]
B
Yeah, you know, I think one of the best things you can do is honestly search your email for Amazon Associates or Amazon Influencer like at least once a week just to make sure that you are seeing when they actually do email you as far as promotions go. Because that was how I learned about the Creator Ads boost. And this was, this is an opportunity where Amazon actually allows you to link your Amazon Influencer account to your Instagram account and then anything you post on Instagram and you give them permission. Right. Amazon can take your content, use it on their Instagram but then they're still giving you that affiliate credit. They're still, you know, linking with your Amazon associates id. So like, how powerful is that? I know a lot of people who, I'm not huge on Instagram so I haven't made any money with it personally, full disclosure. But I know a lot of people who are very, very good at Instagram and have made a lot of money because Amazon pulled their content for this Creator Ads boost program. And they've made a lot of money because Amazon's using their ad, their content on Instagram and maybe you guys have seen it.
- [19:21]
A
Okay, so there's things like Creator Connections and you know, my experience with that is for example, I love this camera called the insta360link2c. It's my favorite webcam and I just got a recommended Creator Connections campaign for you. The bonus commission rate is 15%. I think it might be 2 or 4% typically. So that's way higher. And what's also interesting, and you got to read the terms of service but like we already have some videos out there about it. So sometimes all we have to do is like accept and then we submit the video that we already have about it. Those would be for off site. But what you're saying is if I also did an on site video about that webcam that I love and I'm Opted in, any sales that comes from my video would also be at that higher percentage instead of the lower affiliate percentage. Is that correct?
- [20:17]
B
Yes, exactly. It would be. You would qualify for any on site or off site sales and the commission is on top of. So you would still earn, let's say you earn 2% off site, they would pay you that 15% in addition. So you're actually earning 17%.
- [20:33]
A
Oh, wow.
- [20:35]
B
And one other thing, because I know we had talked about this in a previous episode, but Amazon also came out with a whole bunch of rule changes for creator connections and they're actually really good rule changes and one of them is that you don't actually have to go now submit your content link back to the campaign. So it makes it so much easier. You can just click accept and carry on. You don't have to go back and put that content link in there. Before it was like a three strikes and you're out kind of thing. And now they're saying you just accept and will pay you for every sale.
- [21:10]
A
Wow. Okay, that's a cool update. And one other one. And there might be others, but there's what's called bounties and I want to encourage listeners. You know, one, this might seem daunting. You're just starting. You're trying to make your first dollar, your first $10, $100 a day. But Kathleen has committed to this for years and she's making thousands and over 10,000amonth and, and has done all of that kind of stuff. I think media similarly, we've really built up a YouTube channel and doing both of these strategies make anywhere from 12 to 25,000. I think the record in my career was almost 50,000 around the holidays in Amazon Associates commissions. And what Amazon's trying to do is they're trying to incentivize influencers and always coming up with these new ideas. And so, for example, early this year there was like these extra bounties or extra bonuses where if we hit a revenue threshold and sales generated, we would get in addition to the commissions, an extra check from Amazon. And one month we earned $11,500, just extra. And I was like, we're already getting our affiliate commission. But like, hey, we hit that threshold and now they're sending us extra money.
- [22:30]
B
Yeah, you know, I would say, you know, it's kind of like anything where you get what you put into it, right. If you treat this like a hobby and you know, just kind of like, oh, I'll do a video here or there and you know, you're gonna miss those emails, you're gonna miss those extra opportunities. But if you really wanna make serious income and you treat this opportunity as the business opportunity that, that it is, there are so many ways that you can not only earn, but that you can grow this opportunity into a business. Right? You can get more incentives from Amazon. You can partner with brands off Amazon. This is one of my newest favorite ways to kind of make money is now brands, because they see videos. And this goes for. If you're a new influencer or you've, you know, been doing this for a while, brands will start contacting you.
- [23:24]
A
Well, we've covered this so much, but I know there's more that people could get into in your class. If you want to go deeper and really master this, you could go to videoreviewclass. Com And Kathleen has a deep dive training. There's a link in the description that is a free on demand class. And then at the end of the class, she'll tell you about her course and her community.