Amazon Influencer is a new job title. It’s a new job. And it’s really quite exciting for FBA sellers.
Amazon Influencers are picked out from applicants by Amazon because they have a great Instagram, Youtube or TikTok account. They can earn over $100 a month within a few months, and some grow that to make over $2k a month once they’ve been doing it for a while. Their earnings come from small commissions on each product they’ve reviewed; this differs according to product segment. Clothes, accessories and jewelry deliver 7%, while furniture, garden, pet products and home improvement offer 8%; toys, on the other hand, give only 3% commission and videogames just 1%.
Applicants have three videos to impress Amazon; after those three, they’re either hired or fired. There’s no clear statement of standards, but what seems to work well is a simple ‘like’ and ‘don’t like’ format, or “how to solve a problem” video. Short and sweet, one- or two-minute videos also seem to score best.
Obviously, smart influencers have a strategy of reviewing products that don’t already have video on them, and reviewing big ticket items or top sellers to maximize the amount of commission they can earn. But they can also do sponsored reviews, and for you as an FBA seller, that’s interesting.
A key factor with Amazon Influencers is that they send people to Amazon from their social media platforms. Add that together with the fact that Amazon’s latest tweak on its search algorithm is that it gives you extra points for attracting external traffic, and you can see that Amazon Influencers can give you a double whammy; adding to your reach (the number of people who see your product) and giving you higher search ranking on Amazon as well.
(If you’re feeling a bit of déjà vu here, you’re right. Influencers is an extension and upgrading of the Affiliates program, which has been here since back in the very beginning.)
Another key factor is that Amazon Influencers have their own storefronts. So they are really easy to find on Amazon, and they link seamlessly to your Amazon product page. To make sure you’re targeting the right influencers, follow them on social media and get to know their sweet spots.
(This is where you will need to do some work, as Amazon Influencer storefronts don’t typically contain social media links. You’ll need to search them out on social media; try their name, or the #amazonfinds hashtag.)
Get to know them on social media by sending a few messages, so they know your product and your brand. After a while, you can approach them; mention your common interest first (“as you know we’re both cat lovers”) and then be specific about how you could cooperate. There’s no need to push your brand or products at this point; if they reply, that’s the next step.
There is no industry standard for how much to pay influencers. Niche influencers might want $10 to $500 a post on blogs or Instagram; on Youtube you can assume you’ll pay about double that. Influencers with a really big following might want substantially more. Usually, with those who have created a real business out of their media content, there will be a negotiation; if you are starting out and your product is still a relatively small sellers, you’re paying them to help you out, and the price you’ll have to pay may be higher.
You need to do some basic math here. What an influencer is worth to you is their subscriber base, times the percentage of their followers who might buy from you, times your gross profit per product. But obviously, to get a return on your investment you will want to pay them less than that.
The return on investing in influencers can be really high. So get started right now!