There is a whole range of WordPress plugins that can help monetize a website. Especially with the popular Amazon affiliate program, it is relatively easy with the right plugin to include affiliate links on a website and thereby generate revenue.
Since affiliate links can help to generate revenue from a website, of course depending on the traffic, it is important to choose a reliable and trustworthy plugin. This means that I was looking for a plugin that doesn’t manipulate the links or unexpectedly stop working and thus endanger the revenue.
However, while testing the various amazon affiliate link plugins for this article, it quickly became clear to me that many of these plugins are not sufficiently supported, developed or updated, while others are not sufficiently popular to get an idea of how reliable and trustworthy they are.
Considering this, there are only three plugins presented in detail in this article, but all of them are really recommendable and have proven themselves! One of them is even free and the other two are affordable plugins that help to monetize a WordPress website with Amazon partner links.
Before we get to the plugins, it’s worth explaining quickly what the Amazon affiliate program actually is and how it can help monetize a website. If you already know about it and are already a participant in the affiliate program, you are welcome to jump to the recommended Amazon affiliate link plugin for WordPress.
About Amazon affiliate program
In short, after you sign up for the Amazon Affiliate Program, you can create referral links to any page at Amazon and then publish them on a website, for example. Of course, you can also distribute these affiliate links via social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook or send them via email and newsletter. It is important that the recommendations are meaningful in the respective context, because they should lead visitors who want to buy something to the Amazon shop with just one click. Because only if a visitor who clicked on such a link also buys something, you will receive a small commission based on what he bought. How high this commission is, depends on the product category. Here is an overview of the current advertising cost reimbursements.
Although the percentage commission is quite low compared to other affiliate programs, there are a number of advantages to promoting products on Amazon.
- Firstly, the conversion rate is usually very good because most people already have an Amazon account and are used to shopping there.
- Secondly, there are so many different products on Amazon and on the Marketplace that you are sure to find something relevant and appropriate to the content of the site that you can promote on your website.
- In addition, consumers may buy several items at once from Amazon, increasing referral commissions.
It’s really easy to create Amazon affiliate links, for example through the PartnerNet Site Stripe, and then publish them in a post. However, as we will see in a moment, there are some advantages to using a WordPress plugin …
The best Amazon affiliate link WordPress plugin
So here are the recommended Amazon affiliate link management plugins for WordPress: As already mentioned, there is a free plugin that covers all basic functionalities, as well as an impressive paid plugin with many more useful functions and features:
1. AAWP – Amazon Affiliate Program WordPress Plugin
The “Amazon Affiliate WordPress Plugin“, AAWP for short, aims to take care of every aspect of monetizing a WordPress website with the Amazon Affiliate Program. Although it is not a free plugin (AAWP is available from 39 EUR), it can be said that AAWP has enough useful features to justify this price!
Of course AAWP contains the really time-saving features that are also available in the free Amazon plugin. For example, all links to Amazon can be automatically provided with the referral ID and the revenue of international websites can be increased thanks to the geotargeting function. With the geotargeting implementation of AAWP, it does not matter from which country a visitor accesses the website. When the visitor clicks on an Amazon link, he is redirected to his local Amazon shop, such as Amazon.de, Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.in.
But that is not all!
Thanks to the integrated product comparison table generator, for example, several articles can be easily displayed next to each other and compared, making it easier for visitors to decide which product to buy.
To create a table, simply enter the product ID or ASIN number of the elements to be displayed and the plugin will do the rest. Thanks to the integration of the most important product details such as price and rating, your visitors can easily see which item is the best option for them without having to leave the website and do further research. The prices displayed can even be updated. The data is retrieved and automatically updated via the Amazon Product Advertising API. Frequently used data is cached locally, reducing the need for API queries. All elements generated by AAWP are of course responsive, i.e. optimized for display on desktop PCs, tablets and smartphones, and even work on AMP websites!
Another reason why I recommend AAWP is the ability to create bestseller lists for a specific product type or automatically list the latest products in a specific product group. This means that the product recommendations are always up to date and contain available products that customers like and often buy from Amazon, which significantly increases the chance of a sale.
The plugin is developer-friendly, technically very flexible and can be used in combination with any theme. In addition, there are tools for creating eye-catching product promotion boxes, integrated click tracking for insights into the audience’s interaction with the affiliate links.
If you want to know more, check out the demos on the AAWP website. With the 30-day money back guarantee, you can try AAWP without risk.
2. Amazon Auto Links Plugin (free with basic functions)
The free Amazon Auto Links plugin reliably ensures, according to the ratings, that all links on a website are automatically converted into affiliate links. Instead of having to generate an affiliate link on the Amazon site for each product you want to recommend, you simply enter the Amazon affiliate ID once in the plugin dashboard on the site, and this ID will then be applied to all published links to Amazon.
Sounds almost too good to be true, doesn’t it?
Especially important for English-language websites with international traffic is the integrated function to store IDs for local Amazon Associates programs, such as the affiliate programs in the USA, Brazil, Canada, China and other countries. The plugin recognizes the location of the visitors (based on their IP address) and then forwards them to the respective shop, which of course massively increases the chances of conversion.
Furthermore, the plugin also helps to find suitable products that could be integrated into the website. If you create a new post or a new page in WordPress, you can search the Amazon inventory directly via the plugin and select in the WordPress editor which links should be inserted! Last but not least, the Amazon Link Plugin also contains templates that help to improve the display of affiliate links, which hopefully leads to more clicks and sales.
So if you are looking for a free option, the Amazon Auto Links plugin is a very good option!
Why not the official plugin from Amazon?
Hands off Amazon’s own WordPress plugin! It never made it past the development phase and has already been discontinued!
Maybe you have already seen that there is a WordPress plugin from Amazon itself. The “Amazon Associates Link Builder” is the official and free WordPress plugin for Amazon partners. With the plugin you can search Amazon products from the WordPress editor and link them on the website. The API provides real-time access to current prices and product availability.
This all sounds really promising, because according to Amazon, the plugin can be used to create more than just text and price links. There are also templates available for different types of product boxes with pictures, prices and other product information. These templates can be edited or you can simply create your own templates.
But then take a look at the latest reviews at WordPress.org:
So better forget Amazon’s own WordPress plugin! It never made it past the development phase and has already been discontinued!
Conclusion
I recommend the free Amazon Autolink plugin for beginners and the AAWP WordPress plugin for top affiliates for professionals or website owners looking for more integration options.
If you are just starting with affiliate marketing or don’t get many visitors, the manual creation and integration of links is absolutely fine. You can also use a general link management plugin like Pretty Links. However, as soon as traffic increases and the website grows, using your own Amazon PartnerNet plugin makes managing and creating suitable links easier and more efficient.
Which plugin do you use to monetize your WordPress site with the Amazon Partner Program? Let me know in the comments below!
