“It just seemed fun and easy—and I really didn’t have anything to lose.”

That moment of curiosity led Andreea Matei into the world of the Amazon Influencer Program, and two years later, she’s turned it into a six-figure revenue stream. In this episode, Andreea breaks down exactly how she did it—from shooting 30-second videos to building multiple income streams, all without ever needing to show her face on camera. If you’ve ever wanted a realistic and accessible side hustle (or full-blown business), this one’s for you.

Andreea Matei is a seasoned Amazon Influencer who’s made over $140,000 in two years by reviewing products from her home (and her sister’s). A former marketer turned ecommerce expert, she now teaches others how to succeed with this surprisingly low-barrier income model.

We Also Talked About:

• What the Amazon Influencer Program is—and why it’s different from affiliate marketing
• How to get approved (even if you don’t have a massive following)
• The types of videos that perform best (hint: you can stay behind the camera)
• Smart strategies for choosing which products to review
• Breaking into paid brand collaborations and free product offers
• How to leverage your influencer content across platforms like YouTube
• Common mistakes to avoid when applying and creating your first videos
• How Andreea’s course helps beginners accelerate their Amazon Influencer journey

My newsletter is for people who need a way to make money from home so they can build a better life for themselves and their families.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Six Figure Reviewer: Amazon Influencer Edition Course (affiliate link)
• Launch Grow Joy (Andreea’s main site): launchgrowjoy.com
• Find Andreea on all platforms: @launchgrowjoy

👉  Want regular access to tips, techniques, and advice from experts about growing your business?  My newsletter is for business owners who miss having weekends … and sanity.  If that’s you, sign up here.

_____________

Trudy Rankin is the host of the Online Business Launchpad Podcast, Director of West Island Digital and the founder of the Online Business Lift-Off program.

Affiliate Disclaimer: If you click on links on this page and then make a purchase, I may earn a commission (at no extra cost to you).  I am a proud affiliate of these resources because I use them in my own life and business.

TRANSCRIPT

Episode 225:How She Made $150K on Amazon Without Selling a Thing with Andreea Matei

Trudy Rankin: What if you could turn everyday products in your home into a surprisingly lucrative income stream? And if you don’t wanna show your face on camera, you don’t have to. Sounds a little bit too good to be true. In today’s episode, I’m speaking with Andreea Matei , 

a long time online entrepreneur who discovered the Amazon influencer program in 2022 and decided to test the waters, and then two years later, and over 2,500 videos later, she’s earned nearly $150,000 and she’s still going strong. So we talk about how the program works, how to get approved, and how you can start creating simple, faceless videos that generate commissions.

Andreea shares the stages she went through to grow her success, the types of products that convert best, and how she’s used her experience to build a thriving course and a YouTube channel. With nearly two decades, with nearly two decades of online business [00:01:00] experience. And a keen eye for smart, scalable strategies.

Andreea is the perfect person to demystify the Amazon influencer program. So if you’ve wondered what it actually takes to make real money through this Amazon influencer program, or whether it’s even worth your time, you won’t want to miss what she has to say.

Trudy Rankin: Welcome to the Online Business Launchpad podcast. I’m your host, Trudy Rankin. And this podcast is for business owners who want to hear stories, tips, and advice from other online entrepreneurs who have overcome problems and challenges to get to success because if they’ve done it, so can you. My mission is simple.

I want to help you solve the challenges you face as an online business owner so that you can have more time and money for yourself and your family, and more choices in how you live your life.

I was listening [00:02:00] myself to a podcast, not that long ago, the Niche Pursuits podcast, and somebody started talking about this thing called an Amazon influencer program, and they started talking about the experiment that they had tried with it and they were sharing their results. And I’m thinking that sounds interesting.

And then very recently I discovered that I have the ability to apply for Amazon Influencer Program. And I told my daughter, she said, mom, you really should do that. And I’m thinking I think I might need to know a little bit more about it first. So when I discovered that Andreea knows a lot about the Amazon Influencer Program, I said, that’d be great if she was on the podcast and she could talk about it.

And share with you and myself, I’ll confess, I’m interested and just talk about this Amazon Influencer program, what is it, and maybe why should you be considering potentially, getting involved with it as part of creating a new revenue stream for your business, or maybe even a complete revenue stream for your business.

So Andreea, thank you so much for being on the podcast and welcome. [00:03:00] 

Andreea Matei: Yes. Thank you so much for having me on Trudy. I’m super excited to talk about the Amazon Influencer Program because it’s something that I’ve been doing for about two years now. I applied for it in October of 2022. So it’s been two years now and I’ve learned a lot.

The program has changed and evolved, but yeah, I’m always happy to talk about it and let everybody know how they can apply and what the program is. So basically if you’ve ever shopped on Amazon and you are wanting to learn more about a product and you go to the product listing, you’re going to see photos and you’re going to see videos in addition to the product description.

And, Sometimes the brand will upload photos and, or videos, and then sometimes you’ll see videos and then under the video, it’ll say earns commissions. And that’s how, it’s an influencer video, which is part of the Amazon Influencer Program. So when I first saw that, I was like, what is this earns commission thing?

And [00:04:00] why are all of these seemingly regular people on Amazon doing videos? And then about two years ago, I was watching a YouTube video And he was talking about how to start a new site hustle as an Amazon influencer. And I started watching it. And then in the video, he was explaining about how you could create videos and upload them to Amazon.

And they don’t have to be long. You don’t have to show your face. You can just talk about the product for 30 to 90 seconds and upload it to Amazon and you are going to earn a commission. So for me at that time, it clicked and I was like, Oh, okay. So this earns commission thing on Amazon is the Amazon Influencer Program and you just have to create this video.

So I watched the entire video and I was like, I have to try this. It sounds so fun and so easy compared to posting videos to YouTube where you have to edit and create thumbnails and all of that. And it literally just seemed like I’m going to [00:05:00] pick up my phone, do like a 30 second to 90 second review of a video.

And posted to Amazon. So I applied for the Amazon Influencer Program, and I got approved immediately, instantly. It was very cool, because Amazon lets you know right away if you’re approved or not, and you have to apply with either YouTube. Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok accounts, and then they let you know if you’ve been approved or not.

So the great thing is that you know right away, but if you don’t get approved for some reason, then you can try again with one of your other social media accounts. So they make it super easy, and right now, Apparently, TikTok is the easiest one to get in with, and I got in with my Facebook page, but TikTok now is the easiest one, and you just need, you, it doesn’t matter how many followers you have, you basically just need to engage with your audience a little bit and you have to have your audience engage back with you.

I usually recommend people [00:06:00] just engage for I don’t know, a week or so with their audience and post, and then apply for the Amazon Influencer Program. I was able to get in, and then once you get in, Amazon walks you through all of the steps that you need to take, and you have to submit three initial videos, then they have to approve the videos, and then once you they call it unlocking on site commissions.

So once you unlock these on site commissions, you can just go ahead and go crazy and review everything in your house, everything in your friend’s house, your parent’s house, your sibling’s house and just try to put up as many good quality reviews as possible. But basically, in a nutshell, that’s what the program is and For me, I started it because it seemed fun and it seemed easy and it just seemed I really don’t have anything to lose.

Let me just try it and see how it goes. And it’s been two years now and I am up to around 2, 600 videos that I’ve created. So I’ve been able to take it from this [00:07:00] fun little, let’s try and see how this goes, side hustle to something that is is a significant part of my income.

Trudy Rankin: That’s interesting.

That’s really interesting. Are you willing to share not a, not an exact number, but like a range? Is it like a five figure income, a six figure income? Like what are we talking about here? 

Andreea Matei: Yeah, I’m happy to share. So I’ve made since then around 120,000 with the program. But that includes the onsite commission.

It also includes putting up my videos on YouTube because a lot of my Review videos that I do. I then just upload to YouTube without doing any editing or anything like that. And then I also work with brands who pay me a flat fee to review their videos or to create video reviews. So there’s a bunch of different income streams that you can make from this one thing and then I also I ended up about a year and a half into this program.

I decided to [00:08:00] create a course and teach people how to get started with it as well. So that’s like another fourth part of my income with the Amazon Influencer Program. But the main part of it is the onsite commission. And I would say nowadays I make anywhere from 4,000 to about 10,000 a month reviewing products on Amazon.

Trudy Rankin: That’s actually interesting because it depends on who you are and what your terms of success are. But that’s a good chunk of money every month and I don’t think anybody would turn up their nose at that amount of money. It’s not free money. Lots of people think oh you do the work and once It’s done and you just sit there and let the cash roll back in.

You do have to keep feeding the beast, I would assume 

Andreea Matei: Yes. 

Trudy Rankin: Because if you stop then your income starts to go back down again, but it is an interesting model because it’s something that anybody with a phone that has a camera in it that, that can take short videos can do, and it was interesting to me that you said

that you can do them without having to show your face. Cause I know a lot of [00:09:00] people are really uncomfortable about having their face on a video or showing themselves on a video. Could you just briefly talk us through let’s assume that they’ve decided they’re going to do it.

They’ve joined the influencer program. They’re making their three main videos that they have to start to get started. And they’re thinking, looking around and going, What can I do the videos on? So that would be the first key barrier people would have, is that how do I, what should I actually make videos of?

Do you have just some advice for people about how to decide what to make videos of? 

Andreea Matei: Yeah, so I think there’s, I like to put it in three different stages. So stage one is you review everything in your house. So you review everything from. What’s in your pantry to what’s in your office, your bedroom, your bathroom, your garage.

Literally everything including like carpets and faucets and vacuums and forks and spoons and shower curtains like literally everything that you [00:10:00] found in your house And it doesn’t have to be to have bought it on Amazon You can have bought it somewhere else as long as it’s on sale on Amazon, you can review it.

Like my little chapstick, I don’t know if you can see it, but even stuff like this, like literally everything in your house you can review. And then I also know a lot of us keep buying stuff from Amazon, like at least once a week, I buy something from Amazon. So before I go ahead and put it away or start using it, I’ll just do a review of it.

And that way. I have a constant stream of products coming in. So that’s step one. 

And then once you are out of products, usually it probably is going to be at least three, four, 500 products that you can find around your house. And I know you might be thinking, Oh my God, there’s no way I have that many products from, that are on sale on Amazon.

But if you look through everything you will find that many products, and that’s [00:11:00] basically step one or stage one of this. 

Then the next thing I’ve done and what I recommend is if you have friends or family or Kids or, Airbnbs or things like that where you can go into other people’s homes and review the products there.

And that’s the other thing that I did because when I went on, I went to visit my sister on vacation and I was like, Oh my goodness, she has so many Vacuums and coffee makers and pots and pans and patio furniture. And I was like, this is like a goldmine for the Amazon Influencer Program.

So I was like, I know this is weird, but do you mind if I just take quick videos of products around your house and post them on Amazon? I’m like, I won’t show, your kids or you guys or anything. And she was like, yeah, go for it. That’s totally fine. So I got a few more hundred products that way.

And then once you have a few hundred products, then sellers will start reaching out to you to review their products and also to pay [00:12:00] you. What oftentimes sellers will do if let’s say they make a, I don’t know, a garden hose and they look at their competitors and see all of the influencers that have reviewed their competitor’s garden hoses, they’ll go ahead and contact you to review their garden hose as well.

So that I’ve gotten hundreds of products and I still get hundreds of products all the time from sellers to the point where I’m now charging, I charge anywhere from 30 to 50 to review a product. And then there’s like literally unlimited products that you can get from there because Amazon has their own program called Creator Connections that has over 30, 000 products right now

that sellers are willing to pay. Some will pay, some will send you the product for free and you have to negotiate and see what works for you. But you can literally get like hundreds and thousands of products that way too. And then the step three or stage three [00:13:00] of this is to do your own product research.

So as you start doing this, you’re going to learn that, this product that cost me 299 is making a lot more than a product that just cost 10, and 299, not 2.99. So when now let’s say, my, my kids needed a bike and I was like, okay I’m going to get it from Amazon and I’m going to do a little bit of product research to see which bikes have video carousel slots still open available for my video to go up because Amazon usually only allows about …they change it all the time.

It was anywhere from five to 20 videos. But usually they settle around like five to 10. So five influencers can have their videos up there and Amazon will often rotate between what the videos are. that are up there shown. And if I’m doing product research, I’m going to think about, okay this bike costs 350 dollars and there’s [00:14:00] no video slots available, but this bike maybe costs like 250 and there’s three video slots available.

So if I’m going to buy strategically, I’m going to go ahead and buy the product that has video slots available so my video can go up. And then I can start earning money on the product that I just bought from Amazon. So I usually don’t recommend people do that when they first start because there’s, I don’t know, you see what works and what doesn’t and what kind of product you make money on.

So I think it’s a good idea to just have as many videos as possible so you can get data and learn and see what really works for your account and what doesn’t. So those are like the three main stages. I would say as to what to review and what to start 

with.

Trudy Rankin: That’s really interesting because my brain’s immediately starting to break down if I was going to review things.

So I’m interested in your thoughts. It seems to me there’s two, two different groups of things. You could look at things that don’t cost very much, [00:15:00] but they sell a lot of things. Or you could look at groups of things that cost a lot, but they don’t sell very much. So let’s just assume somebody’s in the beginning stages of this, and they’re just taking videos of everything they can think of, but if they had to make a choice and prioritize, would they go for the low cost, high volume products or the high cost low volume products? 

Andreea Matei: I would go, and this is just speaking from my own experience. When I see what sells the best for me, I would go for the higher cost products first that sell not as many. And that’s because you can make so much money and so much more money with something that’s higher cost and something that’s lower cost, even though the lower cost items sell more.

So for me, for example, when I first started, I reviewed my TV, my couch, my carpets, my dining room table like stuff in my car that was expensive and stuff like that will make you, anywhere from like 10 to [00:16:00] 20 or 30 each time you sell it. So even if you’re selling let’s say maybe only four or five a month, that’s still going to make you a lot more money than if you’re selling like a hundred items where you’re only getting 30 cents for that item.

I always recommend if you have products that cost a lot of money, review those first and then go ahead and review. Even if. their carousels are full, even if there’s like other videos there because Amazon still will rotate. Like when you do put up a video, they will still give you a shot most of the time.

And they’re going to be like, okay, let’s post this video, see how it does. If it does well, we’ll keep it. If not, we’ll just remove it. and rotate it in with another video. You will get a shot usually to have your video up there. So yeah, I recommend doing the higher price product regardless of how many they sell.

Trudy Rankin: Okay. 

And so in terms of, process you’re making [00:17:00] your video, you’re putting it up and just against a particular product. And then it’s Amazon that’s doing the …people come and search and if they find it, how does it work so that you get the credit for that particular sale?

Andreea Matei: Yeah yeah, so Amazon is not very clear how long people have to watch your video, but basically, what they are saying is that if, let’s say, there’s five videos on a product page and a shopper goes there, they’re like, oh, I want to learn about this product, and they start looking at the videos, you get, or the person whose video they watched last is who gets the commission.

But Amazon used to say someone had to watch your video for at least 30 seconds. But now they don’t say that anymore because they want people to do vertical videos as well, and they encourage the vertical videos to be under 30 seconds. So now it’s I think they say something like, if they meet our criteria, for what a view [00:18:00] is, but then they don’t really say what that criteria is.

So nobody knows how much, how long people have to watch, but it’s usually the last video that they watched, that person will get the commission. And then the cool thing is that let’s say somebody watched a review of a microphone and then they’re like, no, I don’t think I want this one. I want another one.

And they go to a different microphone and they don’t watch any other videos, but they buy that microphone. You’re still going to get credit for that microphone, even though you didn’t make a video for it. So that’s really cool because Amazon lets you get a commission for products in the same category as well.

So sometimes you’ll see, you look at your reporting and you’ll be like, Oh, I didn’t review this microphone. Why is it on there? And it’s because you’ll get commission for related products as well. 

Marker – Ad

Trudy Rankin: That’s really interesting. So I’ve got quite a few questions, but I’ll start with this one.

And that is, let’s assume somebody’s decided they’re going to do [00:19:00] this, and they go to Amazon, and they find the place where they apply to be one of these Amazon influencers. Are there any, thinking back to when you first applied, are there any sort of little gotchas that they need to be… like, first of all, how long does it typically take to fill out the application?

Are there any gotchas that people need to be aware of? You’ve already mentioned that you’ve got to have a, some sort of social media account that’s got some engagement but are there any other things that they need to be aware of, or can anybody around the world apply? Do you have to be living in a certain country?

Should you apply to a specific… like I’m in Australia, should I do the Australia. com one or the Amazon. com one, which is in the U. S.? Just any gotchas.

Andreea Matei: Sure. So yes, Amazon has now opened up the influencer program in other countries as well. I believe Australia is one of them. The U. S., the U. K.,

And maybe some other countries in Europe and I believe India [00:20:00] also but they’re always changing, so you just have to go and search for what countries is the Amazon Influencer Program in. And then I recommend starting with your country, but you don’t have to be located in the US to apply and create videos for the US.

So that’s the cool thing because anybody in the world can do this program. And then you can make a lot more money with the U S site than you can with any of the other ones. So I know there’s a lot of influencers and even myself included when the Canadian program opened up, everybody was so excited and we were like, Oh my God, we’re going to double our income just by uploading the same videos to Canada.

And that was not the case at all. And I don’t know if Amazon is not really focusing on those countries as much as they do in the U. S. But if you had to choose, I would choose the U. S. first, and then the country that you are in as well, because it just makes sense. to, if you’re located in Australia, to just do the [00:21:00] Australia one as well.

But when you’re first applying, you just search for the Amazon Influencer Program and they walk you through the whole process and how easy it is. And for me, when I applied it took about five and a half weeks to get approved, but I think that’s because Amazon had a huge influx of influencers applying.

So it was taking much longer now. I think it takes like up to a week or so, so it’s much quicker now and you will know you’ll know much sooner than me having to wait for almost six weeks to, like I was checking every day and I’d be like, Oh, am I in today? No, not again. So I have to keep checking, but, yeah, so just keep checking to see if you’ve been approved or not after you submit your three videos. And I do recommend in your first three videos to pick products that are neutral. So I wouldn’t do things like, supplements where you may You know, Amazon may think you’re making medical claims or things like that.

I would just do, simple things [00:22:00] like, I don’t know, I’m looking on my desk to get ideas, you can do your desk for example, or your microphone or your laptop case or something like that. So something where. Anything you say, Amazon couldn’t mistake that for you giving medical advice or making false claims or revealing your privacy or anything like that.

So just keep it neutral and keep it about, 60 to 90 seconds in your initial videos and just make sure it’s really useful. So oftentimes, What I recommend is that you look at the questions that shoppers are asking on Amazon about that product, and maybe answer two or three of those questions that keep coming up and just make your video super useful so that if someone watches it, they’re like, oh, okay, I think I got my question answered from that video.

Now, obviously there’s thousands of shoppers with thousands of questions so you can’t possibly address everything in 60 to 90 seconds But if you just look at the most [00:23:00] common questions that’ll really go a long way with Amazon And if a lot of people say you should show your face in your first video like in your first three videos I never showed my face.

I think I only show my face in two videos out of my 2600 and One of them is because I was doing a video of sunglasses and the seller was like, Oh, can you make sure you show your face so people can see how the sunglasses look? And I was like, okay, that, I’m happy to do it then. But I think if you’re comfortable in front of the camera, then it’s okay to show your face.

But if you’re not, I don’t think you want to risk Amazon rejecting you because you just seemed really awkward and uncomfortable being in front of the camera. So I would just say whatever you feel the most comfortable with, that’s what you should go with for your first three videos. 

Trudy Rankin: Okay, that’s interesting.

So once again, I’m thinking now in terms of preparation for doing a video, you’ve looked around your desk or your house and you’ve picked a video, [00:24:00] I’ve picked a product, and then you’ve decided whether you’re going to show your face or not. And I suspect maybe a little bit of research as to what questions people are asking, as you said, would not go astray.

Do you then script, create a script or do you just off the cuff, ad hoc talk about the product? How do you go about prepping for creating whatever it is you’re going to say about the product. 

Andreea Matei: So I usually… I guess my first rule that I always tell people is don’t overthink it. If you just go by that rule, it’s super easy to make a review.

So if it’s a product, maybe when you first starting out, you want to start out with products that you’re really familiar with. So you don’t have to do a lot of research, so maybe if you use your, I don’t know, your InstaPot every day and you know all of the features, there is. You don’t really need to do any research on it other than maybe look at the questions that people are asking about it and answering those.

So I like to just off the cuff [00:25:00] say whatever I feel like I want to say about that video, that product in the video rather than overthink it. Now, when I was at my sister’s house, for example, and it was products that I was not familiar with. I just did b roll of the product without actually speaking and without talking about it.

And then when I got home and downloaded the video, then I did a little bit of research. I was like, Oh, okay. This is, the features of this specific product. And then I made like a bunch of bullet points that I wanted to cover in my video to make sure I covered everything. So yeah, I think it just depends. If it’s products that I use all the time, I can just talk about it and not really overthink it. But if you’re not that familiar with the product or if it’s something that a seller sends you, then you can do a little bit more research. But I think if I have tried scripting and like using chat GPT to, to be like, Hey, here’s an Amazon product.

Can you give me a quick [00:26:00] overview? And it just sounds scripted. I don’t know. It’s just like when I was reading it, I was like, this sounds like I’m reading something and it’s not that authentic. I prefer, if I’m going to talk about it and I don’t know what I’m going to say, just have a couple of bullet points as opposed to like scripting word by word.

Trudy Rankin: That’s interesting. 

Yeah. Cause if it sounds scripted, people, it always comes across awkward. I’m curious, and you said that … moving towards your third phase of where you’ve got people sending you stuff to review. Do people just send you stuff out of the blue or is there some sort of communication that goes on before they send you things?

And whether or not they’re paying or not. 

Andreea Matei: Yes, there’s always communication. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten any products that I was like, what is this? And who sent this to me? Although I have heard of some influencers getting just random products show up at their, at their house. But usually a seller will reach out and they’ll be like, Hey, I saw your video on [00:27:00] Amazon, we just launched this new product, or here’s our brand.

Are you interested in doing videos for it, for Amazon? And I usually will reply and if it’s a product that I feel like I can do a video for I will be like, yes, I’m interested, in my fees, 30 or if it’s something that I need to assemble and it’s going to take me longer then I’ll charge closer to 50 dollars.

But if it’s something quicker then I’m in the 30 dollar range. And then some will say, no, I can only send you the product for free. And in which case you could decide if you still want to do the video or not. When I first started out, I did do a bunch of free ones just so I can get a feel of working with sellers, but now I don’t really do the free ones anymore.

But yeah, usually you’ll have to give the seller your address and communicate with them before they just randomly send you products. 

Trudy Rankin: That’s interesting because it opens up a whole world of possibilities in terms of, even if you just had a… [00:28:00] most people would just start out by going, I’m going to try this, let’s see where it takes us, but you could actually do this with a targeted strategy of going, I’m only going to review these sorts of products, they’re going to be within this price range.

And basically the goal is to get to the place where sponsors will send me stuff and pay me to do them, there could be a strategy to it. That’s interesting. So I’ve got a couple of questions following on, but one of them I want to swing back to what you were saying at the very beginning, which was, as part of your strategy, you take your videos and you upload them to YouTube.

And so my question, a series of questions potentially, is (A) did you start a whole new channel just for those reviews? 

Andreea Matei: Yes, I did. So I started a brand new channel that is only dedicated to my Amazon reviews, yes. 

Trudy Rankin: Okay, and so just out of curiosity, if you’re willing, roughly what kind of… do people deliberately seek it out?

Do they, search on YouTube or on Google and come up with your [00:29:00] videos? Is that also how they, is it for research purposes? 

Andreea Matei: Yes, so oftentimes what people will do is they will, think of buying a product. Maybe they want to buy, I don’t know, let’s say a water purifier. That’s a recent thing that I reviewed that I was like, I’m sure, because I was searching on YouTube when I was looking to buy this, just to see what it looks like.

Yeah, people will, If they’re about to buy something, they want to do a little more research. So they’ll go on YouTube and type in the name of the product and the word review. And that’s how they come to my channel. And then in the description, I have a link to Amazon so they can purchase it directly from Amazon.

But I also have a link oftentimes to the actual seller’s website. And I’ve signed up for their affiliate program, and then I’ll share the affiliate link as well because they’ll pay a lot more than what Amazon does. Through their affiliate link. So there’s ways to make money both ways, both with Amazon and [00:30:00] with affiliates as well.

And I only have about, I want to say like around 350 videos uploaded to my YouTube channel. I do need to upload a lot more, but I just have not focused on that as much. But the other cool thing about the YouTube channel, in addition to making extra commissions, is that oftentimes, more sellers are willing to pay you and send you free products if you also post to your YouTube channel because for them It’s I can get an extra like an extra promotion by being on YouTube and having a link back to my site as well. So even like I make a lot less, with YouTube, I would say my commissions from Amazon are anywhere from two to maybe three or four hundred dollars a month or something like that which is one tenth the amount that I’m making on site commission.

So I usually do that more [00:31:00] to to get more sellers to work with me. because they really appreciate that. So it’s like a different strategy to get sellers to find your products and your channel. 

Trudy Rankin: That’s interesting because obviously it’s more work as well to put up a video on YouTube.

You’ve got the thumbnail to think about. You’ve got the description to think about. Now, ChatGPT helps with the description side of things, but the thumbnails, it takes time to do thumbnails. And so just out of curiosity, then do the videos that you put up on YouTube, do they qualify as shorts or are they long enough so that they can fit into the slightly longer video category? 

Andreea Matei: They are long enough to fit into the regular horizontal video category, and most of my videos that I do on Amazon are horizontal, and they’re over, over 60 seconds long, so automatically YouTube will go ahead and put them as regular videos and I think the other thing that I didn’t mention is that [00:32:00] once you reach enough subscribers and watch time, you can also get monetized on YouTube as well.

And then YouTube also has like their YouTube shopping feature where, but I’m not there yet, I think you need over 10, 000 followers or subscribers to get that, there’s a lot more ways to make money with the YouTube channel as well. Mine is not monetized yet. I think I have maybe 550 subscribers and around 3,500 watch hours.

So I feel if I just keep putting the videos that I already have up there, it’s just a matter of time before I get monetized and that’s something that I’ve thought maybe a virtual assistant could help with, and I could just offload that onto YouTube. Someone who can help me with that, but yeah, I do hope eventually to get monetized on YouTube and then also to be able to use the shopping feature and link directly to YouTube.

Although I don’t believe YouTube links with Amazon, but they link with Walmart and Target and a bunch of [00:33:00] other places that pay higher commissions as well. So you can multi purpose your video for different platforms. 

Trudy Rankin: That’s really interesting. Yes. It’s like a multi pronged approach that you need to use to, to be able to make it, make sense of it in terms of the amount of effort that you have put into it.

That’s interesting. That’s very interesting. Okay. I’m realized, cause this is fascinating I’ve realized that we’re rapidly running out of time, but I would like to ask one more quick question. And that is, is that you it’s been fantastic hearing what you’ve had to say about this particular type of strategy, something that pretty much anybody could try if they wanted to.

I did have a question actually, and it’s an accessibility question. If somebody for some reason can’t speak, and they would still like to be able to be an influencer on this particular program. Is there a way that they could create videos and still have them be effective without having to use their voice, whether they show their face or not?

Andreea Matei: Yes, that’s a good [00:34:00] question. And I have seen videos on Amazon that use AI voices. So that’s, that’s one way where you can do the video. And then type a script and have AI say the script. You obviously want to make sure that you’re finding a voice that doesn’t sound like AI, which sometimes is hard to do, but that’s one way I’ve seen people do it.

And then the other way is to do it just with on screen text. So you can still show the product and just maybe, Show the highlight the features or the benefits of it with on screen text if you don’t want to speak, but I have seen that as well. But as long as you have the actual product that’s what Amazon cares about the most, because there’s a lot of people who try to game the system, and They’ll just take photos from the product listing and put them onto a video with an AI voice or just the text.

And people don’t really like that. Influencers don’t like that and they’ll report your video [00:35:00] immediately. And Amazon will take it down. And I think, just like the whole point of Amazon having this program is to make someone’s shopping experience easier and better and help them decide which product to buy so they can make an informed decision.

So if you’re just having a video with photos that are already on Amazon, that’s not really helpful and it’s also against Amazon’s terms and conditions. As long as you have the actual product, you’re showing a video of it you can just do the AI voice or the text on screen as well. 

Trudy Rankin: Oh, that, that makes a lot of sense. And that sort of triggered another question. Have you ever experimented with doing on screen text in a language other than English? Because lots of people speak lots and lots of other languages. They’re still shopping. Have you ever tried that? 

Andreea Matei: I have not, but I know influencers that have, and I’m in a bunch of Facebook groups, specifically for Amazon influencers, and there’s quite a lot of questions about, hey, do you think I should do this in Spanish?

Or, [00:36:00] or German, or French, or whatever. Especially in the other countries where they don’t speak, like, where English is not the main language, but they still do have the Amazon influencer program. But on the U. S. site, I have not personally seen any videos in Spanish or another language.

I’ve only seen them in English, but that’s just for the U. S. site. I have not looked at the other countries to see if the videos are in their language or not. But I think that’s worth experimenting with and just see, see what happens. 

Trudy Rankin: Yeah, that would be a fascinating experiment for somebody to do. It would be really, really interesting.

Okay, so I’m really keen to ask this question because obviously one of the things that you do is, as you said, is part of your strategy is you teach people how to actually implement this particular type of side hustle. And given what we’ve talked about already today, how would, participating in your course and your particular program, [00:37:00] help people accelerate or get stuck into this or be more successful more quickly.

Andreea Matei: Yeah, that’s a great question. And when I first started, I also took a course because I was like, I want to learn from someone who is actually making money and doing this. And I think there’s, you can definitely figure it out on your own, right? As you post videos, you see what works, you see what doesn’t, but I think the advantage of taking a course and learning from somebody who’s done it is that you can totally like just cut out so much time from trying to figure everything out on your own.

And then in my course, I also like share Connections with sellers that will send you free products, so that way you don’t have to wait. And those are the resources that either are like specific to sellers that I’ve worked with or other companies that I’ve come across that will send you products.

That will probably take a long time to find on your [00:38:00] own. And a lot of people don’t even know that those kinds of resources exist out there. And then I also share resources about Product research tools and what works for me and what doesn’t and different. There’s a strategy with the creator connections program that I have, which is Amazon’s like extra commission.

If you work directly with sellers program. And I’ve been able to figure out a strategy that I haven’t seen anywhere online. And I don’t share it online either, except for in my course where you can literally like double your earnings with the program just by using this one strategy.

So I think the benefit of learning from someone who’s done it is that you can literally take a shortcut to earning quicker, faster, and yeah, it’s obviously if, when I took my course I was like, I want to make sure I’m making some money first before I invest in this course. And at that time, the course that I took was a thousand [00:39:00] dollars, which now I don’t think anybody would pay.

And I don’t recommend, paying a thousand dollars. You can find that info for like around a hundred dollars. But yeah, it just going to save you so much time and give you access to resources that you wouldn’t have otherwise. 

Trudy Rankin: Yeah, so basically you’re investing in your building up your skills much more quickly, getting to a strategy much more quickly, the tools much more quickly, which means that you’re going to start earning much more quickly and likely more by actually investing in a program like yours.

So if people were interested in either doing your program first of all, what’s it called? 

Andreea Matei: So the program is called Six Figure Reviewer, Amazon Influencer Edition.

Trudy Rankin: Okay. And so where would people go to, to find that?

Andreea Matei: So they can go to my main website, which is launchgrowjoy.

com slash Amazon. And on that page, there’s going to be a link to my course on there. That’s the easiest way to get it. 

Trudy Rankin: Okay. And if people were interested in just, getting in touch with you. Is it, is [00:40:00] that the same place or is there another place as well? 

Andreea Matei: Yes, I’m on all social media at Launch Grow Joy.

So they can reach me out. They could reach out to me either on Instagram or Facebook or TikTok. And I’m usually in my DMs all the time. So they can reach out on their preferred social media platform. 

Trudy Rankin: And what’s your handle for those? 

Andreea Matei: Launch Grow Joy. 

Trudy Rankin: Launch Grow Joy, okay. I’ll put that in the show notes, and if people are interested, they can go check out your course, or they can follow you on socials, and yeah, just thank you so much for sharing as much as you have.

That’s been really interesting and all the best. 

Andreea Matei: Yes, thank you so much for having me on.

Trudy Rankin: If you’re like me, your head’s probably buzzing right now with all the possibilities that Andreea shared.

Whether you’re looking for a fun side hustle, a serious income stream, or just a creative way to leverage what you already own, the Amazon influencer program might be exactly what you’ve been looking for. If you enjoyed this episode, remember to subscribe so that you never miss a new interview. [00:41:00] And if you found today’s conversation helpful, I’d love it if you’d leave a review.

It helps other people discover the podcast. And join this amazing community of online business builders. Thanks for listening, and I’ll catch you in the next episode.