Amazon's Brand Referral Bonus pays you back for driving off-site traffic — but only if the sale is measured. Most sellers lose that credit due to broken links on mobile. Here's how to fix it.

Amazon pays you back for driving external traffic. Most sellers don’t collect it.

Not because of the program — but because their links break attribution on mobile.

This post explains what the Brand Referral Bonus is, why deep linking is the missing piece, and how Affilio fixes both conversion and measurement automatically.

What Is the Amazon Brand Referral Bonus?

Available to: Amazon sellers enrolled in Brand Registry with an Amazon Ads account
How it works: Amazon discounts your referral fees on sales driven by off-site traffic — social media, email, paid search, influencer links
Typical discount: Around 10% of the referral fee per qualifying sale, varying by product category (range: 2–10%)
Attribution window: Any additional products the same customer buys within 14 days of the initial click also qualify
How you receive it: As a referral fee credit, applied two months after the sale to account for returns
The requirement: Every qualifying sale must be measured through Amazon Attribution — no measurement tag, no bonus

The Step Most Sellers Miss

Amazon Attribution gives you a measurement tag — a set of parameters appended to your product URL
Those parameters tell Amazon which campaign drove the sale
The problem: when a mobile user clicks your link, they don’t land in the Amazon app — they hit the mobile web login flow instead
This creates friction, many users abandon, and the sale never happens
Even if the user continues, the app session that follows may not carry your attribution tag
Result: the sale happens but it isn’t measured — no measurement means no bonus

This is why sellers who try off-site campaigns often see disappointing results. The campaign isn’t the problem. The link is.

Why App Deep Links Fix This

A deep link routes the user directly into the Amazon app, bypassing the mobile web entirely
The user lands on the exact product page, already logged in, one tap from purchase
Conversion rates in the Amazon app are generally higher than mobile web sessions
The correct deep link format: swap https:// for amazon:// while preserving the full path and query string
Example:
Standard: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08N5WRWNW?tag=mystore-20&maas=...
Deep link: amazon:///dp/B08N5WRWNW?tag=mystore-20&maas=...
The attribution tag must survive the scheme transformation — this is where most tools fail
Deep linking behavior depends on device and browser, so a fallback to web is required when the app cannot be opened

How Affilio Handles This

Most tools either deep link or preserve parameters. Affilio does both.

Affilio automatically detects whether a domain has a known app scheme — no manual configuration
When a mobile user clicks an Affilio link pointing to an Amazon URL, Affilio serves a routing page that attempts to open the Amazon app
The full URL — including your Amazon Attribution measurement tag and any UTM parameters — is preserved exactly through the transformation
If the Amazon app isn’t installed, Affilio falls back to the mobile web URL with parameters intact
Desktop users receive a standard redirect — no JavaScript overhead, no delay
Everything happens automatically at redirect time — you create the link once, Affilio handles every device correctly

Step-by-Step: Earning the Brand Referral Bonus with Affilio

Step 1 — Enroll: Sign up for the Amazon Brand Referral Bonus Program via your Amazon Ads account under Reporting and Measurement
Step 2 — Create Attribution tags: Use Amazon Attribution to generate measurement tags for each campaign or channel
Step 3 — Build your Affilio link: Paste your tagged Amazon URL into Affilio — the measurement parameters are preserved automatically
Step 4 — Share the Affilio link: Use it in your Instagram bio, TikTok posts, Facebook ads, email campaigns, or Google search ads
Step 5 — Monitor: Check your Amazon Attribution dashboard for measured sales and your Affilio dashboard for click and device breakdowns
Step 6 — Collect: Qualifying sales accumulate as referral fee credits in your Amazon Ads account, distributed two months after the sale

Strategies That Multiply Your Eligible Sales

New product launches: Off-site traffic is the fastest way to build initial sales velocity — drive clicks from your existing audience and collect bonus on every measured sale
Deals and limited-time offers: Promote time-sensitive deals through social with a clear CTA; urgency drives conversion, and every sale counts toward your bonus
Sponsored Display remarketing: After running off-site campaigns, use Sponsored Display with a 14-day views remarketing window to re-engage users who viewed but didn’t buy
Email to your existing audience: High-intent traffic from people who already know your brand — pair with deep links for minimal friction
Influencer campaigns: Provide creators with Affilio links instead of raw Amazon URLs — every click is deep-linked and measured correctly

What Affilio Preserves (and Why It Matters)

Amazon Attribution maas= measurement tag — required for bonus eligibility
tag= affiliate identifier — required for affiliate commission if applicable
utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign — your own campaign analytics
Any custom tracking parameters you append

If any of these are stripped during the redirect, the sale goes unmeasured and you lose the bonus. Affilio does not strip them.

The Bottom Line

The Amazon Brand Referral Bonus is real money — a recurring discount on fees for traffic you’re already sending
Most sellers lose it because their links send mobile users to the web instead of the app and break attribution
Deep links solve the conversion problem; parameter preservation solves the measurement problem
Affilio handles both automatically — no SDKs, no manual link configuration, no per-campaign setup

If your links don’t preserve attribution and don’t deep link into the app, you’re not just losing conversions — you’re paying full Amazon fees on sales that should be discounted.

How Amazon Sellers Lose Brand Referral Bonus (And How to Fix It)