Leaked email shows Amazon offering to pay influencers to post shoppable livestreams and its requirements
- Amazon is recruiting popular TikTok and YouTube influencers to use its live-shopping feature.
- The insider spoke to several influencers who shared examples of Amazon’s pitch.
- Here are Amazon’s requirements and how much the tech giant is paying.
As Amazon competes to become the hub for livestream shopping in the US, the platform is attempting to attract some of social media’s top talent.
Since 2020, the ecommerce giant has been recruiting popular influencers on TikTok and YouTube to use its live shopping feature, Amazon Live.
Insider spoke to nine creators and two talent managers about what the company’s pitch looks like and how much Amazon is paying.
He shared that between the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2022, Amazon Live team employees were offering additional payments — on top of standard commission rates — to creators who posted live-shopping videos for at least two months. We do.
Rates ranged from $2,000 to $9,000 a month, according to an email seen by Insider.
Here’s what Amazon offered to a creator with nearly 100,000 TikTok followers:
- $2,100 per month for the first two months of the program if they stream on a minimum of five livestreams for at least 300 minutes a month.
- $4,500 per month if they do the above and drive $11,000 or more in qualifying revenue.
- $9,000 per month if they do the above and drive $22,000 or more in qualified revenue.
Here’s what Amazon has to offer, another creator with nearly 1 million YouTube subscribers:
- $5,000 per month for the first two months of the program, if they do at least five livestreams a month, each 60 minutes long, or a minimum of 300 minutes per month.
- $9,000 per month if they do the above and drive $22,000 or more in qualified revenue.
Here are two more examples, shared with Insider from two TikTok creators who have nearly 100,000 followers:
- $2,000 per month for at least 90 minutes of content per month.
- $4,000 per month for at least four livestreams — or at least four hours of content — a month.
In response to questions about these payments to creators, an Amazon spokesperson said in an email to Insider that the platform does not disclose the specifics of its relationship with any of the partners.
‘I did this to get guaranteed money’
While Amazon has proven to be a valuable platform for influencers through its affiliate marketing program and storefront tools, its livestreaming platform has struggled to produce stars of its own.
“I did this to get guaranteed money, but once that ended, there was no point,” said one creator, who asked to remain anonymous to speak freely about Amazon’s terms. Told.
“I didn’t like that it was basically just me selling stuff,” said a second producer. “Bringing followers to Amazon to watch live was tough.”
But some other creators said that they made real money using Amazon Live.
In 2021, fashion influencer Shea Whitney, who has more than 1 million YouTube subscribers, told Insider that she was recruited by Amazon in early 2020 to join the Live Shopping feature. At the time, Whitney, who posts about six livestreams to Amazon per month, said her Amazon Live earnings were starting to compete with her top stream of income, brand partnerships.
Screen shot of Amazon Live in Apple’s App Store
How Amazon Live Works and Why Some Manufacturers Say It’s Not Worth It
To livestream on Amazon, creators must be part of the Amazon Influencer Program. The program works as an extension of Amazon’s affiliate marketing program for creators, publishers and bloggers.
For each item an influencer mentions during a livestream, a special link is added under the video to direct viewers to the product. Creators get commission – between 1% and 10% – every time someone buys a product from their link.
Unless the livestream is sponsored by a brand, Amazon doesn’t give influencers the products they talk about for free, three creators told Insider. Instead, influencers said they would either have to spend their money on buying products on Amazon or use what they already had at home.
Amazon’s Live Shopping is similar to a digital HSN or QVC, and is part of a larger push by multiple platforms to bring the concept of influencers selling products directly to fans on social media in the US.
YouTube, TikTok and Instagram all have recently released tools to help creators sell products live. And Walmart has partnered with influencers for a live-shopping event.
But live shopping still hasn’t become mainstream enough to double as a social platform of its own.
In an email to creators, Amazon said that in order to get paid, creators must share Amazon livestream links with their followers on other social channels. Creators had to ask viewers to follow them on Amazon at least once during the livestream.
A third creator said, “While I can go on TikTok Live and engage with my followers for hours on all different topics, talking about Amazon products nonstop for an hour feels like QVC.” “Not to mention how many products you’ll have to review each month for a four-hour review, and how much will it cost you.”
