Someone asked me a question this week that I don’t get very often: they applied to the Amazon Influencer Program and got rejected immediately, on the very first step, and wanted to know what to do now. Most people don’t realize there are actually two separate approval steps, and getting bounced at the first one means something specific. I’m going to walk through both steps, what Amazon is actually looking at in each, why first-step rejections happen, and the cleanest path I know to try again.
In This Article
- The Two-Step Approval Process
- Step One: What Amazon Checks First
- Follower Count Is Not the Filter
- Why First-Step Rejections Happen
- Step Two: The Three-Video Review
- What to Do If You Fail Step One
- The Cleanest Way to Reapply
- Once You Are In
The Two-Step Approval Process
To get into the Amazon Influencer Program and earn commissions on product videos, you go through two gates. The first is the basic application: you fill out Amazon’s documentation and hand over the social media account you’re applying with. The second comes later, after you’ve been let in the door and submitted your first three videos for review. People get rejected at either stage, but they’re rejected for different reasons, and the first-step rejection is the rarer and more confusing of the two.
Step One: What Amazon Checks First
The reason Amazon asks for a social account is right in the name of the program. Amazon wants people who can influence other people to buy things. At step one they’re doing a peripheral, high-level look at two things.
First, the Amazon account you’re applying with. They want to know it’s in good standing. A lot of people don’t realize their shopping account isn’t in good standing. Maybe you’ve had too many returns, which is a real problem for a lot of accounts right now. The account can be live and still be flagged.
Second, a quick look at your social media account. Not a deep dive. Just a glance to see if there’s anything there worth looking at more closely later.
Follower Count Is Not the Filter
People used to assume the social check was about follower count. As more and more creators have come into the program, that assumption hasn’t held up. I’m hearing stories of people with fewer than 100 followers getting accepted. Amazon doesn’t publish documentation on this, but the working theory, and it matches everything I’ve seen, is that engagement is what matters. A small following that actually listens to you and interacts with you can drive purchases. A big following that ignores you can’t. Amazon seems to know that.
Why First-Step Rejections Happen
Most people get through step one, even if they later get rejected on the social media side at step two. If your account is at least borderline, Amazon usually lets you in and takes the closer look later. So if you got bounced right out of the gate, it’s almost certainly one of two things:
- Something is wrong with your Amazon account. It isn’t in good standing, even if you don’t realize it.
- The social media account you applied with was so non-engaging that Amazon didn’t need a second look.
That’s it. There isn’t a third mystery reason. If you’re trying to diagnose a first-step rejection, start by being honest with yourself about those two accounts.
Step Two: The Three-Video Review
Once you pass step one, you upload three videos to unlock on-site commissions. At that point Amazon looks at your social media account again, and this time they dig in. They’re trying to get a real feel for whether you have any kind of influence. A decent number of people get rejected here even after passing the first gate.
The good news about a step-two rejection is that Amazon gives you three chances. Submit three videos, get declined, delete them, upload three more, all under the same account you were already given. You get to iterate. That’s a much better position than a step-one rejection, where there’s no account to iterate on.
What to Do If You Fail Step One
I’ll be honest, this doesn’t happen often, and I haven’t had many conversations with people it’s happened to, so there isn’t a well-worn playbook. Here’s the problem. If you’re rejected at step one, there’s nothing you can do inside that Amazon account to change their mind. You can’t fix your social account and resubmit from the same place. The only move is to fill out another application and see if Amazon even lets it go through.
And even if they do let you reapply and reject you again, you won’t know whether it’s because you already have a declined application on file or because they looked at your stuff a second time and still didn’t like it. Amazon isn’t going to tell you. That ambiguity is exactly why I don’t recommend firing off a second application the next day.
The Cleanest Way to Reapply
The cleanest path is to spend a few weeks, ideally a month, working on the social media account you’re going to apply with before you touch the application again. Specifically:
- Engage with everyone who comments on your posts. If nobody comments, comment on your own posts to get the wheels moving.
- Go to other creators’ pages and comment on what they’re doing. Engagement on other people’s content counts toward the picture of your account.
- Check your Amazon shopping account for anything that could flag it, especially a heavy return history.
- After about a month of consistent activity, submit a fresh application.
If Amazon lets the new application through, they’re now looking at a different account than the one they rejected, one with a lot more engagement on it. That’s the best shot you have. I don’t know the official rules on reapplying after a first-step decline, because Amazon hasn’t published any, but giving them a visibly better account to look at is the only lever you control.
Once You Are In
When you do get through both gates, the game changes completely. Approval is the easy part. The hard part is picking products that actually earn, because a storefront full of videos on saturated, low-commission products makes approval feel pointless. That’s what Oink for Influencers does: the 5 Pillars system scores products before you film them so your first real videos land on items with open carousel slots and decent category commission rates, and Storefront Cross Check keeps your catalog clean as it grows.
If you got rejected, don’t give up and don’t spam applications. Build the engagement, reapply in a month, and when you’re in, come grab Oink for Influencers so your first three videos and every video after them are pointed at products that actually pay.
