How to Make An Android App for Amazon Affiliate on Thunkable?
Welcome to this tutorial on how to make an Amazon affiliate app on Thunkable! In this tutorial, we will walk you through the steps of creating an app that allows users to browse and purchase products from Amazon through your affiliate link. By doing so, you can earn a commission on any sales made through your app. This can be a great way to earn some extra income, especially if you have a large audience or a website that receives a lot of traffic.
Prerequisites
Before we dive into the tutorial, there are a few things you should have in place. First, you will need to have an Amazon Associates account. This is the program that allows you to become an Amazon affiliate and earn commissions on sales made through your links. You can sign up for an Amazon Associates account here: https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/
Once you have an Amazon Associates account, you will need to get your affiliate tracking ID. This is a unique code that identifies you as an affiliate and allows Amazon to track sales made through your links. You can find your tracking ID in your Amazon Associates account by going to the “Overview” page and looking for the “Tracking ID” section. Make note of this tracking ID, as you will need it later in the tutorial.
Next, you will need to download and install Thunkable, which is a drag-and-drop app development platform that we will be using to build our Amazon affiliate app. You can download Thunkable here: https://www.thunkable.com/
Step 1: Create a new project in Thunkable
Once you have Thunkable installed, launch the program and create a new project. You can do this by clicking on the “New Project” button in the top left corner of the screen.
Step 2: Design the app layout
The first thing we need to do is design the layout of our app. This will involve adding various components, such as buttons, text boxes, and images, to the app’s user interface.
To get started, drag and drop a “Button” component onto the canvas. This will be used to allow users to search for products on Amazon. Next, drag and drop a “Text Box” component onto the canvas. This will be used to allow users to enter their search query. Finally, drag and drop an “Image” component onto the canvas. This will be used to display product images in the app.
Step 3: Add functionality to the app
Now that we have the basic layout of our app in place, it’s time to add some functionality. First, we need to set up the search button to send the user to the Amazon website with their search query appended to the URL.
To do this, click on the search button and then click on the “Button.Click” event in the “Events” tab on the right side of the screen. This will open the “Block Editor”, which is where we will add the code for our app.
In the “Block Editor”, drag and drop the “open URL” block from the “Control” category and place it inside the “Button.Click” event. Then, drag and drop the “Text Box.Text” block from the “Variables” category and place it inside the “open URL” block. Finally, drag and drop the “join” block from the “Text” category and place it between the “open URL” block and the “Text Box.Text” block.
Step 4: Add Amazon affiliate tracking to the app
Now that we have the search functionality set up, we need to add our Amazon affiliate tracking to the app. This
will allow Amazon to track sales made through the app and pay you a commission on any purchases.
To do this, we need to modify the URL that the app opens when the search button is clicked. Specifically, we need to add our tracking ID to the URL so that Amazon can identify us as the affiliate.
To add our tracking ID to the URL, we need to use the “join” block that we added earlier. First, drag and drop a “Text” block from the “Text” category and type in the base URL for the Amazon website. Next, drag and drop another “Text” block and type in your tracking ID. Finally, connect all of these blocks using the “join” block, as shown in the image below.
Step 5: Add product images to the app
Now that we have the search functionality and affiliate tracking set up, we can start adding product images to the app. To do this, we need to use the Amazon Product Advertising API, which allows us to access information about products on Amazon, including images.
First, we need to sign up for the Amazon Product Advertising API and get our access keys. You can do this by following the instructions here: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/signing_up.html
Once you have your access keys, we need to add them to our app. To do this, click on the “Connect to a Service” button in the top right corner of the screen and select the “Amazon Product Advertising API” option. Then, enter your access keys in the appropriate fields and click “Connect”.
Now that we are connected to the Amazon Product Advertising API, we can use it to retrieve product images and display them in our app. To do this, we need to use the “Get Product Images” block from the “Amazon Product Advertising API” category in the “Block Editor”. Simply drag and drop this block into your code and specify the product ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number) that you want to retrieve images for.
Step 6: Add more features to the app
Now that we have the basic functionality of our Amazon affiliate app set up, you can add more features as desired. For example, you could add a list of product recommendations based on the user’s search query, or a product detail page that displays more information about a specific product.
You could also add a “Buy Now” button that takes the user directly to the product page on Amazon and includes your affiliate link, so you can earn a commission on any purchases made through the app.
Conclusion
In this tutorial, we walked you through the steps of creating an Amazon affiliate app on Thunkable. We covered how to design the app layout, add search and affiliate tracking functionality, and retrieve and display product images using the Amazon Product Advertising API. With these basic building blocks in place, you can now add more features and customize your app to suit your needs.
We hope you found this tutorial helpful and that you now have a better understanding of how to create an Amazon affiliate app on Thunkable. Happy coding!