For creators, the proposition is relatively direct: campaigns are recommended based on their profile, audience and content, while creators can also browse campaigns that match their interests, participate through their affiliate links and earn from eligible engagement and conversions.
Creator marketing is moving deeper into the transaction funnel. Amazon’s latest move in India brings brand campaigns, creator discovery and affiliate-led conversions into the same ecosystem, as the e-commerce major launches Creator Connections, a programme designed to connect eligible creators with relevant brand campaigns and reward performance through clicks and conversions.
The programme is being introduced in a phased manner, beginning with Amazon’s most engaged creators, while 50,000 advertisers are set to participate at launch. For creators, the proposition is relatively direct: campaigns are recommended based on their profile, audience and content, while creators can also browse campaigns that match their interests, participate through their affiliate links and earn from eligible engagement and conversions.
The timing places the initiative at the intersection of two rapidly converging parts of the marketing economy — creator-led discovery and measurable commerce. Amazon says more than 1.65 lakh creators are already part of its Influencer Program, with creator-led discovery contributing to the sale of more than 6 crore products on Amazon.in this year. Nearly 70% of creator-led purchases are coming from non-metro cities, indicating that the commerce opportunity is not limited to large, nationally recognised influencers.
For Amazon, the distinction is that Creator Connections is being built around commerce outcomes rather than creator reach alone. Nidhi Thakkar, Head of Social Commerce – Emerging Countries, Amazon, says the programme is intended to connect creators with campaigns that correspond with their content and audience, while rewarding both engagement and conversions.
“Creators today are looking for monetisation opportunities that are transparent, rewarding and aligned with the value they create for their audiences. Creator Connections has been designed to make that journey simpler by connecting eligible creators with relevant brand campaigns that match their content and interests. By rewarding both engagement and conversions, we’re helping creators unlock more meaningful earning opportunities while continuing to create authentic content that their audiences trust,” Thakkar said.
The model also changes how smaller creators can enter brand collaborations. Rather than making audience size the primary criterion, Amazon says the programme is designed to recognise conversion performance. That potentially brings regional, niche, micro and nano creators into the same performance-led framework, particularly where their audiences have a strong affinity with a specific category.
“What this allows smaller creators to do is to capitalize on the real high conversion that we know they do,” Thakkar said. “There is a resonance that happens when a regional creator has tight regional audiences or a specific creator who speaks about a specific kind of tech gizmos or specific kind of plus size clothing. There are special niches and there is expertise in those niches.”
She added that the programme is deliberately structured around a broader creator base rather than only large influencers. “If you want to truly tap into social commerce you have to tap at the large base that is sitting which individually may be small but as a cohorted strategy it’s very large,” Thakkar said.
That approach also reflects a broader shift in how creator marketing is being evaluated. In Amazon’s framework, the value of a creator is not simply the size of the audience but what happens after a recommendation is made. Thakkar said the estimated earning or cost-per-click mechanism takes into account qualified clicks and downstream conversions, creating a performance feedback loop between creator activity and commerce outcomes.
The e-commerce company is also positioning the programme as a two-sided marketplace. Brands can access creator-generated content outside Amazon, while the eventual purchase takes place on Amazon, allowing the company to retain visibility into the transaction and its outcome.
“It is a truly e-commerce player first model where there are both of these two-sided marketplaces,” Thakkar said.
The programme is launching ahead of the festive season, when creator activity and brand spending typically intensify. Thakkar said creator earnings on Amazon have historically increased fivefold during Diwali compared with business-as-usual periods. However, Amazon has not projected how much incremental revenue or creator earnings Creator Connections itself will generate this festive season.
Instead, the company plans to use the initial rollout to assess both sides of the marketplace — whether creators are earning sufficiently from campaigns and whether participating brands are seeing the return on advertising spend they expect.
“This is a phase rollout. We learn, we learn,” Thakkar said, adding that Amazon is starting with a smaller set of creators before expanding access.
The launch also builds on an existing creator infrastructure at Amazon, including the Amazon Influencer Program, Amazon Live, Creator Central and Creator University. These initiatives provide creators with tools spanning content creation, education, live shopping and monetisation, while Creator Connections adds a dedicated mechanism for matching them with brand campaigns.
The programme is part of Amazon’s broader investment in the creator ecosystem, which Thakkar said includes investments in tools, partnerships and compensation models. The company also expects creators to become increasingly self-sufficient in managing their commerce businesses through resources such as Creator University and Creator Central.
That does not eliminate agencies from the ecosystem. Thakkar clarified that Amazon will continue to work with agency partners for areas such as enablement, recruitment and account management. But the programme is designed to reduce the dependency on intermediaries for routine creator-brand matching and campaign participation.
For creators, the immediate opportunity is therefore less about becoming another advertising channel and more about plugging directly into an existing commerce infrastructure. For brands, the proposition is access to a larger pool of creators whose value can be assessed closer to the point of purchase.
The launch also comes as Amazon becomes the first market outside the US to roll out Creator Connections. With 50,000 advertisers entering the programme and the creator base already exceeding 1.65 lakh, its initial scale gives Amazon a substantial pool on both sides of the marketplace. The phased rollout will determine how effectively that scale translates into sustained creator earnings and measurable brand outcomes.
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First Published on September 8, 2026, 09:00:31 IST
