Thursday
Thoughts On Making Money With Amazon
I'm an affiliate for both Amazon UK and Amazon USA but I find it tough going to make any decent money with the programs.If I take the stats for Amazon UK as an example this is how I have done. I've had 15570 clicks to their site and this had produced 68 orders where commission has been authorised. So that is an order for every 229 clicks. I suppose, if you say it quickly, 68 orders doesn't sound too bad but my earnings from this are only £36.28, that's about $72. Now this doesn't sound so impressive. There are three orders outstanding so the total will go up a little - fortunately one of these is for a television so should be decent commission.My figures for Amazon USA are pretty much the same ratio. I've tried different approaches with Amazon. Everything from banners, widgets, an astore and also context links where they automatically link contextually to relevant phrases within posts. None of these were really productive. What I have found works best is if I do the links myself within posts (as I have done in this post). If I write about a celebrity for instance I may link to their DVD 's or Music CD's. This seems to get a better response than anything else.I suppose what this in effect does is to make the links more relative to the subject matter of the post. I've written before about what I consider to be the power of text ads and links within a post. So far I have seen nothing to make we waver from this opinion. I'll keep going with Amazon but one of the big things against their affiliate program is the low commission rates on often lowish priced products. Somehow to make money we need to tap into the bigger priced items, like electronics or computers.Just my opinion of course! Good luck, Mike. Labels: Amazon, make money |
Your success with Amazon is on a par with mine :)
I tried advertising them in text links (which I agree works best), in full posts (with product review - two small successes) and in blog sidebars (the worst place to advertise them).
Nowadays I use them to fill up space - say if I cannot think of a blog post to do, I make a 'product review post', or leave them in blog sidebars and hope....
Never mind, at the end of the day, it's all extra revenue... eventually... :)
I changed from Amazon to Ebay once they took their affiliate program out of CJ. The commissions are on a par with each other except that you get a nice bonus if the person isn't yet signed up but does so through your link.
Also you don't have to sign up to the different programs as you do with amazon U.S. and UK. Ebay is all under one umbrella.
Deffo worth a look, I'm making way more from ebay than I ever did with Amazon, even when the odd TV was sold ;-)
Nice blog btw
zania and ady: Thanks for the comments.
I think that with Amazon it might be a long term thing. As more and more text ads are added to posts this might produce more clicks and sales. I'm not sure.
Thanks for the eBay suggestion.
Mike.