Is the Amazon affiliate program worth it?

[gary99]

Is the Amazon affiliate program worth it?

Here's my thinking. Over the last 7 days, I've had 22 clicks on Amazon product affiliate links. During that period I've had 0 conversions. So those are 22 worthless clicks that might have gone to Chitika or AdSense ads had I not had Amazon links on my pages.

On the other hand, if someone buys an iPod, I suddenly make $10-$20. That's quite a few Chitika/AdSense clicks (I of course won't say how many).

So what do you think, is it worth it to divert clicks from your other programs? What sort of conversion rates do you get from your Amazon affiliate marketing? Any secrets to getting conversions?

Any advice appreciated.

Cheers,
Gary

[TiGG]

I personally have not seen great income from amazon compared to other programs. Now with chitika it would take a special case for me to consider amazon over others.

[WhatiFind]

I have a amazon webshop running for quite some time now, at first didn't see much conversion, but at the moment it's going okay. I'm not promoting it, it's just from organic search. Conversion about 3.32%

[debare]

Is the Amazon affiliate program worth it?

If you can take advantage of Amazon's "enhanced display" and "keyword" links to display the most relevant ads to your visitors, you have a fighting chance to make their affiliate program modestly successful. However, since Amazon created "associate" marketing way back when, their payouts and terms have never been particularly competitive. You should create three test pages for Amazon, AdSense and Chikita to see which pays better over a month or two. Typically, I use Amazon as a merchant of last resort, when I have trouble finding any other relevant products from other merchants.

[gary99]

Yeah I was impressed by the whole product enhanced preview thing. That's what got me started on it on my tech blog.

I just ripped it all out, though. Doesn't seem worth it to me right now. Maybe I'll try again later.

Thanks for the input.

[rickp23]

probably not worth it if you are going to get 22 clicks per week, Adsense or Chitika would proably pay you more consistently, unless your clicks are all on iPods and like items. My conversion rate is about 2-3% average on Amazon.

[Cyclops]

My conversion rate is around 9%, averaging about $250.00 per quarter.

[gary99]

I imagine conversion rate varies greatly by product. If I'm linking to a $12 book, I'm probably going to get a better conversion rate than by linking to a $500 digital camera.

Still, even if you get a 1% conversion rate, at the bottom Amazon tier you'd make $25 off of the camera. Let's see, 1% means it takes 100 clicks to generate a sale, though, so each click would be worth $0.25. Hmm, maybe I'll stick with Chitika until I have some real traffic so I can gather some better data.

Thanks for all the input.

Cheers,
Gary

[Lynn Terry]

I think it really depends on what type of site you have. It sounds like your site is content-based with the goal being to earn on click-through's (through contextual advertising).

The website where I use Amazon links is completely product based, and features 3-4 major programs. I use Amazon to supplement a bit throughout the site -- its not one of my primary programs on this particular site.

Anyway, I use "adsense-like" ad blocks from Amazon in the navigation column on some of the pages... and actually 'full feature' products from Amazon on other pages. I am doing fairly well with Amazon on this site - approx $500/quarter (and growing -- its a newer site).

What I like about Amazon is that they have that "brand name" online. People trust them - they've been around forever, and they are one of those few major online retailers that people have grown to trust (when it comes to whipping out a credit card).

They may pay less... but I think they tend to convert well on that factor alone. Just my experience & opinion combined, for what it's worth ;)

[tanoanian]

I would say no. The whole quarterly payment thing is a big turn off for me. Personally I think Buy.com has a better program with monthly payments, incentives and bonuses.

[randymorin]

I've heard people say they can make $100s/quarter, which likely means upto $100/month. I've tried it myself and was not able to make more than a few $ per day. The same Website with AdSense/Chitika makes $1000/day. So, I would say

Amazon Affiliates is not worthy replacement for eMiniMalls (https://chitika.com/mm_overview.php).

[gary99]

Yeah I'm beginning to feel that unless you find a real gold mine of an affiliate program (which I haven't yet), CPC is the way to go with a content site. Maybe one day soon if I get bored I'll try the Amazon store thing.

[Mia]

I've made more with Cafe Press in the last 6 months than I made with Amazon in 5-6 years? Or however long I have been an affiliate. I've not seen much out of Amazon that was worth while in terms of payout/incentives.

[gary99]

Were they more generous in that past? I'm just trying to figure out how they have 10 million associates (or whatever the number is), if so few seem to be making any money.

Or maybe we're all just doing it wrong, and the people who do it right aren't going to share (can't say I really blame them). :)

[Mia]

Because people sign up, and forget about it. Some push the program, others do not. Sure, they have 10 million associates, but how many are "active" members? I mean look at forums (DP is no exception), there may be thousands of members, but how many are actually active?

[Cyclops]

I always add an Amazon bookshop to my sites then forget about it, if it makes some money then that's great. I don't spend any time working or promoting it. I have about 16 sites with Amazon on them.

I tend to average around $300.00 a quarter from them although this quarter it looks like it will be half that......it tends to fluctuate a lot.

[jackburton2006]

The most I've ever made from Amazon was about $125 in one quarter. Usually it's around $50. But my sites are not geared toward big ticket items, so I generally only make anywhere from .50 cents per sale to 1.50. Then again, since I only use their search box, and a simple text line linking to a particular product (I use their search linking), it's a second of work each time I put up another page, so, you know, rather you earn enough off them to justify the work you put into it depends on you personally. 1-second of work, totalling up to about 10 minutes (or so) for the whole quarter, for $50/quarter return is not an entirely bad deal for me. :)

[remington`]

Anyone ever had any experience selling personal care items through them? Im about to open up a site to sell toothbrushes, and other dental items. Amazon is attractive to me because of the shopping cart on site thing

[tesla]

Amazon is hard to make money from. When I do make money, they don't pay me much. Affiliate programs in general are difficult. I think you would to better with Adsense or something like that.

[Lynn Terry]

It really all depends on what kind of site you have, in my opinion.

Amazon pays more for direct linking than they do for recommended products links or search box links. You can make up to 8 1/2 percent per sale, I think.

If you have a product-based website, most of those affiliate programs only pay 5-15% anyway... so in that respect, Amazon IS competitive as an affiliate program.

Or maybe we're all just doing it wrong, and the people who do it right aren't going to share (can't say I really blame them). :)

I opened a discussion on my own forum and was sharing my experiences here if you want to take a peek at that:

Tips for making sales with Amazon (http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7750)

:)

[minstrel]

Echoing the experience of others above, I've seen a significant drop in income from Amazon in the last 2-3 years, and it was never very much for me to begin with. As Lynn Terry says, it may depend on the type of site and demographics of your visitors, but lately I'm lucky if I get a retunr of even $20 a month now. It used to be the featured affiliate for one of my sites - I've now downgraded it to footer ads on most pages and will probably dump it altogether in the near future. I suspect I'd make more from an additional AdSense banner in the space it now occupies.

The fact that it was better previously also reflects my growing dissatisfaction with their inventory for personal purchases. It used to be I could get pretty much any book I wanted within a week and usually found they shipped within 24 hours - more recently, it's more like 2 to 6 weeks. Whatever it was that happened to Chapters/Indigo a few years back seems also to have befallen Amazon - and that was the reason I started using Amazon in the first place (because Chapters/Indigo sucked).

I think my experience may well be the key to why the affiliate income has fallen off - and it corresponds with the other trend I see in the Amazon reports: more returns and order cancellations. I think it's an Amazon corporate problem more than anything else.

[Moneyfolk]

Lynn - good read. Thanks.

[smindsrt]

It's extra income for us... we have a site that is just over $600.00 for the month. I still think it could be more... so I may go try another program.

[Lynn Terry]

You're welcome ;)

I find it interesting to read everyone's thoughts & experiences on this topic. Personally, my Amazon income is on the rise. Of course, I dont promote books (or rarely) - it is mostly physical products. Some of which are high end electronics, etc.

[Zygoot]

Amazon was doing very well during early to mid December, now it's slowing down again. One of the good things about Amazon is their huge inventory. This month most of my sales came from users who enter Amazon through my affiliate link, mostly they don't even buy the product I linked to but they shop around a bit and buy one or multiple other things (for Christmas I guess).

I don't earn much with Amazon (maybe $700 this quarter) but it's a nice additional income stream.

[noppid]

With my FREEBS Amazon Book Store (http://www.cpurigs.com/) we have been running with a consistant 11% conversion rate. It's easy income that requires no effort.

I'll keep it! ;)

[jackburton2006]

Is the Amazon affiliate program worth it?

No, but what the hell, it's just a little snippet of code (search box or product link), and doesn't cost you anything to have it on your site, so why not? :) It's good for an average of $100/quarter.

[minstrel]

No, but what the hell, it's just a little snippet of code (search box or product link), and doesn't cost you anything to have it on your site, so why not? It's good for an average of $100/quarter.
If your site can make $100 a quarter from Amazon, you could likely make $100 - $300 a month using that same website "real estate" from another affiliate program...

[gary99]

No, but what the hell, it's just a little snippet of code (search box or product link), and doesn't cost you anything to have it on your site, so why not? :) It's good for an average of $100/quarter.

That was my thought at first as well: "not costing me anything, why not?" As Minstrel points out, however, it does cost you in that you're losing viewers/clickers that could be more profitable were they clicking on something better.

[minstrel]

See noppid's FREEBS thread under Tools.

It's an Amazon bookstore system (MySQL based I think). I got sidetracked when I started to look at that a couple of months back and never got back to finish it (server changes among other things), but some users are reporting good results with it. I'll get back to exploring it myself I think in the new year.

[jackburton2006]

If your site can make $100 a quarter from Amazon, you could likely make $100 - $300 a month using that same website "real estate" from another affiliate program...

It's a miniscule amount of real estate, and wouldn't make any more than what it's already bringing in. I've just about maximized the rest of the real estate to better affect.

[gayc]

:) Lol I read this thread trying to decide about Amazon or not. Now I'm more undecided than ever!

[ColinR]

Crazy as it reads I have the Amazon search help me generate dynmic content on a page where Adsense also resides, and if no Adsense ad appears I have a cj ad for backup on a few domains I have. If I sell a book or DVD great..if not maybe it promotes and AS click and finally if an AS ad is not served then a CJ ad is displayed. For my sites I simply need traffic

[gayc]

I have the Amazon search help me generate dynmic content on a page where Adsense also resides, and if no Adsense ad appears I have a cj ad for backup on a few domains I have. Hi

I am quite interested in the way this works but it's all a bit new to me. At present I have just put a few individual books onto a couple of my sites.

Could you give me a page on your website as an example of what you're talking about above?

Many thanks, Gay C

[HumanIngenuity]

I am having ok sales from amazon sales, about $400 per month, but that is after spending some serious money on custom programming and having the site up for a while until the revenue started to increase.

[jackburton2006]

I am having ok sales from amazon sales, about $400 per month, but that is after spending some serious money on custom programming and having the site up for a while until the revenue started to increase.

You're about 4 months late there bub. ;)

[Vrindavan]

i am just putting links to books on web page,
really not sure what tools can help boost the revenue ?
epc is close to zero

[GPS Mapper]

Looks like I may hit $500 or so this month, and it's increasing. I do a lot of text links for specific products, which is time consuming, but it appears to be paying off. I'd be doing really well if I could increase traffic more. I just hope they don't continue to cut commissions.

[ehdmi]

Personally, I have not had much luck with it....I can assume it would depend your user base and products your selling.

[rewlie]

off topic, but can i know how amazon ads look alike ?? size ?? do they implement javascript, content-based target advertising ??

[EdenView]

Amazon ads can look like text links, or like netflix ads with the onmouseover / java trick.
They are not, to date, contextual unless you target them yourself.
You can also create whole stores that are driven off of amazon's content, so no in linea ads are necessary.

[Nite]

I recently began a forum that is geared to stock market investing, and put some adsense and amazon stuff on it -- for diversity. Since I'm using Simple Machines Forum with Tiny Portal, I can put all advertising inside "blocks" on the left hand side of my forum. (I can turn the blocks off one at a time or rearrange their position if need be.) Each time a page a refreshed, the content inside those block reflects the what's on the page. Therefore, if someone makes a post inside the 'existentialism' child board of my forum, the ads from adsense and amazon reflect it the content of the post. Since I do not have many posts, I wonder if the ads "will get better and more targeted" as time progresses. In fact, I should go to my amazon site and include a couple more "keywords" for my targeted ads.

If, like me, visitors or guests are relatively "new" to the stock market game, then the ads serve up some books and links relating to investing. Mainly family members and friends visit my site, and for the time being, that's cool.

As far as amazon in particular is concerned, books are one of the many ways that knowledge is communicated. The way I see it, users/members/guests will click on the ads they want; they will not click on ads that serve no purpose to them. Clicking on an amazon ad versus an adsense ad depends upon what the user is interested in. If one eliminates on particular type of ad from his or her site, then diversity is reduced. "Diversity within constraint" is what I'm after for the time being. I'm sure that as my member base grows, they will tell me what they do or do not want to see.

[gn77]

informative thread.. I have been thinking of putting amazon ads on my site

[windy]

Over the last 7 days, I've had 30 clicks on Amazon product affiliate but 0 conversion

[Cyclops]

It can be like that windy but I find the norm to be 1 conversion for every three clicks.
It depends on what you are selling though, I have a huge amount of Amazon pages showing products but I notice over 90% of the sales relate to small ticket items.

Even with so many pages indexed It's still rare for me to receive over 30 clicks in a day.