Amazon Affiliate Tips

Hello All,

I see a lot of different people posting threads asking for help with earning Amazon Associates and I earned a little over $40k from Amazon Associates in 2009 so I thought I'd write a mini guide here for those that need help. My earnings were from a variation of several different blogs and websites.

I used various tracking codes to help measure what were the most effective strategies to earn money and what worked the worst.

For those that just want something quick to consume I've outlined the key elements below:

Best Tactics to Make Money

1. Use in content linking as users are more likely to click links from within your blog posts or web pages (just simple HTML). I made 45% of my revenue via this method
2. Write bestseller list posts (i.e. Bestselling LaserJet Printers) - I made 15% of my revenue this way
3. Make any/all images clickable affiliate links to the Amazon product. I'm surprised how many people will get point #1 right but not make the image a clickable affiliate link. - I made 13.8% of earnings this way
4. Use buy now buttons on your products - I made 5% of my earnings this way
5. Focus heavily on shopping periods. HEAVILY. (I earned close to 9k in November and 13k in December 09). People want to be told about the best deals and if you take the time to write a great list pertaining to your niche people are grateful - not annoyed by your consistent deal content during these times of the year

Worst Tactics to Make Money

1. Don't bother using Amazon's banner ads. They convert poorly. People rarely click them in the niches I used and you could use that space to sell direct ad space or *gasp* simply display nothing.
2. Don't bother with Amazon stores - they convert terribly. If you can even get a visitor to click a store link congrats. If you get them to actually buy something congrats again you got lucky.
3. Don't promote products that aren't related to your niche (should be obvious, but again I still see this when I'm roaming the web).
4. Don't use Amazon Associates if it doesn't fit with the type of visitor coming to your website (i.e. are they just looking for general information? If so Adsense will probably work better. Or are they looking to buy something? Amazon will work better)

Feel free to post your questions or comments. Also, no I won't post sample URL's of the websites I run for obvious reasons (many earning sites are low competition and I prefer to keep it that way) so please don't PM asking for them.

These are tips I confirmed based on data gathered over the course of the year with the help of tons of tracking codes and I genuinely believe it should help you refocus your efforts into the areas that matter or to abandon Amazon if it doesn't fit your visitor profile.

Remember the tracking cookie lasts only 24 hours. Target potential buyers not lookers.

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