Anyone use and or have experience with Amazon Affiliates

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Pushingfordream

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Anyone use and or have experience with Amazon Affiliates
I just started using it on my blog and I was wondering if it is even worth it? LIke did you make good money and or do people actually click through to buy things?
 

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Sure; the catch is, your income (with any affiliate) is tied to your content. So emphasize interesting, useful content first, and affiliates second.

I think for books especially a cover image and link works better than the Amazon iframe little rectangle, but I have little empirical data to support my personal preferences.

Your income potential is tied directly to your readers; your readers are drawn by your content.
 

Brightdreamer

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Like many things, the more you put into it, the more you're likely to get out of it.

As Medievalist said, if you generate interesting content to drive people to your portal... yeah, you'll get something back.

Me? I mostly joined because I thought book cover pics looked cool with my reviews - and it seemed like a convenience if people could click through, should they be interested in a book. (And, heck, it's free...) I've received all of one payout out of... um... well, it's been a few years. But I've never put that much effort into promotion, so my blog and site traffic is minimal, to say the least. I've read anecdotal evidence of more popular sites making a decent side-income with their links.

So... do people ever click through to buy things? Yes, they do. Should you rely on Amazon Affiliates for income generation? Probably not, unless you're willing to put the time and effort into building (and maintaining) a web following.
 

Ralyks

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Like the above poster, I mostly joined so I could use the images and have convenient click through links. I chose the gift certificate option, and get about $15-$20 a quarter in gift certificates. I would not expect much income generation from it, but if doesn't hurt to have the little extra and access to book cover images.
 

roundtable

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I do for my book review blog. It's easy to grab covers with Amazon. I don't earn a ton. I get a lot of click-thrus, but they rarely end up with a purchase. One thing I have noticed is that sales are far more common on older books than new releases. From time to time, I'll find an older book that I just have to review and I'll usually get sale commissions for those. Newer releases though, very uncommon to get the sale.
 

desperatewriter

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Anyone use and or have experience with Amazon Affiliates
I just started using it on my blog and I was wondering if it is even worth it? LIke did you make good money and or do people actually click through to buy things?

I've been using Amazon Affiliates for a while now on several of my blogs. Yes, it is worth it. Yes, I make good money (I've signed up for most of their site...Amazon Canada, Amazon UK, etc. There are wordpress plugins that will use the appropriate location so that you don't lose out on any money). Yes people actually click through. Sometimes they buy the stuff I am reviewing, other times they buy other products.

Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas season, Back to school season are the best earning times.

Between Google Adsense and Amazon, I make a decent amount of money.
 

jeffchele

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I do not have experience with affiliates from Amazon but I do have a couple of tidbits about affiliates in general that may be useful for others to know. I have tried affiliate sales for several years and have not had any luck with people buying things and I think I know why, it is also the same reason Google got rid of their affiliate program.

Yes, Google, the big G, totally got rid of their affiliate program because people did not make money at it so Google did not make money at it. The idea behind affiliate is simple but you have to look at shopping behavior to understand why it doesn't work. People see an ad and think they want that but they are not going to buy it right then, they are either going to get up and get their purse/wallet/credit card or do a little research first.

If they buy it right there you get you affiliate sale but if they wait and go to some other site not through your affiliate ad your out the sale. I've tried affiliate ads for several companies and they say one thing to help you set it up but over time when I never got sales and asked they said something totally different.

It's all based on human behavior when buying on the internet, most people don't impulse buy but do some sort of shopping around for both better sales and for information about the product. Any of these can lead the buyer away from your ad and your sale.

Affiliate sales is only one way to make money online and from reading at forums from people who make good money at passive income like blogs most really use a lot of different things to make money. Direct ads from companies, affiliate links and ads, adsense and similar ad revenue sites as well as simply selling what their site is offering.
 

Ralyks

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But when you use Amazon affiliates program, it's not so much an advertising situation as a blog or review site or a site to promote your own books, and people are already there knowing they may buy a book of some kind. They probably also have an account at Amazon. So the convenience of clicking through and buying right then and there is more appealing. And then you get a commission on whatever they happen to buy. I used to make a lot more in the early days of affiliates - I'm not sure why, if they paid more or the growth of affiliates has diluted things. But I still get a little chump change from it, and legitimate use of images.
 

Caramello Koala

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I've made about $200 off Amazon Affiliates over a three year period, and that's with heavy traffic coming in. Some people might have better luck with it, but for me personally, I think it's a waste of time and sort of saps the fun out blogging because you start thinking and blogging like you're trying to sell something. If you're using it to sell books, good luck; the only way to make good money out of this is to link to things of high value that lots of people might buy. A photography blog that reviews cameras for example could make a lot of money this way.
 
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