Earlier in the year posted here on ProBlogger 11 lessons that I’d learned on the way to making over $100,000 with the Amazon Associates program (I wrote a followup post with 10 more tips too).
In that post post I posted a version of the following chart of my Amazon Associates earnings:
In the previous version of the chart I didn’t highlight the holiday seasons but I did want to point it out explicitly now as we are currently in one of the key times of year if you’re an Amazon affiliate (or for many other affiliate programs).
As you’ll see in the chart – all but one of the 4th Quarters that I’ve been promoting Amazon have been record periods for me. From what I can see – while the economy is certainly down at the moment – this current quarter looks like being yet another record for me.
I post this chart for one reason and it is this….
If you’re going to promote Amazon this Christmas – you’ve got to start now. The buying season has started. Yesterday I saw a big day of sales on Amazon and the kinds of products being bought indicate to me that much of it is gift buying.
In the coming week we’re going to see Christmas shopping start in earnest with some of the post Thanksgiving sales that stores like Amazon put on. As a blogger – you need to be positioning yourself to capitalise on this buying.
Here’s three things that you should do:
- Get People in the Door – Amazon optimizes its site brilliantly to convert people into buyers who enter the site – so your goal is to get people in the door and let Amazon do its job of converting people. This doesn’t mean just linking to anything – you want to keep your links into the store relevant – but if you’re going to do some reviews or promotions of Amazon products – now’s the time
- Watch What Amazon is Promoting – at this time of year Amazon puts on a variety of sales and runs specials on many products. Keep an eye on products in your niche, watch for what they are promoting and when they promote something relevant to your industry – take advantage of that opportunity to point it out to your readers.
- Run Christmas Related Posts – this is a great time of the year to put together a few posts that highlight lists of products related to your readers. 10 Stocking Stuffers for Photographers will be a post on DPS in the coming week (based upon this question that I asked my readers). You don’t want to let this kind of thing over run your blog but a few fun posts like this both gets people in the door at Amazon but also gets them thinking about buying and in the buying mood.
There are plenty more tips in my previous post on making money with Amazon Associates Program (and the followup post) but those are three that I think are particularly relevant for this time of year.
I’m finding that the running Christmas gift posts has been really helping me this year. I’ve been doing a different shopping guide each week and have seen my commissions really increase this month. A lot of even comes from items that I didn’t suggest, they just happened to find once they got onto the Amazon site.
I think the point you made on staying in your niche is extremely important. It becomes noticeable for your readers if all of a sudden on your chocolate blog your promoting antique furniture. Also how far would you go in promoting christmas posts such as the stocking stuffers you mentioned? Would you make that a featured post and have it displayed prominently in order to accumulate more conversions or would you simply post it normally?
I have not started with Amazon yet. My blog is just about 5 & 1/2 months and trying hard to build it up. I bought your course on 31 Days To Build A Better Blog. Have been trying to follow that closely. It has been very useful. I’ll read more on this Amazon stuff and try to implement it on my blog. I find it very useful. Thanks very much for sharing.
Nice post Darren, i guess i never knew the peak times for amazon sales. I always knew that amazons sales rise by almost 20% to 40% during christmas, but i really never thought that amazon associates see a spike in earnings as i felt that most people willing to buy a christmas gift would directly visit Amazon.
Amazon is great, my obstacle is that 4% commission they give. Still the power of the affiliate is on recommendation and Amazon had plenty of products that can be are recommended.
I think I need some authority for this. Oh, well. In due time. :-)
It seems that Amazon is best marketplace for bloggers.I am really impressed with your report in which you have mentioned your last year earnings from Amazon affiliate program.
Yes it’s right if someone want to promote the product in holidays,he or she must blog about holidays like Christmas etc.
With some tricks we can convert visitors to buyers.I am really impressed the way you promote your affiliate links of Amazon.
I think in order to be successful with Amazon’s affiliate program, you have to be generating tons of traffic to your website. In my opinion it was always hard for me to make any serious money with Amazon because I have not been able to generate the traffic I need to make the money that I want.
Time to launch the Xmas posts then.. :)
Well I did not try amazon affiliate products to promote, Frankly speaking I can not earn money from affiliate programs.
Great advice! I have been testing out Amazon Affiliates for about 4 months now but without much success. I will try and apply these tips to future blog posts. Thanks.
“Be Not Simply Good. Be Good For Something.” – Henry David Thoreau
I am an Amazon affiliate on one of my sites and it does convert. The problem is that site (business test site) is so niche and Amazon commission is so low that it’s difficult to earn that much for me.
For the right type of site, certainly Amazon is one option to drive revenue.
WOW!
I’m now starting to make a few dollars with Amazon, but will refine my strategy to increase that quite a bit in the coming months.
I’m be bookmarking this page and your other post Darren to read them again.
This is priceless information!
$100,000 via Amazon in one year is a dream.
Krizia
Great idea, ive read alot that holiday related posts are a great way of attracting traffic and possibly making sales. Its hard to estimate how many posts you should do promoting products in a giving time period, how many would you suggest I post in say a month? 1 post a week or more?
I guess it doesn’t really matter if the blog isn’t generating traffic anyway, so it probably depends on that metric right?
Thanks for the great post Darren!
Hi there,
My blog is about 5 months old, and I haven’t done anything to monetize yet, but I thought I’d try Amazon going into the Christmas season as my first monetization “experiment.” However, I recently found out Amazon suspended their associates program here in North Carolina, where I live, in late June. Some kind of new tax law going into effect here, is the reason. Does anyone out there know of something similar I might try and use on my food and wine blog?
Thanks!
Kimberly
Thanks for the remind, i have also created a buying guide for my visitors, lets see if the method works!
Nice post Darren. Your post like my part time job…. I love affiliate marketing, i love amazon…
Good tips. As a new Blogger and Internet Marketer, I am definitely on the look out for useful information on income generation methods. I am going to get my tail in gear and get my Amazon Affiliate programme going.
Wonderful post Darren. Thank you for such a useful post.
I’m glad to say I’ve already planned on doing two of these tips. Good to know I’m headed int he right direction..
One trick with Amazon is to also promote low dollar items, not just high dollar items. If you can get a number of smaller sales, it will help you move up their tiers.
Timing really is everything when making sales.
You are right, the time to start your promoting is now. Amazon has been running great sales every day this week and I would imagine they will just keep getting better. You can make a good chunk of change.
Awesome post! Amazon is quite good if you can make tons of sales.
I will definitely work it out as amazon’s associate soon, thanks for enlightening me out.
Good stuff. I just wrote a cell phone post about the Black Friday Deals at Amazon and included an affiliate link. Has to get some nice clicks.
Yeah, Christmas gift selling in peak seasons this time. It will be great selling for affiliate in that product.
Thanks for the post. My conversion still low (400 visit and get 1 sales). Perhaps I can find better technique for convince people to buy.
I ever tried to join Amazon affiliate and do some stuff promoting but never got any sales. Thanks for the tips. But, Amazon have a kind of not remain links where the buyer should buy on the spot whenever they click our links.
Thanks for this great tip. I guess I wouldn’t do that this Christmas. My blog doesn’t have a lot of traffic, and my blog is too new, I guess the most important thing that I should do is focusing on traffic building and content building. Wish the next Christmas I could :).
Great idea, using your Amazon account with your articles.
Darren Rowse (problogger) posted a really nice post on using Amazon’s affiliate program. “11 Lessons I Learned Earning $119,725.45 from Amazon Associates Program”.
He has even more great ideas for getting the most out of your Amazon affiliate account!
Bonus Tip: Start typing anything in Amazon.com’s search bar to see all the suggestions – this is a gold mine of keywords to use on your website or in PPC campaigns.
Happy Holidays!
Thanks for the post. I didn’t get lots of money from Amazon until now
Great post and you are absolutely right that the time is NOW! I have a number of sites with Amazon Affiliate products for sale and I’m going through each one to optimize them for the holidays.
For me this ritual is a bit like decorating a Christmas tree – a yearly tradition that happens around December…only the sites don’t have that authentic Christmas smell :)
My sales in November is projected to be 40% more than last month. And I haven’t done any additional holiday promotion on my blog, yet.
They are so simple but not many of us could maximize and successfully apply them into practice
You have provided nice and very simple ways. I like it and i will be trying them out this Christmas.
I’ve tried to make money with Amazon before but failed horribly.
Maybe if I decide to launch a blog related to CDs or books then I’ll give them another go.
Thanks for the reminder. I have really slacked off on my Amazon partnership. And here I thought it was time to relax! ;]
I’m not a big affiliate marketer, but I make between $500 and $1,000 a month with Amazon (yes, more before Christmas!), and I’m always amazed at how many purchases are made through my links that have nothing to do with my sites or the things I promote. Getting people “in the door” definitely counts for a lot, as folks will so often go on to purchase other things in addition to (or instead of) what you were promoting).
Amazon’s free shipping on $25+ orders is genius, as it really encourages people (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done it myself) to buy more.
I keep hearing bad things about Amazon affiliate programs. I hear the percentages are so low that its not worth it and they have to buy immediately when click onto the page in order to get paid. Seeing this on Problogger is changing my mind about the effectiveness of this avenue.
Good tips. Amazon is great, I have been testing out Amazon Affiliates for a few month and started to make a few dollars. However, to have successful with Amazon’s affiliate program, I need to build more traffic to my website.
Although I’ve heard a lot about the advertising program, I’ve never really got into it. My fear has always been whether the money spent towards advertising to bring in visitors is worth it to cover back the investment. Any idea how much money did you actually allocate towards advertising and which network is the best in terms of conversion. Time to think about it seriously and making the most out of Amazon rather than just words without actions. Cheers….
SO true!
And point proven by my own experience… see below:
I have started a blog with only Amazon affiliate links as monetization (monetization is definitely not my priority)
Here is the “formula” of what I did:
– Although I am from London, most of my readers are in the US so I decided to delay a “normal Thursday” post (to avoid the “Sunday slump effect”) and post a simple “Happy Thanksgiving post” instead.
– I did not have much to say on Thanksgiving but my blog is about trading, etc. and I had a funny youtube video I wanted to show as it was mildly relevant to the blog (ie the joke involves a Black Swan). Thanksgiving = Turkey, another bird like the Black Swan so I thought there was relevance and some humor for my readers – making it more interesting than the many “boring” “Happy Thanksgiving” posts I have seen around today. Hopefully that means the post adds value to the reader.
– I then recommended topical books (on Black Swan – in the world of investing). I really heartedly recommend these books as I loved reading them – so again, hopefully some value for my readers!
– Just Today, I have TRIPLED my affiliate income TO-DATE! (Ok, that involved selling one Running GPS device vs. 3 books to-date ;) But the point that is so true in the post (especially getting people in the door – my site has nothing to do with a running GPS device :))
Needless to say its the “sweetest” five bucks I have made and this was all inspired by this blog post of yours. Thank you Darren… and happy Thanksgiving to all readers based in the States!
Oh – and if you want to see the actual page for inspirations, here you go: http://bit.ly/79ZR8E
@Joe F, If you think 10% is a low percentage per sale spare a poor thought for the authors of these books who often get little more than 10%.
I’ve been using Amazon affiliates for 6 months now and have sold over $2000 in books. What I find amazing is how many people buy more than the one book I was advertising. Being in Health and Fitness, I would get a shock when books like ‘Harry Potter’ appeared on my account – but I’m not complaining!!
Amelia
I have never tried amazon but will probably try after this post. I run a eBay store and like these kind of products better than normal affiliate marketing as I feel people value tangible goods more.
Amazon sounds like a good additional source to increase online income. Can’t wait to explore it over the weekend.
I am sure these three tips will help a lot to a newbie and also to those people who are expert in this.
But personally I like second one if you can concentrate on that you will get good amount of support from Amazon or any other affiliate.
Darren, your Amazon afilliates series finally persuaded me to go ahead and do it.
Look at the message I received:
An Error Occurred
Residents of North Carolina are not eligible to participate in the Associates program.
Payee State: Missing or unrecognized value
What? I live in North Carolina. Is my state missing? I didn’t know :) What are my options?
Emily
http://www.childperspective.com
Whoa, you are making a killing with amazon. I think you deserve to receive a gift from them as a thank you card.