Perhaps I’m a little slow on the update here and they’ve been doing it a while but today I noticed for the first time that Gizmodo have started linking to products in Amazon with their affiliate ID (see screen cap left) – obviously trying out the Amazon Associates Program.
I’d actually wondered why they hadn’t done this previously as it seems such a logical move to make. They are constantly featuring gadgets that are in the Amazon range so it makes sense to add this income stream to their numerous advertising options.
My own experience with affiliate links like these is that they are nowhere near as lucrative as contextual advertising in terms of conversion but when you have a critical mass of visitors to your blog the income derived does add up. The key is to make the links as relevant to the content as possible – ie this is what Gizmodo is doing in only linking to products in Amazon that match with the actual product that they are writing about.
This method does take a little extra work to set up (ie finding the product and adding the link) but it’s been worth the investment of time for me over the last year or so.
I do the same on my DigitalCameraLatest (.com) blog and I find the Amazon income is running 50% more than Adsense, even though the blog is fairly new. 6.5% of a $500 sale is a good return on a home-made text link if you can do it regularly.
Affiliate income depends on “pre-selling” before the click, so if you’re already writing about the item, affiliate links make sense.
If they are using Amazon Web Services to search for the product and build the links it takes no effort at all.
from what I see in their source code it looks hand coded (to my uneducated eye).
They’ve also started using Shopping.com affiliate links. I notice that they are often using these INSTEAD of links to the sources of their stories.
For instance, previously they would have put a link to another site on posts like this one and this one – but now all they have at the bottom of the story are affiliate links (and not to the models in their stories but to ‘brand pages’.
I think this is sad and a sign of greed. I have nothing against them using affiliate links but if they use them INSTEAD of crediting sources I think that is very bad form.
Amazon’s program is a good one and trusted by most online shoppers because they’ve been around for a while. From an affiliate’s perspective, their compensation is often more than what you could get by being an affiliate from the product owner. And they do an excellent job of upselling.
Plus their new product preview beta program is really cool. It offers up a more comprehensive display of the product when you mouse over similar to a Chitika eMini mall ad. You can see it in action at http://www.coolipodstuff.com (Since it’s beta only 50 percent of visitors will see it, so if you don’t — sorry!).
[…] Gizmodo Starts Using Amazon Affiliate Program: ProBlogger Blog Tips Amazon s program is a good one and trusted by most online shoppers because they ve been around for a while. From an affiliate s perspective, […]
Hi,
TicTap web search is a showcase for our own contextual ads showing amazon-only products.
The technology will be released for free soon, so webmasters can insert their own Amazon affiliate links.
http://yws.tictap.com
You might want to try out TicTap Contextual Ads. http://www.tictap.com/free
There are screenshots available. And the source code is available.