
Lessons I Learned Earning $119,725.45 from Amazon Associates Program - AndrewWarner
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/08/19/amazon-associates-tips/
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OmarIsmail
One of the ways that people are making money with Amazon is just by the
cookies. I believe Amazon is a 7-day tracking cookie, so what this means is
that if a user clicks on your affiliate link to Amazon if that user makes a
purchase from Amazon in the next 7 days, you get credit. Of course the game is
"who helped me last" so it's whoever planted the Amazon cookie on that user's
browser most recently will get the affiliate payment.

A potential strategy for monetization if you have a lot of return visitors is
to just send them to Amazon as much as possible with your tracking cookie. It
doesn't even have to be something like "buy this product I just reviewed here,
now". Just a "check this random page out" and some of your users will likely
make a purchase within a week without having your cookie overwritten, and boom
you get a nice affiliate fee.

There is obviously a broad spectrum of how to send people to Amazon, and how
to ethically get credit for that. But fundamentally it just comes down to
having a user click through and get that cookie set.

eBay is a similar cookie game.

I'm not sure about other affiliate programs/networks. It'll be interesting to
see if Google uses a similar cookie approach with their CPA AdSense ads. One
would hope.

~~~
billswift
The Amazon Associate web site said 24 hours of clicking through from your
site, they buy something, or they click through from another site.

~~~
OmarIsmail
Hmm then I probably got it mixed up. 1 day for Amazon, and 7 days for eBay.

This was a bit before my time, but apparently eBay used to have 30 day cookie
tracking! Needless to say the temptation for planting cookies was pretty damn
high and resulted in some clever tricks.

I think pop-unders are still used by some sites, but obviously are far less
successful nowadays.

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kierank
Funnily enough the public library here (or the person who runs their
catalogue) uses amazon associates:

[http://library.redbridge.gov.uk/02_Catalogue/02_005_TitleInf...](http://library.redbridge.gov.uk/02_Catalogue/02_005_TitleInformation.aspx?searchTerm=king&searchTerm2=&searchTerm3=&searchTerm4=&searchType=98&Page=1&media=&branch=&authority=&language=&junior=&rcn=0749506857&fr=tl)

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chaosmachine
Amazon's affiliate program is nice because you can throw in a link to Amazon
in almost any article, and readers will find it useful/relevant. I'm always
surprised when I see big sites linking to Amazon, but not including a referral
code. They're throwing away thousands of dollars in potential income.

~~~
billswift
I had links to books on Amazon before I became an Associate because I discuss
sources and references in many of my posts. Being an Associate hasn't made me
any money yet though; too few readers, and I've been posting too infrequently
to get more.

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catch23
useful. even if you're not a blogger and your monetization strategy involves
affiliate.

If anyone's company relies on affiliate fees, I'd like to know your story as
well. (what works, what doesn't) We just signed up for the amazon associates
program and we'll be launching in a month.

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run4yourlives
Not enough examination on monetization strategies on this site (HN) in my
opinion. As much as these "get rich on the interweb" bloggers get a bad rap,
they can teach us a lot; both overtly and by observation of their methods
about how to create financial success.

I'd love to see more like this discussed on Hacker News, in place of a good
chunk of the VC capital obsession.

This is real money, this is what startups should be looking to create.

~~~
antonovka
My parents taught me to not disclose the amount of money I make, and to not
trust people who do -- they have every incentive to lie, be it due to ego or
simply a desire to leverage an appearance of success into actual (but usually
much diminished) success.

A 'professional blogger' is blogging about how to make money blogging. What
does that tell you?

It tells me that what makes this blogger his money (however much he actually
makes) is leveraging page views from individuals who want to know how to make
money blogging. Thus, the blogger has every incentive to inflate the numbers,
or simply lie outright about the expected return.

Unsurprisingly, he sells a "31-days to build a better blog" ebook here:
<http://www.problogger.net/31dbbb-workbook/>

~~~
ProBlogger
Hi there - I actually welcome your skepticism on this one - there's a lot of
people claiming a lot of things online these days.

The reason I actually revealed the amount I've made with Amazon in this post
was simply that I constantly get people telling me that Amazon is impossible
to make good money with because it's just lots of tiny tiny commissions (ie 5%
of a book sale isn't much).

In terms of what makes me my money - if you read the article you see that I'm
linking to my photography blog. That is my main blog (in terms of both traffic
and earnings). I do make some from ProBlogger but it's small in comparison
with the photography one.

Yep I sell an ebook from my site - it's done ok but it's not my main income
source by any means.

In terms of inflating the amount - not quite sure how to 'prove it' - I don't
like to post screenshots of earnings pages because people tend to say they are
photoshopped - but if you know anyone in Melbourne Australia and want to set
up a meeting I'm more than happy to show them my reports live and have them
verify them for you.

I'd also say that if I was going to inflate the numbers I'd probably go a
little further than I did - $119k in 6 years isn't really the most amazing
claim of making money online that I've heard :-) It's more than pocket change
but it's small time in comparison to many.

Again - happy for people to be skeptical - I actively encourage people to be
in this game, there's a lot of big claims, hype and empty promises going
around. I myself pride myself on not promising big easy money - in fact I've
written many times on how hard it is to make this kind of money, I've worked
my butt off for 7 years building my blogs up - it certainly doesn't happen
over night.

Happy to chat with anyone who wants to raise concerns over my approach and
shed as much light as I can on the topic.

~~~
whatusername
I'll put my hand up as a Melbournite if someone is desperate to check up on
Darren. Let me know if anyone is actually interested in some HN confirmation.

(for my behalf - I think Darren looks pretty legit - he makes money on stuff
like photography & the olympics - and gets famous writing about blogging)

~~~
ProBlogger
happy to have a meet if there's a genuine interest in it.

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leviathant
Tip #12: Blog about something that costs a lot of money. In other words, this
guy's running a website about digital cameras. I run a site about a band.
While the occasional album release will net me a couple thousand dollars, what
used to be a month-to-month income of $20-$50 in random CD shopping has all
but disappeared in the last couple of years.

Luckily, t-shirt sales through another site and eBay affiliate links keep my
site afloat & earn a little fun-money too - although I typically turn that
cash around and invest it in the site, whether it's better hosting, or funding
contests to keep the readers on their toes.

~~~
ProBlogger
you're right - topic is a factor both in terms of the traffic you can generate
as well as the options to monetize.

A blog about a band is a tough one to make money from. There may be
opportunities to monetize by promoting products from similar bands as well
(ie: if you like Megadeth you might also like this album from.... ummm....
Britney Spears). Otherwise there may be advertisers looking to get their
message out to the kind of people that like a certain band (if the band has a
tight demographic following).

Ultimately though - some topics are hard going. They attract audiences that
are not in a 'buying mood' and as a result affiliate promotions and even
advertising can be tough going.

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ProBlogger
I've added a 2nd post to this series with 10 more tips - hope it's helpful -
[http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/08/20/10-more-
amazon...](http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/08/20/10-more-amazon-
associate-program-lessons-i-learned-on-my-way-to-six-figure-earnings/)

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colortone
funny that none of the comments here or on the post talk about how the FTC is
going to regulate disclosure of this income verrrrrry soon

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tjmc
Not relevant to the OP as he lives in Melbourne, Australia. The ATO (our IRS)
already requires that this income is declared.

~~~
pyre
He's not talking about disclosure to the IRS. He's talking about disclosure to
readers. It isn't an issue of hiding income from the government in this case,
it's about hiding 'who gives me money' from your readers so they can have an
informed opinion on what you write (including any potential conflicts of
interest).

