AFFILIATE
MARKETING
Here’s how to make
money from an Affiliate program
1.
Build Traffic to your
Blog
2.
Build Loyalty and
Trust with Your Readers
3.
Think about the Intent
of your Readers
4.
Find Relevant Products
to Promote
5.
Get People in the Door
at Amazon
6.
Use Social Proof with
Best Seller lists
7.
Use Reader Reviews
8.
Make Genuine
Recommendations
9.
Share Informational
Links
10.
Share Contextual Links
11.
Promote Specials,
Promotions and Discounts
12.
Share multiple
affiliate links per post
13.
Link images to Amazon
14.
Use Buy Now Buttons
15.
Consider Multiple
Promotions per Campaign
16.
Focus Upon the
Holidays
17.
Promote Related
Products
18.
Promote Pre-Orders
19.
Track your Promotions
20.
Small Ticket Items Can
Add Up Quick
21.
Big Ticket Items are
the Cream on Top
Practical Tips to Make Money with the Amazon
Affiliate Program
1. Traffic Traffic Traffic
Let’s start with the most obvious point – one
of the biggest factors in the upward swing in my Amazon Affiliate earnings (in
the chart above) has been the corresponding upward swing in traffic.
Build Traffic - Affiliate Marketing |
As with most methods
of making money from
blogging, the more
eyeballs that see your affiliate promotions – the better chance you have of
them converting. Of course, this is a generalization as not all kinds
of traffic converts – but more of that in the next point.
Does that mean it’s
not worth experimenting with Amazon’s Affiliate program if you don’t get much
traffic?
I think it’s
definitely worth using early on. While you won’t earn a heap, you will
learn a lot and earning a few dollars (or cents) is better than none.
In the first 3 months of using
Amazon I earned a whopping $31.80 (around 30
cents a day). Sure, it wasn’t much
but I often wonder what would have
happened if I’d let
that minuscule amount discourage me and stop my from trying!?
So yes, experiment early
but if you’re just starting out your main focus needs to be on creating
great content and building traffic to your blog. In the long run, that
is what will help you earn more from Amazon (and other income streams).
2. Loyalty and Trust Convert
Another major factor
in the increase in earnings has been the type of readership I’ve gathered on my
blogs.
While I do get a fair
bit of search engine traffic, I’ve found that in most cases (and there is an
exception below) search visitors don’t sign up to the affiliate
programs on my blogs. Loyal and repeat readers do.
The main reason for
this is that readers who connect with you on a daily basis, over the long haul,
begin to trust you (and your blog). When you make a recommendation, or do a
review, they’re more likely to take that advice that someone who has give
arrived from a search engine link.
3. The Intent of Readers Matters
Another big factor in
the equation of Amazon Affiliate conversions is the intent your readers
have when they visit your blog.
I began to understand
this in the early days of Digital Photography School. I looked at the growing traffic to the site but realised that
my Amazon affiliate earnings weren’t keeping up with the traffic growth I was
experiencing.
I realised that DPS
was a blog that largely shared ‘tips on how to use a camera’. As a result, it
wasn’t really attracting readers who were in a ‘buying mood’. In fact, I ran a
survey and found that many of my readers had recently purchased a camera and
were on my site because they wanted to learn how to use it.
So I began to add to
the mix of content on the site with more articles relevant to people buying a
digital camera. I wrote tips with advice on buying cameras, reviews of digital
cameras and equipment etc. This culminated in a whole new section devoted to ‘cameras and gear‘.
Slowly this has
attracted a new type of reader to the blog: readers who are researching their
next camera purchase, readers who are more likely to click a link to Amazon and
who, once there, are more likely to make a purchase.
If you want to attract
search traffic that is more likely to convert, consider creating
content that attracts people in a ‘buying mood’.
4. Relevancy Matters
This is another common
sense tip that many of us mess up. The more relevant your products are to your
audience, the better chance you’ll have of converting.
·
Promoting iPods on a
blog that largely talks about spirituality and you’re unlikely to make a lot of
sales (believe me, I tried). Try promoting relevant books, CDs and DVDs instead.
·
Rather than promoting
perfume on your travel blog try travel books, luggage and other travel
products.
Amazon doesn’t work
with every topic and sometimes it is hard to find a product
that matches your topic. Try different products related to your topic
and track which products convert best for your audience.
5. Get People in the Door then Let Amazon Do
What They’re Good At
One of the great
things about Amazon is that it is a site people are familiar with and trust and
they’re very good at converting visitors into buyers. Amazon has honed their
site to present people with products relevant to them (based upon previous
surfing and buying habits) and over many years they have tweaked their site so
converts really well.
As a result, I find
that if you can people to visit the Amazon site (pretty much for any reason) a
percentage of them will naturally end up buying something. The cool thing is
that whether they buy the thing you linked to or not – you still earn a
commission!
I have found that one
size doesn’t fit all. Rather, specific types promotions of particular products
work well with Amazon. I have also had some success by getting people in the
Amazon door for other reasons. For example I’ve experimented a couple of times
on dPS with running a posts that
gave readers a hypothetical $1000 to spend on photography gear and asked them
to surf around Amazon and choose what they wanted to buy. The result was 350 comments (a fun community
building exercise) and quite a few sales and commissions!
While a ‘get people in
the door’ strategy might seem to grate a little with my ‘Relevancy’ tip above –
the key is to get people in the door in a relevant way. In my
case, I was getting my photography readers to go window-shopping on Amazon, for
cameras.
Once they are there,
the purchases they make might not be ‘relevant’ to your blog but their
motivation to visit should be.
6. Social Proof Marketing 1 – Best Seller
Lists
People are more
willing to make a purchase if they feel, they’re not alone – that others have
and are buying with them. I’m sure there is an insightful
psychological reason for this but from where I sit, buying seems to
have become a communal activity.
One of the most
powerful social proof marketing strategies I’ve used, when promoting Amazon
affiliate links, is creating ‘Best Seller’ type lists for readers. These lists
show readers what is currently popular, in terms of purchases in our community.
A good example of this
technique in action is my Popular Digital Cameras and Gearpage on DPS. I update this page every few
months and prominently link to it on the blog. Those two actions together,
convert readers to buyers really well.
To construct the list,
I simply go through the Amazon affiliate reports/stats and find which products
are selling the best from within my community. I then categorise those results
by product and ‘Waahlaaa’ – we have a best seller list that shows what readers
of my site are buying in the last few months.
Bestseller lists
convert well because readers
know that others in their community are buying these products too. I guess it’s
Wisdom of the Crowd mentality but it works!
Another quick example
of this was a post, 23
Photography Book Reviews [Ranked], where I ranked the top selling photography books in order of
sales. I additionally linked each book to reviews we’d done on the blog.
Note: the key with these ‘best seller’ lists is to
drive traffic to them. Two ways to do this is to prominently link to these
pages from within your blog plus linking to them from within other posts. This
second method means your post doesn’t just convert for a day or two.
Also be sure to
promote them through social media channels because these lists of what is hot
are often shared well.
Another Note: Another way to create a bestseller list is to
look at the ones that Amazon creates. For every category on Amazon, you can
rank products based on how they are selling (popularity).
For example – here’s the Camera and Photo best selling page (affiliate link) that ranks the best
selling cameras and gear. You can even drill down further to look at best selling DSLRs, Flashes and Lenses.
These lists give you
hints as to what products are hot to promote but you could easily pull them
together into a list of products to feature on your own site.
7. Social Proof Marketing 2 – Reader Reviews
I used to review all
the photography books featured on DPS. It was mainly because I couldn’t find
anyone else to do it and partly because I’m a control freak.
However, one day I had
a reader offer to write a book review for me. I knew the reader so I was
confident the review would be OK to publish. As with all my reviews, it had an
affiliate link to Amazon in it. I was a little skeptical about whether the
review would convert. I thought my readers might not respond as well to a
stranger’s review of the book. I was wrong.
The review not only
converted as well as my normal reviews – it did even better than normal!
This could have been
for many reasons but one reason I suspect came into play was the way I
introduced the reviewer. I didn’t build them up to be an “expert”. I introduced
them as a ‘DPS reader’, a regular reader who wanted to share some thoughts on a
book that had helped them.
I suspect the social
proof concept came into play a little here. Readers saw another reader
recommending something in a genuine way and wanted to get a copy for
themselves.
Note: interestingly Amazon themselves uses reader
reviews as a fairly major feature of their site. Why? They
work!
8. Genuine Recommendations and Reviews
Apart from my ‘best
seller lists’ mentioned above, there are two main ways that I promote Amazon
affiliate links.
The first is in
‘Reviews’ for products (the second I’ll cover below in the next point). These
links are where I, or one of my writers, will genuinely test a product and give
it the once over.
I insist my writers
actually read the books, test the cameras and use the software products they
are reviewing. I encourage them to be as genuine and unbiased as possible, to
point out both the pros and cons of the product. While there’s some temptation
to hype up a product and only talk about its positive points, a real review
will help your reader relationship over the long haul and I find actually helps
promote sales.
Review links work well
because it’s usually people who are considering buying a product who really read
reviews. It comes back to capturing readers with the buying mood/intent
mentioned in point #3.
9. Informational Links
The other type of
Amazon affiliate link I use is when I’m mentioning a product in passing and/or
a new product is announced. For example, when Nikon announced the Nikon D300s we immediately posted about the news
because it was a notable and anticipated camera announcement. The camera was
not yet available in stores and we were not able to get a review sample yet –
but it was available for Pre-Order on Amazon so we linked to it.
There was no
recommendation or review attached to the link but it was a relevant
link for readers who wanted to know more (price, specs, pictures etc).
Some readers even pre-ordered the cameras from that link.
Similarly, if we’re
writing about Photoshop or another photography post-production software we’ll
usually include a link to the software. Again it’s not a review link but rather
an informational/contextual type link.
These don’t tend to
convert as well in terms of sales but they do get people ‘in the door’ at
Amazon that can help with sales from time to time.
10. Contextual Promoting is King
One of the biggest
reasons my initial attempts with Amazon simply didn’t convert was that I
thought it’d be enough to slap a button on my sidebar, featuring a product or
Amazon.
Amazon gives
publishers a lot of these type banners or widgets but despite trying almost all
of them, I had little or no success with using them. Instead – 99% of my
conversions have come from links to Amazon from within blog posts about
the products themselves.
By all means
experiment with the widgets and buttons Amazon gives you. If they do convert,
then more power to you but every blogger I’ve talked to that has had success
with Amazon tells me that contextual links, from within blog posts,
work best.
11. Promote Specials, Promotions and Discounts
Amazon has hardly any
products that don’t have a listed discount. Most books are as much as 30% off
the recommended retail price and at different times during the year, Amazon
runs other special discounts and promotions on different products or product
categories.
Keep an eye out for
these kinds of promotions becausethey can be well worth promoting (if
relevant to your readership). In fact, last time Amazon had cameras on special,
I promoted the sale to my newsletter readers and had readers emailing me to
thank me for letting them know about it.
Another related tip is
that when you’re writing a product review and Amazon has a listed discount
– include a note about the discount. For example, in this recent photography book review I link at the bottom to Amazon and note
that it is currently 36% off.
11. Multiple Links Per Post
When I used to write
product reviews, I used to include just one affiliate link. For some reason, I
thought that a single link would be enough and I didn’t want to run the risk of
annoying readers with more links. However, one day it struck me that the reviews
I was writing were quite long and by the time people got to the end of them,
the link to Amazon was no longer visible.
At this point I
started to experiment with a link at the top and tail of the review. I did some
heat map tracking to see which links were the most clickable and also used
Amazon’s tracking codes to see which one would ‘convert’ to a sale more often.
The results were
interesting:
·
Both affiliate links
were clicked quite a bit but the link under the article was
clicked slightly more than the link at the top (despite being under
the fold)
·
The
link at the end of the review resulted in more conversions than the link at the top
·
The people who clicked
on the top link still purchased (although not as many) but interestingly it
wasn’t always the product I reviewed. It was often related products
I concluded that
having read a product review, people felt more informed to make a purchasing
decision. As a result, if they did click a link after reading the review they
were more likely to buy the product. Those clicking on the top link seemed to
be more in a ‘surfing’ mode. They clicked on the link less because they wanted
to buy it but more out of interest to learn more. Some bought the product and
some bought other products once they were ‘in the door’ at Amazon.
These days I generally
(but not always) use two links per review post.
·
The first link is
usually on the first time I use the product name
·
The second link
usually has a stronger call to action e.g. ‘check it out on Amazon’ or ‘get a
price on XXXX’ or ‘buy your own copy of XXXX here’.
12. Link Images to Amazon
While doing some heat
map tracking of where people were clicking on my reviews I learned that there
was quite a bit of ‘click activity’ on images of the products, even when those
images were not linked to anything.
Note: I use CrazyEgg for creating heatmaps – it has the option to track clicks
on all areas of your page, even where there’s no link to click.
There’s something
about an image that people are drawn to and that makes them click. I began to experiment with linking
images to Amazon with my affiliate links, setting up a tracking code to test
whether they converted. While they didn’t convert as well as text links, they
did convert in some instances and to this day I still use this technique most
of the time.
13. Buy Now Buttons
This is a technique
I’ve heard others having real success with but one I need to experiment with
more.
It basically involves
using a ‘buy now’ button in your post. I suggest placing it below a review as a
starting point. I’ve written more about the technique here but the first time I heard this being applied, the blogger
actually used the yellow Amazon Buy Nowbutton in his posts. The
familiarity of the button seemed to help increase conversions.
Again – it’s not
something I’ve done much of but it could be worth a try!
14. Multiple Promotions Per Campaign
I’ve talked about
using multiple links in a post but another way to increase conversions on a
particularly hot product is to promote it more than once, over time. I only do
this on very popular or highly anticipated products but it certainly works
well.
The key is to find a
number of different ways to talk about the product over a few weeks (or
longer). I wouldn’t do all of the following for a single product but here’s a
few ways I’ve done it on occasion in the past.
·
If a highly
anticipated camera is announced by one of the manufacturers, I immediately
publish a post announcing it. Amazon often has advance notice of these
announcements and will usually have a page up for it where it can be
pre-ordered on the same day it’s announced. I link to it immediately in my
announcement post.
·
A few days later I
might post a post asking readers what they think about the camera or one of its
features. For example, I recently wrote a post asking readers what they think about the idea
of a camera with an inbuilt projectorafter the release of the Nikon Coolpix S1000pj.
·
When the camera hits
stores, I might post a short post announcing that it’s available.
·
When we get a review product,
we’ll post a review of it with our recommendations.
·
We might, at some
point, post some other reader reviews of the product if enough of our readers
have it.
·
We might also compile
a list of quotes from other sites that have also reviewed the product.
·
We might pull in and
embed some videos from YouTube that show the products features.
Again – I would NEVER do
all of these things with a single product but if it’s a significant product
release and newsworthy over a month or so around its release we might cover it
in 2-3 posts.
You know your
readership best so tune in to where they’re at and whether you’ve posted too
much on the same product. You don’t want to over do it but if it’s a product
your readers are discussing and are interested in there’s plenty of ways to
bring it up (and promote it on Amazon) more than once.
15. Focus Upon the Holidays
If you check out this
I shared here on ProBlogger back in 2009 you’ll notice that the yearly 4th
quarters were usually bigger than those proceeding them. The reason is simple –
Christmas and Thanksgiving.
The only December that
I saw a downswing was when Google temporarily de-indexed my first site for a
few weeks. Every other year there has been healthy rises for the later half of
November and all of December (the last few Decembers have been massive).
The upswing in sales
around Christmas is partly natural as people are more in a ‘buying mood’ at
that time of year. I like to take advantage of this by creating content
that is specific to the holiday season.
Content such as buying
guides, reader questions getting people talking about what they’re looking to
buy or would like to receive for Christmas, lists of popular/recommended
products etc.
16. Promote Related Products
One of the challenges
I came up against when writing about cameras regularly was that while a certain
percentage of my readers were actively shopping for a new camera, many readers
already owned one. In fact, writing a ‘photography tips’ blog means you attract
more people wanting to learn how to use a camera that they already own, rather
than buying a new one.
As a result, I
often do more promotions on ‘related products’ than cameras
themselves. That means promoting lenses, flashes, memory cards and other
photographic accessories as well as photography books (which is strongly
related to my core ‘tips’ focus).
One great way to get
ideas for related products to promote is to look at the stats/reports that
Amazon gives you to see which products readers are buying. After a
while you’ll start to notice that they’re not only buying the products you
directly promote but other products as well. Some will be completely irrelevant
to your niche – but many times trends will emerge that could signal other
products that it might be worth promoting.
Let’s look at an
example of this. Following is a screen capture of a small part of the orders on
my Amazon account a while back. I have arranged them in order of how many were
sold.
What you can see in
this screen grab is that the #1 electronic item sold in the period was a Canon
50mm lens. You can see that in the ‘product Link Clicks column’ that people
came to Amazon directly through a link from my site to this item – it’s
something I promoted on DPS.
However look at the
next most popular item (the Tiffen 52mm UV filter). You can see in the ‘Product
Link Clicks’ column that there is a ‘0’ figure. I never promoted this product
directly on DPS – yet 44 people bought it.
The next two items
were things I promoted but the next 8 were things that people bought in number
by themselves without me promoting them at all. To me, knowing which
items people buy without my prompting is GOLD!
It’s possible that
Amazon is promoting them heavily or that one person is buying a lot of the one
product, or they just could be great products that almost sell themselves for
one reason or another.
Whatever the
reason, I’ll look into them further and see if they could be products I
should be promoting somehow.
You can bet there will
be a post on dPS soon that highlights some of these ‘hot/best selling
accessories’ among our readers!
17. Promote Pre-Orders
I’ve already mentioned
this one above but one of the things that I do is promote the ability to
Pre-Order products on Amazon.
It doesn’t happen for
every product but I find that Amazon will sometimes create pages for new
products before they’re even available for purchase.
When I post an article
announcing a new camera I always check Amazon first to see if they’ve
already created a page for that product. If they have, I make sure to mention
that the product is already available for pre-ordering on Amazon.
For example a couple
of years ago when Canon Released the Canon EOS 50D DSLR I used this technique. This post generated 10 sales of the
camera before it was even available in stores. While two of them cancelled
their orders later 8 sales of a $1000+ product certainly add up!
18. Track Your Campaigns
Until a bit over a
year ago, I just promoted every single Amazon affiliate link with the one
tracking code. I was lazy and while I saw which products were selling, I never
really knew what links on my blog were converting and what ones were not.
Eventually I decided
that I needed to know more about what was working for meso I
started tracking campaigns. Amazon allows you to create 100 tracking ids (once
logged into Amazon Associates you manage them at this link).
I didn’t realize there
was a limit until a few years back when I hit the maximum. I wish Amazon would
increase it! To be honest, I find their tracking system pretty messy and think it
needs an overhaul however, it is great for testing what works and what
doesn’t. Most of what I’ve written about in other tips in these articles
was learned through tracking.
Because there’s a 100
tracking code limit, I suggest creating a few general tracking
codes, one for each blog and perhaps one for each category on your
blog. Then use other codes for major promotions that you’re doing. This way not
every Amazon link will be tracked but important ones will.
Note: I’m told that Amazon do give more tracking
codes if you email them but it’s a bit of a drawn out process. If you need more
it’s worth a try (I know I’ll be trying).
19. Small Ticket Items Add Up
One of the most common
criticisms I hear about the Amazon’s Affiliate program is that there are just
too many small commissions. Getting a commission of a small
percentage on a $15 book just doesn’t cut it for many people. Some people
use this to justify not using Amazon at all while others just promote
big-ticket items.
While I agree that
these small commissions are not much on their own – they do add up.
Yesterday I earned
$506.03 from Amazon. It was actually a pretty good day, higher than average.
One might think the higher than normal figure came from selling some big ticket
items but that wasn’t the case. The highest commission for the day was a $21.34
commission. The vast majority of the sales were books sold from my list of photography books, which we promoted on social media recently.
The other beauty of
getting lots of smaller ticket sales is that they go towards increasing
the commission tier you’re on. The more items you sell (not the more
$’s you refer – but item numbers) the higher % commission you make from Amazon.
In the screen capture
above you can see that when you go past 6 items referred, you move from a 4%
commission to a 6% commission. If you keep referring more, the commission
increases. The only category of product not included in this is consumer
electronics (frustrating for a camera guy!).
This means that if
you refer enough small ticket items you can double your commissions.
Note: Amazon lets you choose two types of
payment structures – ‘Classic’ and ‘Performance’. The classic one has a 4% flat
commission – while the ‘performance’ one has the tiers. I’m not sure why anyone
would select ‘classic’ so make sure you choose ‘Performance’!
20. Big Ticket Items are the Cream on Top
While I strongly
advise promoting small ticket items to help boost your sale numbers and
commission figures, it’s also worth targeting some bigger ticket promotions
too.
In my experience, they
don’t convert anywhere near as well as cheaper items but when they do, they can
give your revenue a real boost. As someone promoting cameras that can sell for
several thousand dollars, I’ve had single commissions in the hundreds of
dollars range (even when the commission is limited to 4% on consumer
electronics).
zx
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