Amazon Affiliates Super Low Conversions

April 30, 2012 - PRLog -- As most of you know we had our Adsense account banned…. So here I was stuck with 30+ sites and no way to monetize them so I started to do some research and tried to find the best way to monetize them. I had already used Amazon Affiliates in the past and thought this would be a great easy way to change all these sites to over to Amazon Affiliates. My thinking was it will be quick, easy and best of all I will be rich when all these people start buying from the Amazon store through my affiliate links. I am in no way an expert in Amazon Affiliates and i’m sure some people may say “you just did it wrong” and alot of people I know make money from Amazon Affiliates. This may be the case….but read the heading “Amazon Affiliates Super Low Conversions”. I’m just saying you will need to do this on a huge scale or have a large number of click throughs for it to really work. And yes I know this is probably the case for most affiliate marketing unless you have really targeted your audience well.

So If you don’t know how Amazon Affiliates works let me explain real quick. You Throw up a picture, link or product of some sort on any of your sites. You can even build out an entire store if you want which is a fairly cool concept but in practice not sure it’s  definitely not as good as it sounds. Then when someone clicks your link you get  paid….. Wrong first they need to go to the Amazon store and actually buy something…..get it shipped. Then you will be paid 4% on this item. So sell a $10 book and get 40cents! Most products on Amazon have a scale where the more items that you sell the higher your commission you start to get. If you sell 6 items in one month your commission goes to 6%. Then if you’re lucky enough to sell over 3131 and you will get 8.5%. Pretty good deal at 8% but it won’t be an easy at all to get 3131 shipped (this is not clicks) think 1% conversion on your clicks and you’re looking at over 300,000 click throughs to get to this bracket……you will be making good cash by this stage though  .

So anyway before I thought of all these things I was thinking I have no option for these sites so i’ll try turning these sites into amazon stores. Now after 2 months here are the results-
-300+ clicks
-0 conversions
-$0

I have earned $0….. absolutely nothing. You would think that I would have had at least one conversions right? Some of these sites were something like (example only)- weddingdress.com and had exact match wedding products on the sites but still did not convert.

In comparison I have started making  travel sites and have had results like this ( this is just one day)
-13 click
-6 conversions
-$8.07
I know its early days  but so far “hotelscombined” has smashed amazon affiliates out of the park! But maybe Amazon Stores work better on a huge scale and with bigger Authority sites. Im sure there are hundreds of other less known affiliates out there that would have the same results as hotel affiliates. Check out Hide My Ass Affiliates. “Refer customers to our Pro VPN service and earn up to 100% commission on new sales generated, and up to 35% for future renewals”

1 month (new)   100%   $11.52
1 month (renewal)   35%   $4.03
6 months (new)   40%   $20.26
6 months (renewal)   30%   $15.20
12 months (new)   40%   $31.46
12 months (renewal)   30%   $23.60
This is a pretty sweet deal if you can get into this niche.

I know people Chris Guthrie make money from Amazon Affiliates but how does he really do it? His blog has some good tips and tricks but you will need to buy his course for $97.00 here if you really want to know. He also has a plugin for  amazon easyazon and even a theme for sale. These may be worth getting as he claims to make $64,000 a year in amazon sales (totally baller)! So if you’re interested in Amazon affiliates he really is an authority figure in that area. I would have to say however the sales in selling his courses, plugins and themes would probably top his Amazon sales….Not that that’s a bad thing, he is a super smart guy and I admire the way he does business. I would love $64,000 a year in amazon sales





So before I totally slag off amazon Affiliates here are some benefits that you get when using their program (this is just so they don’t try to sue me)

Payments Can Add Up- It may start off small but can build over time and can build up on itself when you ship more items the percentage eventually goes up that you earn on ever item.
Amazon is trusted- So many people know of amazon so more chance of them buying
Holidays Periods- Everyone buys things in the holiday period so you will be paid more
Multiple items-  you will be paid on items even if it wasnt listed on your site
Commission increase as you sell- sell more shiz get paid more and higher percentage
24 hour cookie- The cookie is 24hours any product brought in that time and you will be paid
Different ways of Payment- many ways to get paid from them
Multiple Items- People Buy More than One Item…. usually people go to amazon and buy 2+ items.
Many Products- more niches to choose from as there are so many products on Amazon

So Amazon may be a good deal for you and don’t get me wrong i’m sure a whole bunch of people make money from it and may be outraged from this post.  If you really know what you’re doing it may work for you, it’s just not for me. I may use it in the future but at this stage there is no way i would consider it again. 300 clicks and not to see a single dime is very demoralizing. Its not that I needed that $1 to live or eat or anything, I needed to see that first $1 in sales to give me confidence and an indication that Amazon Affiliates could work.