Amazon Associates, Amazon Associates, Amazon Associates - How I earned ~$857.18 worth of money with Amazon's affiliate referral program...

Want to sell more Amazon Associates products? Stay tuned to future posts listing my Amazon Associates income...

Amazon Associates, Amazon Associates, Amazon Associates - How I earned ~$857.18 worth of money with Amazon's affiliate referral program...

Since it's February 1, 2009, I just calculated my Amazon Associates referral program earnings around the world.


Yes, I'm giving the Amazon's around the world (Amazon Germany, Amazon UK and maybe Amazon France) another shot, after being inspired by James over at Dominating Amazon. (Note -- Dominating Amazon website has been down lately -- Amazon probably confiscated that domain name from him. I've seen where Amazon does not play about sites have "Amazon" in their URL. I remember them confiscating another one.)

Anyway, I did earn $857.18 in Amazon Associates referral income for the month of January 2009, counting up Amazon US, Amazon Germany and Amazon UK -- but I spent $761.02 in Adwords advertising to promote them!

Now, with an approximate $96.16 in net Amazon Associates earnings for the month, obviously I did a few things wrong, namely:

Update: I discovered I was linking to Amazon from Google Adwords the wrong way. If you advertise Amazon products via Google Adwords, make sure your URLs are formatted like this, for example, with your tag at the end:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000ZHIZ50/pm-20

Not like this, for example:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000ZHIZ50?ie=UTF8&tag=pm-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000ZHIZ50

I guess Google Adwords and/or Amazon doesn't like all those redirects.

EITHER WAY, MAKE SURE TO COMPARE YOUR ADWORDS CLICKS AGAINST YOUR AMAZON ASSOCIATES CLICKS (UNDER EITHER THE PRODUCT CLICKS ORDERED, OR PRODUCT CLICKS ITEMS NOT ORDERED IN YOUR AMAZON ASSOCIATES ACCOUNT EACH DAY TO ENSURE THE CLICK YOU'RE PAYING FOR ON ADWORDS ARE IN FACT BEING TRACKED IN AMAZON.)

• Spending too much per click -- especially using Google Adwords recommended Max CPC per click and max budget based on their estimates
• Using too general keywords such as "side-by-side refrigerators" instead of more specific model numbers

But a few things I did on purpose -- like advertise broadly on the keyword "hell" for a while, leading people to my favorite "23 Minutes in Hell" book and "Hell" follow-up books above as a sort of ministry.

So these earnings I'll only see in heaven when I meet the people who gave their lives over to Christ as a result!

What I did correctly to earn more Amazon Associates money -- and how I'll do more of it in February 2009 and beyond:

Basically much of what I learned in Mastering Search Advertising: How the Top 3% of Search Advertisers Dominate Google AdWords and from experience and research around the net holds true:

• Bid on specific keywords, model numbers of products -- like "samsung lnt 4661f" or whatever -- those are the people ready to buy the product
• Bid on LOTS of specific keywords -- not just a few here and there
• Don't spend too much per keyword. The cool thing about leading folks from Adwords directly to Amazon products via your Amazon Associates links is that many of those keywords will automatically be assigned an "OK" or "Great" status in Google Adwords, so you'll only have to pay maybe $.05 to $.12 per click or so. But play around.
• Don't limit yourself to only Amazon United States' affiliate program. Try Amazon Germany, Amazon Canada, Amazon UK and Amazon France, too. (It might take a while to get those "cheques" in the mail, I'm warning you. And your bank may look at you all goofy with those cheques made out in Euros and Pounds, but it could pay off. And I'm still trying to figure out how to get an international account to get the funds direct deposited online. Citibank UK's international account says I need $100,000 minimum -- Deutsche Bank in Germany sent me an email saying I could open an account -- but I believe they said I could make credits but not debits!)
• Just this morning I was thrilled to learn, bless the Lord above, I sold two Germany big screen TVs that'll net me around $120.00 in Germany Amazon Associates earnings -- and lately, I've only been paying around 3 bucks per day to advertise totally in Amazon US, Germany and UK products online.
• It takes time. First I tried to advertise all these keywords -- too broadly -- just because I wasn't patient and I wanted to get some action going, assuming if I got 200 click thrus per day that those people would really buy some stuff on Amazon.
• I discovered that it's really not the QUANTITY of clicks but QUALITY of clicks. Someone searching for "samsung lnt 5281f" may be a lot more likely to buy a TV than someone searching for "big screen TV" online.
• So use Google Adword's keyword tool thoroughly -- I also have used "Amazon Hunter 2" to find products -- though it's not exact, and running it can make your Firefox go goofy, and make Google think you're running spam queries.
• Anyway, here's the breakdown by country for the month of January, keep plugging away. Maybe I'll write an ebook later this Spring as my earnings improve to help people with the dirty, beautiful details on making money with Amazon Associates online:

Amazon Associates Earnings United States January 2009:
Total items shipped 281
Referral Rate (Increase this to 7.50% by referring 40 more items) 7.00%
Referral Fees $653.40
Gift Certificate/Card Earnings $2.40
Kindle Subscription Earnings $0.00
Prime Subscription Earnings $0.00
TOTAL EARNINGS THIS MONTH $655.80

Amazon Associates Earnings United Kingdom January 2009:
Total items dispatched 8
Referral Rate 4.00%
Referral Fees GBP 110.94
DVD Rental - New Subscriptions Bonus GBP 0.00
Gift Certificate Earnings GBP 0.00
TOTAL EARNINGS THIS MONTH GBP 110.94

Amazon Associates Earnings Germany January 2009:
Versandte Artikel -- gesamt6
Werbekostenerstattungsrate 4,00%
Werbekostenerstattung EUR 32,07
DVD-Verleih Neuanmelder-Prämie EUR 0,00
Geschenkgutscheine - Werbekostenerstattung EUR 0,00
Werbekostenerstattung dieses Monats -- gesamt EUR 32,07