Amazon Omakase Links came out of beta

[moltar]

Just received a mailing list notification about that.

Omakase - leave it up to us! Omakase links will show an Associate's visitors what they're most likely to buy based on Amazon's unique understanding of the site, the user, and the page itself. To create Omakase links, simply modify the template and appearance elements below and copy the resulting code on to your page. Then leave the rest to Omakase!

Between November 14, 2006 and December 31, 2006 you can earn an extra 4% on units referred through your Omakase links (up to a maximum of $500 per Associate).

[ashii]

but can you use them with adsense?

[Phaedrus]

no, as far as I understand, which is a shame because the ads are cool and blend really well

[RonS]

I tried Omakase links, and was rewarded with exactly $0 in commissions.

I also mocked up a page and sent it to AdSense support and asked if they could be run on the same site and they said sure, as long as they don't mimick AdSense ads, which they don't.

I didn't ask if I could run them on the same page as AdSense; I wouldn't want to as the eCPM is much lower with Amazon in general, and I assumed it to be the case with Omakase.

Just my take on it, YMMV.
Good luck.

[darkmage]

Well yes, you can. Ask Adsense support and you should get an answer along the lines of that Amazon is OK. It's not considered an ad network per se. No harm in asking them again.

But, like others, I found it to be zero value - zero as in no income at all. My hand-crafted links worked much much better - not that they could have got worse.

[Beagle]

Is the question about Adsense based on the idea that the new links might be considered "contextual"? From what I've seen of them, they're more based on the individual user (assuming the user has ever browsed on Amazon). And since they're not PPC, I don't think they'd be considered a problem with Adsense. Just like any other Amazon link, the customer has to actually buy something in order for there to be a commission.

A few of my pages where I run Amazon recommended product ads got "hi-jacked" during the testing period for Omakase (just ads based on categories; they left my keyword-based ones alone). I got a good laugh out of some of the things that showed up when I was checking my own pages (therefore supposedly based on the site content along with my own Amazon browsing/buying habits), but I wouldn't want to depend on them! I've yet to figure out why they were feeding me ads for belly dancing videos...?

The reason I could laugh is that even my "real" recommended product ads get very little business, so I wasn't losing anything. The only Amazon ads that sell anything on my sites are ones that I put in specifically, linking to specific items.

The only place I might think about trying them is one site that has pages of downloadable web graphics, with no or very little text - just because it's hard to find any ads that will work there. I'd never replace another kind of ad with these.

[Beagle]

Well, I take it all back. I just checked my Amazon stats and I made a whopping $3.68 from belly dance videos during the Omakase test! Gee, maybe I should change my approach. ;) It is interesting, though, that I made $0.00 from my regular recommended product links. Do you think Amazon actually knows what they're doing?

(The vast majority of sales were, as always, through direct product links.)

[freitasm]

I've asked AdSense Support when Omakase was in beta and got the go ahead - YMMV.

Anyway, interesting about the belly dance books/videos. A friend running Omakase got the same "targetted" ads, even though he never wrote about dancing or belly dancing...

Weird algorithm I'd say...

[Beagle]

The only possible connection I can think of is that the first onscreen appearance of the actor the site is about was a nonspeaking part in a dance-related music video (he was 7 years old at the time). I ran across a small stash of used copies of the out-of-print video release on Amazon and posted an ad for it. I did sell some (from watching the numbers of available used copies on Amazon and the numbers being ordered through my site, I think that ad accounted for all of the sales), and bought one myself - not through my own link, of course. But that was over a year ago, and I've certainly sold more of a lot of other things since then. Wonder if that's bringing up "dance" items?

Of course, the fact that some of the belly dancing videos actually sold on the site would, I suppose, program the Omakase ads to show more of them.