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Help!
As I've said so often in so many threads, I have 1600+ pages on my site, get 170,000 to 200,000+ visitors a month, and as many as a million page views per month. 200+ of the 1600+ pages are for Amazon books that directly relate to my niche.
Once a year I get a check for about $100 from Amazon.
I am starting to give up on Amazon too.... I have their automated link on each and every one of my pages with a glaring ZERO sales....while Adsense is producing something every day...
This is my humble opinion on Amazon links and affiliate tools.
If you were replying to Truegho, my apologies for interrupting.
dickbaker's situation would be more frustrating to me, since it sounds like he's basically doing what most people would say he's "supposed" to do to convert amazon ads - linking to specific products from pages about those products. I do notice there's only a mention of "books" -amazon sells a lot of things besides books that might tie into the interests of whoever your site visitors are.
But even though I know of some people who make a fair amount of money from amazon commissions, I don't know of anyone who makes a "killing" from amazon alone - or, actually, from any one affiliate program alone. I use links from other affiliate programs for things amazon doesn't carry, or for things amazon does carry but at a lower commission.
And unless you're in dickbaker's situation, there's nothing to stop anyone from running both amazon and Adsense on the same site, so it's not really a case of needing to choose one or the other.
In any rate, the preformance is disappointing.
I run a couple dozen short pages with 5-7 books on each, get a check for a couple hundred every quarter. Its nothing, compared to AS, but it might hold a possibility of generating $2K/year with a little more work.
Specific links to specific products from original content about the product is the way to go.
And IMHO this very much applies to amazon. Why should I let them - much less their algorithm - pick my ads when I know much better than they do what my site visitors are most likely to be interested in? Omakase/content-type ads may work fine for programs where the visitor just has to be curious enough about something to click on the ad, but when you have to get the visitor to actually buy something I think the game changes.
That said, as long as you're making the decisions, IMVHO it's okay to break the rules once in awhile. I have a few thousand pages to play around with, and when amazon was testing the Omakase links I let them take over a few of my ad boxes - and whatta ya know?! Someone actually bought one of those belly dancing videos the program seemed to be stuck on! But there's no way I'd let them do that on every page, especially ones targeted to specific items.
It's also a general rule not to use "Recommended Product" links, but I have one site that's centered around the work of several different authors. If I have a fairly general page about one of them (i.e., not a review of a specific book), I'll sometimes use a Recommended Product link with the author's name as the keyword - especially if the author's written a lot of books - and I've made some sales that way. But I'm still keeping control.
And it's a fact that banner ads don't get clicked on. But I still use them (very sparingly). Why? I don't expect anyone to click on a banner about "Super Saver Shipping," but I like to remind people occasionally that it's an option so that if a visitor is thinking, "Hmmm... I could buy that from amazon instead of traipsing out to the book store, but I'd have to pay for shipping..." a light will come on saying, "...but not if I have an order for $25 or more." The problem with this idea is having no way to check if it's really helping sales, but I try to put myself in the place of a site visitor who doesn't automatically know all the ins and outs of how amazon operates.
FarmBoy
My main site happens to be about books, so that's mostly what I sell - along with related DVDs - but even there I can spread out to some other merchandise. IMHO, that's part of knowing your audience. What else might they be interested in, besides the specific topic of the site?
