Amazon affiliate links - internal tracking codes?

amazon affiliate link category internal tracking

[nquinn]

Does anyone know if you can pass additional parameters to Amazon's affiliate links for internal tracking purposes?

For example, our site has a variety of site sections, and it would be great it we could tell which sections are generating the most revenue.

Something like:

[amazon.com...]
%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&category=cars

I'm hoping that their reporting tool will allow one extra parameter like this. I couldn't find anything in the documentation.

Anyone?

[purplecape]

The Amazon system doesn't allow you to do that, but you CAN use what they call "Tracking IDs" in place of your Associate ID, in a link. They limit you to 100 (which you can set up yourself on the Associate area), but can request more. So you could just use one of those IDs for each section.

[OzJackson]

nquinn,
I'm very new to this Affiliate Program cape and will need some assistance in trying to find out which section a Visitor the site click on and what the are looking at. Is this what a Tracking ID does ? I'm with this Yahoo and Amazon affiliate programs/

How do you add this Tracking ID to the various section of the website if your website is being hosted by say Online Hosting Network?

[piatkow]

The tracking ID simply partitions your sales statistics. How you use it is down to you.

You don't "add" the tracking ID, you decide which tracking ID you want when you first create the link or widget code within your Amazon account. To retrofit a new tracking ID you will need to create new codes replace the existing Amazon links and widgets on your site.

If you are usng multiple tracking IDs on the same site there is always a risk of getting them mixed up if you use an old page as a template for a new one in a different section.

Before anybody jumps in to correct me I know that you can retrofit tracking IDs if you know your way around html but the tone of OzJackson's post suggests that either he is not comfortable with doing thast or that there is some issue about his particular hosting account that makes this difficult.

[purplecape]

OZ Jackson, I'm sorry to tell you that if you are with Online Hosting Network you are not only not going to be able to do that, but you are being scammed.

OHN creates websites by the hundreds, all from the same cookie-cutter template, and charges victims like you for the site and then for "traffic."

Don't pay them any more money. Try to get a refund on what you paid.

If you don't believe me, ask at the Amazon Associates discussion board, or Google "Online Hosting Network scam" or "Online Hosting Network complaints."