Amazon

Poor conversions since Cristmas

[PeteM]

Is it just me or has everyone elses Amazon campaigns performed poorly since Christmas? Punters are still (PPC) clicking through but just not buying.

Fellow Amazon affiliates might also like to check all their quoted offers as here in the UK Amazon seems to have INCREASED most of their prices. Some January Sale!

Happy new year everyone!

Pete

[Rosalind]

It may be due to the huge disaster relief banner on the home page. After what happened, it just doesn't seem right to be indulging in shopping sprees.

[webmastertexas]

Funny thing: I was really angry at how my Amazon links were performing. It seemed to be stuck at the same item sold, and then, on January 1 -- BOOM! The sales numbers went up about 10 times! Apparently with all their December problems, Amazon couldn't find time to update their affiliates' stats. Go figure. I ended up making the most this quarter with Amazon than I've ever made with them since I've been an affiliate!

So Christmas was GREAT for me. :)

[PeteM]

It may be due to the huge disaster relief banner on the home page. After what happened, it just doesn't seem right to be indulging in shopping sprees.

I'm deep linking so this shouldn't be a factor.

[Pedent]

Funny thing: I was really angry at how my Amazon links were performing. It seemed to be stuck at the same item sold, and then, on January 1 -- BOOM! The sales numbers went up about 10 times!

I think the sales explosion is a reporting error; don't expect those sales to stick.

How do your January 1st figures compare to your 2004 figures (for the whole year)? For me, they're the same to the cent.

Something's wrong at Amazon (not for the first time).

[rfung]

Yeah, Amazon has a reporting bug that shows your revenues for the whole of 2004.

I was pleasantly surprised too when I first logged in, but check Amazon forums, there's some threads about it.

[ned911]

I've noticed my click throughs are running about the same but my conversion is way down. Hope this does not continue.

[BriGuy20]

Conversions are way down for me too. I hope this isn't a permanent thing.

[webmastertexas]

Oh great. So Amazon really is a loser for me. :D

[webmastertexas]

Well I checked my stats, looking at it closely, and it does look like all that happened was the stats counted all the sales from 2004. Oh well. Looks like I was right all along -- Amazon.com is just taking up space on my site.

[delizia]

I seemed to have a bad week between Xmas & New Year but now things are chugging along again (from 10% conversion in the Xmas season to 2% in the "bad week" to 5-6% now, which is still OK).

[Frequent]

Although it has nothing directly to do with Christmas, I have recently (past 2 weeks) seen my Amazon sales drop by about 90% despite a steady stream of click throughs (Adwords PPC direct to Amazon).

I would love to know what is happening here. I have also noticed that Amazon is reporting almost double the number of clicks that my Adwords reports show. It has me worried.

Any suggestions?

[Fairla]

Well, I don't do Adwords, but with Valentine's Day coming up, you might want to focus on that. People aren't buying Christmas presents anymore, and they probably regret spending as much at Christmas as they did, so they need extra incentive to buy at this time of year. It's normal for sales to drop now, I think.

[PeteM]

I've also seen my Amazon conversions drop through the floor. Despite that there are still affiliates paying 15p - 20p for DVDs. I reckon you'd have trouble breaking even at 5p per click. I'll let others make a loss. I'm not even going to try and compete.

[shorebreak]

How do Amazon's conversion rates compare to other sites such as Overstock, eBay, Shopping.com, NexTag, BizRate, PriceGrabber, etc?

Sounds like there are way more Amazon affiliates than there are affiliates of any of the above sites; I'm curious to understand why, so if anyone has any insight I'd greatly appreciate it. I would assume that if you all were seeing Amazon's conversion rates drop, you would find some other better performing merchant to become an affiliate of. Am I missing something?

Shorebreak

[hunderdown]

shorebreak, although Amazon claims 900,000 Associates, it is generally believed that the number of active Associates is a much smaller number. So it's hard to compare numbers to other programs.

If you are going to compare conversion rate, I'd do it to other bookstore programs, or whatever your niche is. My experience is that Amazon converts much better than Barnes and Noble or Powells.....

[Fairla]

My experience is that Amazon converts better than anything else. I've had some problems with Amazon's program over the years, but I can't deny the popularity of the site with shoppers.

[nativenewyorker]

Frequent said:

I have also noticed that Amazon is reporting almost double the number of clicks that my Adwords reports show. It has me worried.

You should be worried if it is the other way around, where you are paying for clicks that are not being counted at Amazon.

[Frequent]

nativenewyorker-

That wouldn't have me worried, that would have me ticked off. ;)

[hunderdown]

I believe that the clicks Amazon reports are not just the click-through clicks, but any subsequent ones as well. So if 50 people clicked through, and 25 of them then clicked to a second page on Amazon, you'd get 75 clicks reported by Amazon. Check the FAQ information in the Associate area....