Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Omakase Links let Associates automatically feature products that visitors to the page are most likely to buy. With Omakase Links you do not need to chose which product, product line or even keyword that best fits a page. Our algorithms will optimize product offerings based on what the Associate has been successful with in the past; what that user has been interested in; as well as what the site is about. Omakase Links - leave it up to us! At present we are offering Omakase Links as a BETA to our Associates.
It would seem with my limited understanding of the ToS that it's not sensing what the page is about and as such would be allowed with a *very* thin margin, but others might have differing opinions.
It for sure looks pretty borderline.
I'm not really ready to let Amazon do this on my site, but they have in the past forced their way, so one might end up with less choices due to the restrictions in the ToS of Adsense.
I'll send off a note to the adsense team and will report back if and when they grace me with an answer beyond "read the ToS".
I put the Omakase ads on my main site's homepage, where I have never put up AS ads. I sent AS support a link to my homepage in a test directory, they viewed it with Omakase ads, and they responded as I indicated in the first paragraph above.
It stayed up for 2500 impressions. I got 39 click throughs and 0 conversions.
I took the ads down.
[edited by: RonS at 11:48 pm (utc) on Aug. 3, 2006]
Have you lost Adsense clicks due to implementing amazon?
Nope. Had just the opposite effect. My CTR almost doubled.
I dont really make any Amazon sales, but the ads seem to dress up my pages nicely, and seem to boost my Adsense income.
Experiment. Your mileage may vary.
414 clicks = 0 conversions.
However, 414 adsense clicks ... now that's another story.
Some people when they visit your site are in a mode to gather info, some others are in buying mode.
So in my opinion Amazon and Adsense are two different things.
Here is also what I thinkg. Amazon offers wide wariety of things. Do you think that once people enter Amazon's site they will search there and most or some may end up buying something?
It stayed up for 2500 impressions. I got 39 click throughs and 0 conversions.I took the ads down.
Based on the products you were able to see advertised. how was the targeting and what type of product selection was displayed - was it mostly books?
FarmBoy
414 clicks = 0 conversions.
I haven't been active with Amazon for a while although this thread has renewed my interest.
How many return days do they offer now? I wonder if conversions would be significantly better if they offered a longer term?
FarmBoy
Omakase is a hybrid of contextual and historical, and historical is both based on site and the visitor's history with Amazon.
I saw the same things that would normally be in my "recommended for you" or whatever they call it page; of course they were ALL quite relevant to my site because most of my Amazon visits are related to searching for products mentioned on my site and building links for them.
One thing that was troublesome at first was they were showing me 2005 and 2006 calendars (which were big sellers on my site over the last couple of years). Obviously, no-one is clicking on a 2005 or 2006 calendar in July/August 2006.
Perhaps I'll try'em again as the summer winds down.
Perhaps as another type of test, I'll drop AdSense on pages where I have Direct Links to Amazon, and I will insert Omakase links in their place.
I like the concept, but the execution doesn't seem to be quite there yet.
Anyone else with any experience?
Good luck!
"Thanks for your email. Please understand Google AdSense program policy
does not permit Google ads to be published on the same web page as other
contextually-targeted ads. More broadly, our policy does not permit Google
ads to be displayed on the same website as ads that mimic or attempt to be
associated with Google ads. We do allow affiliate or limited-text links.
For publishers participating in AdSense for search, keep in mind that we
do not allow other search services or query-targeted ads to be displayed
on the same site as AdSense for search.
Our intent with this policy is to be as fair to our advertisers as
possible and to maintain the integrity of the AdWords and AdSense
programs.
We appreciate your understanding and cooperation."
That's pretty clear to me, except of course for the subjectiveness of the word "mimic".
Also, I think quotes from emails are against the ToS here, you're prolly gonna get snipped! :D
[edited by: RonS at 11:49 pm (utc) on Aug. 7, 2006]
folks, remember this is pay per action. it simply doesn't work. more than ever with a single boring supplier like amazon.
remember firefox referrals? don't give away your clicks for free! basic rule: stay with the best paying ad network (adsense ppc for 90% of us) until someone pays you more.
(1) I create a 3-item Amazon.com banner ad for "widgets" using the traditional drill-down Amazon banner generation system. Or...
(2) Amazon creates the same 3-item "widgets" ad for me using the new Omakase system?
I believe that option #1 was always was and continues to be legal according to Google. But if #2 produces the same ad or slightly tweaked due to their customer history, how can it not be legal?
Let me say that I have been waiting for Amazon to come up with a system like this. At one time I was getting quarterly checks for $8000+ from Amazon and I wouldn't mind getting back up there again.
In my experience the affiliate model works much better on some highly targeted places than adsense. Click through rate are also significantly better than with adsense.
Moreover the affiliate model leads to things the visitor is actually interested in, not some dirty scammer buying cheap clicks and going for the quick buck.
Where your visitor is mainly uninterested, adsense works better, once the visitor is interested, affiliat programs with on-topic products work better. It's not only financially so for the publisher, but also and perhaps more importantly so for the visitor.
It's a pity Google is so inflexible on somthing that's not competing with them anyway. If amazon removes the keyword based banners and/or silently replaces them with them (I fear they are/will be doing the latter, but can't proof it of course), I'll so no other option than remove the adlinks from the footer of the involved pages.
A pity and Google's loss.
24 hours
23402 impressions, CTR 0.19%, conversions 0.00%
Chitika Minimalls was outperforming this!
A question though, does Omakase service the global community in any way similar to the AdSense geo-targeting mechanism or is it just showing US ads?
TIA
Chapman
- You'd need to sign up for each of those programs, in the local language ...
- and you'd need yourself to do the geotargeting and send them to the right amazon.*
But I found only the .com one actually works well enough to bother with, the rest are literally just peanuts.
You could also use the normal keyword targeted banners from amazon, they should not conflict with adsense in any way.
BTW: I get on well-selected pages conversion rations of over 25% (click to buy conversion), it just depends on how warm you made the visitor for the product. The sooner you let them move to amazon, the less likely they buy and the more likely you just lost them.
So I'd leave the entry pages for a PPC program and scrape the cents off of the masses that are not interested there, and as they show interest in products only then give them affiliation links -which do earn much better per click at that point-.
Being careful, amazon has a ToS as well and I can't find it to see if I can post exact numbers or not.
I've only used regular static product links up till now, for hand-picked items. My original artwork website is actually starting to do better, lately, with Amazon than AS.
Miki
