3 Keywords Important to Affiliate Marketing: Responsibility, Transparency, Leverage

I have been in the affiliate marketing business for a very long time. It’s initial appeal is still just as appealing to me today. Mainly that involves the idea of “limited (or no) responsibility.” Let’s face it. There are more exciting things to do than to sit in front of a computer all day, or than just working in general.

You see, I have been in the position of sourcing products, buying (and getting delivery of) stock, storing, finding customers, fulfilling orders, etc. and it’s more involved than I want to be day to day. I am in a large part a one man show, and the less parts that I have to be in control of, the happier and more efficient I can be.

Affiliate marketing has changed and evolved over the years… significantly in fact. There is an increasing need to be more transparent (both for legal and ethical reasons), and as a result, more responsibility became important. Is that a bad thing? Depends how you look at it. To me, that extra bit (it’s not a lot) of responsibility meant the opportunity for more leverage.

Read the rest of this article for a full explanation of the above.

Let’s Take a Deeper Look at Responsibility

I’m going to deviate slightly from affiliate marketing for a minute and discuss drop-shopping because many people I talk to think they are exactly the same thing. But as you will see, getting into drop-shopping is slightly more involved than affiliate marketing. This should put into perspective how little responsibility affiliate marketers do in fact have.

I really love the idea of drop-shipping. It eliminates the need to buy stock and store it in a warehouse. You can “sell other people’s products” and they will ship it for you… just like with affiliate marketing… but there is some added responsibility. There is a key advantage in some cases over affiliate marketing which many may not have thought of, and I will discuss that in a second, but let’s talk about the added responsibility first.

In some cases with drop-shipping you may have to manually enter orders into a system that the vendor provides. Many will have digital automation for that process but in the case where you are selling products from multiple vendors, it’s less likely.

The big thing here though is you will need a secure system to collect payment and credit card information, and also handle customer support. And you will also have to analyze activities like cart abandonment and make attempts to improve on that process. This may be considered a step up from affiliate marketing, but I feel it’s a pretty big step. Your job/life can be easier than all that.

However I will say this… with this scenario you may be able to tap into niches that you might not otherwise be able to get into with standard affiliate marketing. You see, there are a lot of products still not easily available for purchase online. The vendors may be short-sighted and feel that only “in-person physical purchases” are reasonable for the given product. Or even if they are available online, it may be that only bulk purchases are available or even that they are in a marketplace that hasn’t opened the doors to affiliates.

These scenarios are ideal for those that want to get into the drop-shipping business, albeit with a little added responsibility over affiliate marketing. Sure the barrier of entry is slightly higher but this could mean a lot LESS competition. Let me give you an example.

I have a friend who runs a successful web site using the drop-shipping model promoting products that were once only available in retail stores. The products are very specific pet accessories. In the “offline” scenario, pet shop owners would become resellers and would have a catalog of products and a few samples in the store. The customer would make the purchase through the store and the owner would order the customized accessory through a digital interface and get a commission. The product would then be shipped directly to the customer.

Can you see how a digital version of the catalog could make for a great opportunity for an online marketer who is comfortable with the extra responsibility that comes with drop-shipping?

At any rate… let’s get back to affiliate marketing shall we?

What’s Your Responsibility to the Customer as an Affiliate Marketer?

Now, with affiliate marketing, you can essentially provide a link to someone and “refer” them to a product. The link is unique to you, as you probably know. The rest (sales process, order fulfillment, customer service) becomes the responsibility of the merchant or vendor.

However… with the need for more transparency initiates a need for more responsibility, even if just a little.

A very simple, completely hands off approach to affiliate marketing could be accomplished in the following scenario:

You write an article that discusses a problem that someone has. This article could just be black text on a white background. At the bottom you can describe a solution. Add in a blue link (an affiliate link) to get the solution. The link may be tagged in such a way that it auto-adds the product to the merchant’s cart and the sale is credited to you as an affiliate.

After they left the page that had your blue affiliate hyperlink, the customers were no longer your responsibility. This practice still works and is still in effect to a large degree. The customer was not aware of any middle-person in the transaction. Well, truthfully, we as consumers know that there are always many many people that “profit” from a single transaction. There’s usually always a middleman or two, then there are the employees involved with design, creation, delivery, and on an on… but there are laws online that require some added transparency requiring you to let the potential customer know that you will profit from any sales made after clicking your link.

With that transparency my friend, comes some added responsibility. So now the scenario changes. Somewhere near the hyperlink it must be stated that you may profit from the sales. And this may bring up some questions or concerns for the potential customer. Here are a few:

1) If you are getting a commission, am I paying more?

2) Who the heck are you?

3) Why should I let you profit from my purchase?

How to Become a Responsible Affiliate Marketer

Ok… so now you are letting potential customers know that you may profit from their purchases if they click your link. Now what?

A practice that I am seeing more and more of, something I feel I may have initiated… is letting the customer know right away that “you are NOT paying extra if you buy through my link… I simply get a ‘cut’ because I referred you to the product.” Say something like that… but more eloquently.

Does this distract the “flow” you had going. Certainly, but it has to be done. I can’t speak on legal compliance, but it is more ethical to be transparent don’t ya think?

Now… a lot of times people want to know who you are and why they should be listening to you in the first place. Yet, many others don’t care. If what they read resonates with them, they may not care who delivered the message. However, for those that want to know, link to a profile.

Beyond that, if discussing the problem and referring them to a solution isn’t enough, give the person even more value (or someone else will). How can you do that?

Offer the customer some complementary products (in the form of bonuses perhaps) or information that is pertinent post-sale. But wait, once they click that link, they are gonzo, right? Yeah usually… but here is where leverage comes in 

Use Leverage With Your Affiliate Marketing Business

At this stage we are discussing a problem, describing a solution and telling the kind folks that this is a business, and although we care about you, we also want to earn a living… but before handing them off to the “other person’s” cart or sales funnel or what have you… let’s first get some info so that we can stay in touch.

Now we want to say… “hey, before you buy, give me your email so I can stay in touch with you. I have a really cool product that goes well with the one you are about to buy that I’d like to give you for free. No strings. I want to earn my referral commission and intend to over-deliver. I will also send you a series of emails every few days that will help you make the most of your new purchase. I will send how-to videos and articles, and send some inspiration messages. Oh, and I might suggest more stuff later down the road when it’s relevant.”

You might even want to add in extras like what other people thought of your bonuses or complementary content (the social proof aspect for YOUR “product”).

From there, you grab their email, and redirect them to the product. Then let the auto-responder (automated email delivery system) work it’s magic.

In Conclusion

You have to be more transparent in your marketing. With that though comes added responsibility. But before you think that takes the allure out of affiliate marketing, please understand that this added responsibility offers the opportunity for more leverage (in the form of repeat sales… er commissions… from the happy customers).

Affiliate marketing is a value added business. Do it right and you will be rewarded. And you *may* become extremely wealthy from your efforts (no guarantees of course). Put yourself in the customer’s shoes and decide how they should best be treated. Decide what would give them the most value from their current position, then deliver it (in an automated and leveraged way).

Leaving product creation and order fulfillment, and for a large part, customer service, to someone else is what makes affiliate marketing so attractive.

How to Find a Profitable Niche for Affiliate Marketing

Everybody know that affiliate marketing is the most successful and effective way to earn money online. However, not all the products that you want to promote are guaranteed to make you money ad succeed,  and the reason is simple, there are lots of competitions these days and you should think about a niche with fewer competitors and with good revenue if your promote its products. It’s not easy to find the right niche to promote in the right website, but things can be easy if you follow my tips and how to pick the right nice for income.

There are some rules when it comes to find a profitable niche for affiliate marketing and I’ll explain them one by one, but please make sure to understand that the exact domain name is no linger working these days at it was before, so, if you want to pick a long domain name and you think it will rank  higher, that will waste your time. Make things professional and use your actual blog or simply pick a domain with fewer characters.

Search for niche that people search for it on Google

Of course, you don’t need to create lots of content and work hard and then nobody will search for your products or reviews. The first thing to do when it comes to affiliate marketing is typing your general topic in Google keyword planner tool and see how many estimated monthly searches for that topic. If you find something popular with more than 30.000 searches per month forget that and find another one, simply because  the more the term is popular, the more thousands of competitors you will find and already people have created lots of content about it and it’s not easy at all to rank for the same content now. At the same time, you don’t need search results less than 500 search per month. These are just tips to stay away from the competition and focus on a sub niche that a few people are creating content for it and you will be lucky if you find a niche with no results in Google search.

Don’t wast your time with paid keywords searching tools, they are just selling nothing and you will understand why. Google is not only the biggest search engine, but it dominates 80% of the global search engine market. That means no other website on earth know what people are searching for and how many time they are searching for this or that keyword. If you really want to succeed, forget what the other says simply because they are earning commissions when you sign up for those useless tools and simply your need to use the biggest and the original Google tool.

The profitable niche

Now, you have an idea about what niches you can use for your website and you need to find if they are making money or not. This is the most important part and it’s the easiest part at the same time. You don’t need to create lots of informational content that will never make you money. When people wants to buy something, they search for review about a niche’s products and the needs screenshot for example or videos about how using the products and they wants to see it in actions. These people are interested in buying the product and not only learning about it.

To find if our niche will really make you money, type some words in Google and see if people search them, for example “health products” and see if there are some good number of results that’s not too popular and not less than 500 per mont at the same time. If you find some, then you have the people who wants to buy the “health” products and you need to create content for them and add your affiliate links. In other words, find niches that buyers search for it.

So, make sure that the term or the keyword that you’re using are brings traffic from buyers and not people who just search for information and then leave your site forever. You can help these people in other website and not with affiliate marketing one. In general use review model and add videos.

Find a niche with products to promote

The niche will not make you money if there are no products for it to promote, so, when you have a niche and some good search from the Google keyword planner tool, you can browse your best affiliate network and find the best product for that niche, ClickBank for example is one of the biggest digital affiliate network that you can find thousands of products from it. Just browse by category and type some keywords to find the best products to promote.

Remember that you need to recommend good products and you have to try them before promoting any one of them, ClickBank especially includes lots of scammers and you should be careful about that, if you make money, that’s good foe you, but make sure that you recommend really good products and investigate on them.

Best niche for affiliate marketing

You cannot limit affiliate niches in an exact number, simply because there are thousands of sub niches and things are complicated. But the best niches to promote are, Games and other software and products related to the gaming market in general. Lots of marketer make thousands of dollar per day promoting specific games. The dating is also one of the best successful niches to promote, but only for hight traffic sites with topics related to relationships, that makes things easy to get conversations and not only put banner for nothing.

The web hosting is also very profitable niche and you can select a specific niche for WordPress and the best service to promote is always WP Engine, they pay $150 for every new hosting account and a few companies have that hight commissions and the best part is that program is a premium hosting service that you can promote and be proud of it.

The computer and PC world is another good niche to promote, but make sure to pick a specific niche such as “Toshiba” Apple” and so on, that give you better results than creating content about general hardware and softwares that all the world promote.Money making can also bring you good results but again investigate on every product you want to promote and avoid new programmes than can be scammer later and that’s what you don’t need. The are also some other niches to promote but remember that the real secret is traffic and that’s what brings results and sales . So focus on the traffic sources and you only need the Google organic traffic or traffic from your advertising campaign if you have money invest.

Conclusion

To find a profitable niche to promote and create content for it, you need to make sure that people are searching for it on Google,and that you can get lots of buyers who search for that niche products and not just for fun. At the same time make sure that the niche has good products to promote and the most important part, pick niches with few competitors and never promote general niches that popular blogs and marketer are promoting, you will not be able the find your place with them. So focus on specific niches and you will succeed.

CRM & Affiliate Marketing Manager

This is an exciting and challenging position to work for one of the most iconic brands in Britain. 118118 launched in 2003 and almost immediately became and remains the nation’s favourite directory enquiry service. Today, 118118’s fast, high accuracy service is called by more than 20 million people every year for the numbers they want and the information they need to know.

We are looking for a talented and energetic affiliate and digital marketer who thrives on new challenges and enjoys working in a fast-paced, highly results driven environment.

Based in our central London office and reporting to the Chief Marketing Officer the CRM & Affiliate Marketing Manager will have responsibility to:
• Develop and deliver the plan to grow and develop our digital and affiliate marketing activities across brands
• Create and implement customer lifecycle communications plans to increase customer loyalty, improve revenue per customer and reduce churn

The ideal candidate will have a successful track record in the digital market environment and a blended mix of analytical, negotiation and creative capabilities, and enjoy taking full ownership of projects and getting things delivered fast and to a high standard of quality. They will thrive in a fact and data-driven environment, and will be very analytical.

Core Duties/Responsibilities:
• Define the overall affiliate marketing plan for 118 118 brands and run the affiliate programmes
o Define the landscape of potential affiliates, who should be partnered with directly vs through an affiliate network
o Quickly take ownership of the affiliate portfolio and drive acquisition of new partners directly and through networks
o Set up rules and commission structures for the indirect engagement of affiliates through network
o Work with technology to put in place tracking and reporting of the sales achieved through the affiliates (direct and indirect)
o Work with the design team to develop and implement creative materials: online display ads, landing pages, affiliate collateral materials including POS
o Work with the finance and legal departments to complete contractual engagements
o Managing key partner relationships and identify innovative opportunities to increase 118 118 brands visibility
o Monitor sales and process payments to affiliate partners
o Report affiliate performance on an on-going basis for every brand.
o Monitor affiliate activity, analyze performance, identify areas of improvement and recommend ways to increase affiliate-generated revenues.
• Define the lifecycle communications requirements and implement communications strategies to improve customer loyalty and revenue:
o Identify key stages of the customer lifecycle to recommend and implement a set of communication tactics across the range of direct customer communications tools (email, SMS, outbound calling, etc.)
o Work with the design team to develop email templates, landing pages, and other creative materials required as part of implementing the communications strategy
o Write the copy of the marketing communications in line with each of the brands’ positioning and tone of voice
o Identify various technical/supplier options for the delivery of the communications
o Work with the technical teams to create and maintain an up-to-date and accessible database of customer contacts, prospects and existing
o Report on the performance of each campaign and pieces of communications, constantly analyzing KPI’s and finding ways to optimize and improve ROI
• Also execute on marketing plans across other online channels as required: SEM, Display, retargeting and social networks

Compétences et expérience souhaitées

• A bachelor's degree or equivalent
• Demonstrable track record of setting up and managing successful affiliate programmes, with the ability to demonstrate successful affiliate tactics
• Substantial knowledge of digital marketing landscape and different business models, with the understanding of statistical reporting and web analytics and familiarity with SEO, PPC and affiliate marketing.
• Experience of developing strategic partnerships and increasing consumer interest in order to increase customer acquisition
• Exceptional attention to detail along with analytical mind-set & commercial mind-set
• Superior communication skills (verbal and written) with the ability to build compelling and relevant external messaging
• Have a proven track record of delivering all aspects of marketing and communications, particularly in delivering successful digital marketing and email campaigns
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced environment
• Results oriented and self-motivated team player
• A “can-do attitude”. Someone who doesn’t see problems, only solutions
• Both able to work on high-level strategy and able to roll up his/her sleeves when required
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, written and oral
• Advanced proficiency in MS Suite – in particular with Powerpoint and especially Excel
• Passionate, flexible

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Why Affiliate Marketing is A Big Chain in Network Marketing Business

The arrival of the internet has actually ushered in a brand-new era in the record of marketing. The initial experience of the marvels of this technology, e.g. e-mail, social network sites, chats, blogs, etc were so incredible and remarkable to the around the world users that marketers used this new chance of web marketing with utmost satisfaction. The various aspects of net advertising are e commerce, online company, e mail marketing, social media sites marketing, e banner, chain advertising, etc

. A very helpful domain among these is the chain marketing procedure, much better referred to as affiliate marketing. Below, with an addition of the players associated with the transaction– an intermediate group, referred to as web designer, is involved. The seller, i.e., the marketer, employs the services of the webmaster and the procedure includes setting up of the online marketer’s internet link and buttons on the webmaster’s sponsored or programmed internet site of interest which would draw the chosen audience to click the online marketer’s button or web link and the web designer concerned will be entitled to a commission for the above action of the audience.

The experience created therein within the audience could be transferred to some other viewer or web user by means of mail alert or word-of-mouth by the very first user, from his pure gratification and this may lead to a domino effect and therefore a resultant augmentation in the user client or prospective consumer base of the marketer. Thus, this is a concentrated and guaranteed means of boosting the users and that too and any far and distant nook and corner of the world, depending upon the subject product or service accessibility.

Website directories are the other devices in affiliate advertising which draw in the customer to the online marketer’s website, item details or service list. One point that should have special reference is the reality that the marketer has to be proactive in his venture for affiliate marketing. He requires to designate some dedicated employees for responding to the e mails created from the curious audience or offering replies to the queries. Moreover, in this age of many suppliers– one should have the urgency to respond to the potential clients instantaneously with the appropriate details to sustain interest for the online marketer’s website or for that matter the product and services.

An extension to this form of marketing exists in case of the diverted audience being targeted to fill out a kind within the clicked internet link of the online marketer of to provide certain individual details in response to a well designed questionnaire. This offensive http://internetmarketerhq.com/is-amway-scam article essay has some witty warnings for the meaning behind it. In feedback, the online marketer’s candidate need to likewise take the pains of taping the information provided consequently as a part of exceptionally valuable database for the online marketer. The information generated in this method would be subsequently brainstormed by the online marketer’s planner group for better product and services design. This method has been shown to be of utmost benefit especially for the service industry like insurance, banking and non banking monetary business sectors. Therefore, affiliate advertising is a helpful tool, which today day marketer can take pride in and this may work wonders in the growth and bottom-line of the marketer or online marketers worried..

Affiliate Marketing Rules

Regulations that became effective in 2008 affect NAR members that have affiliated businesses and those that deal with credit reports. The Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970 (FCRA) was amended by the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACT Act) late in 2007 adding several new regulations affecting some NAR members.

The Affiliate Marketing Regulations, issued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Federal banking agencies, generally require a company to provide a notice to consumers and an opportunity to opt out before an affiliated company can use certain information for marketing purposes. The affiliate marketing notice is in addition to the privacy notices already mandated, and would be a second required notice and opt out opportunity.
The regulations have certain exceptions to these requirements. For example, the notice and opt out does not apply if the solicitation is made to a customer with a pre-existing relationship with the affiliate.

The FTC published these regulations in final form on October 30, 2007, and the Federal banking agencies published essentially equivalent final regulations on November 7, 2007.  The mandatory compliance date for the Affiliate Marketing Rules was October 1, 2008. The rule, as stated above, generally prohibits a person from using information received from an affiliate to make a solicitation for marketing purposes to a consumer, unless the consumer is given notice and a reasonable opportunity and a reasonable and simple method to opt out of the making of such solicitations.

To learn the details about these requirements, see the Frequently Asked Questions: Affiliate Marketing Regulations

When did the regulations become effective?

October 1, 2008

Who can I call for more information?

FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection, Division of Privacy and Identity Protection
ph: 202.326.2252

At NAR, you may contact:

William Gilmartin
Senior Policy Advisor, Industry Relatiions and Outreach
phone: 202-383-1102

Where can I find the rules?

Affiliate Week Profile: Amazon Associates

Launched in 1996, the Amazon Associates affiliate program is the granddaddy of all e-commerce affiliate programs. Amazon Associates has evolved over the years and currently offers a number of different opportunities for affiliates to profit from.

Launched in 1996, the Amazon Associates affiliate program is the granddaddy of all e-commerce affiliate programs. There are many reasons why Amazon is an enduring e-commerce entity. Undoubtedly, the strength and longevity of its affiliate program is one of them. Like Amazon itself, Amazon Associates has evolved over the years and currently offers a number of different opportunities for affiliates to profit from.

What is Amazon Associates?
The Amazon Associates program allows affiliates to build links to Amazon content and merchandise with an embedded affiliate tracking code. When a user actually buys something from Amazon, the affiliate gets a percentage ranging from 4 percent all the way up to 10 percent (depending on a variety of options I'll discuss). Affiliate links can be built via Amazon Associates online tools or via Amazon's E-commerce Service (formerly known as Amazon Web Services) which provides a more direct data feed for Amazon content for Web site integration.

Getting Started
Getting started with Amazon Associates takes less than 5 minutes. Visit the signup page and fill out the required fields (name, address, payment info, Web site address, etc.) and you'll get instant "temporary" approval for your Associates account. After granting you temporary approval, Amazon staff supposedly reviews your site to see if it meets their eligibility requirements (basically any site that doesn't infringe on copyright, trademark or is offensive) and then they'll email you to confirm that you've been officially accepted into the program.

Amazon currently offers two different payment schemes that you can choose from: Classic and Performance. Though, in reality, Classic is hardly a choice that makes sense. The Classic payment schedule pays a flat 4 percent on items purchased after a visitor clicked through from an Amazon Associates placed link.

The Performance plan starts at 5 percent and ramps up based on the shipped volume of products. If your affiliate links generate between 1 and 20 units shipped you'll get the starting rate of 5 percent. On the other end, if your affiliate links generate shipments of over 10,000 units you'll get 7.5 percent. On top of the base rate (indexed to products shipped), Amazon's Performance program also tacks on bonuses of 2.5 percent for certain "Direct Link Items" and a 1 percent for "Easy Links."

Needless to say, I strongly recommend that users choose the Performance plan if they want to maximize their affiliate earning potential. It is usually the default option anyway, but it's important to make sure.

Amazon also offers three different methods for getting paid for your efforts helping them sell stuff, though, again, the choice is really quite clear. You can have a check mailed to you, get an Amazon gift certificate or have your earnings directly deposited to your account. The check option involves an $8 dollar handling fee, so I'd recommend avoiding that. The Gift Certificate option offers no additional incentive because it locks you into keeping your money with Amazon. So, if you've entered the affiliate game to earn money, direct deposit is definitely the way to go.

Creating Affiliate Links (Go Direct)
The real "magic" in generating revenue with Amazon Associates is all about choosing the right type of link, for the right product(s) and putting it in the right context.

Amazon currently offers 5 different types of links through its web based interface ("Build Links"):

• Product Links which link to specific Amazon items;
• Text Links which allow you to directly link to any Amazon page;
• Recommended Product Links that automatically shows relevant products;
• Banner Links which don't link to any product directly and are mostly Amazon promos; and
• Search Box which provides Amazon.com search capability.

If your goal is to maximize your affiliate earning potential you're going to want to choose the link types that offer the highest potential reward which means you should create links that first offer you a shot at the 2.5 percent direct link bonus (which would provide you with a combined referral rate of 7.5 percent to start).

Direct links (as the name implies) are ones that directly link to a specific Amazon product detail. Beyond just the plum of getting the 2.5 percent bonus, having context/content relevant direct links is also likely to increase the click-through from your site to Amazon, since relevance is always a key factor to generating any type of click conversion.

Amazon direct links can be simply created via one of three principal methods: the Product Links option (in the "Build Links" menu on Amazon Associates), using Add to Cart buttons or creating product links via Amazon Web Services.

Amazon Associates Points of Order: Content is king Performance Compensation plan is better than Classic Choose direct payment Direct links pay 2.5 percent more Use web services for better integration Leverage Alexa for increased revenue potential

The "Product Links" option is perhaps the easiest method to execute as the web interface allows you to browse for your desired product as well as automatically creating the HTML code that you'll need to place in your site. The Product Links option also includes a "Buy from Amazon.com" button that will automatically add the item to a user's cart. There is also an "Add to Cart" direct product link that you can use (you'll have to manually insert your Associates ID as well as the product identifier into the code) without getting the product detail/picture from Amazon, in case you want to embed that function directly into your site in a different way. (Say, for example, you've got a review of product X and you want to enable users to "add to cart" from inside the review.)

Amazon E-Commerce Service (ECS)
The other way to create affiliate links to Amazon is via their E-Commerce Service, XML based web services offering.

When Amazon Web Services was first offered, it was probably a bit too complex for the average associate to execute. That's no longer the case with a number of freely available scripts that will allow you to enjoy the benefits of web services without the development overhead. With ECS you can directly integrate a feed of whatever available data you want from Amazon into your site, which makes the buying experience more seamless to your users (and thereby more likely that they'll click through and/or add to cart to make a purchase). One such freely available ECS script is MrRat's Amazon Products Feed script, which will allow you to implement the data feed with a relatively straight forward Perl script.

For those who want a quick php solution, Jaaps' Amazon Scripts provides a few options as well.

Reporting and Optimization
Amazon Associates also provides a robust reporting mechanism to help affiliates track their link performance. The main Associates interface provides reports that will gauge clickthroughs, conversions, orders, shipments, as well as affiliate revenue earned. Beyond what exists on Amazon.com itself, Alexa (which is also an amazon.com company) offers a number of services to help affiliates optimize their Amazon Associates performance. In my opinion the most basic and most critical is the site report function will which will crawl your site and ensure that all the Amazon affiliate links are actually working.

Again, as a typical e-commerce best practice, it's always a good idea to actively track how your links are doing and if something isn't working right then adjust it. If something is working exceptionally well, than duplicate it in other spots to increase your success.

One drawback of Amazon's reporting scheme, however, is that it fails to notify you of any cancelled or returned orders.

Final Thoughts
The key (as with any e-commerce offering) is always about context and relevance. Users will tend to click on a button/item if it is relevant to what they need or want. If you can identify those products and place links to them in the context of where the user is likely to make a "relevant" connection, you'll be more likely to generate a click-through and possibly a referral commission. In order to maximize your Amazon Associates revenue potential, it makes sense to make sure that you're signed up for the Performance plan and that you make use of high value links that will yield greater revenue if clicked. It's hard enough to get users to click on links as it is. If a user actually clicks on one, you might as well make sure that it was worth the effort.

With a bit of hard work and solid contextually relevant links the Amazon Associates can be a rewarding affiliate venture.

Good luck!