Amazon is without doubt my favorite online retailer to work with as an affiliate. Since they're selling hard goods, the percentage of the sale they pay you is not nearly as great as with digital products (through ClickBank, for instance), but to my mind the fact that customers really trust Amazon probably outweighs the lower commissions.
Actually Amazon's commissions are right in line with most companies for whom you might be selling an actual item, something that has to be made and shipped. Circuit city used to pay only 3%, or 4%. Most of the companies on Commission Junction pay in the single digits. It's only when you get to selling downloadable products that merchants can afford to pay a significant part of the sale to you. That's because with these types of products, it's all profit--or nearly so.
But there's something to be said for making money selling digital cameras and flat-screen tv's! For one thing, lots and lots of people need them, or think they need them. I've actually made thousands of dollars selling Amazon products! What are my secrets? Well, for one thing, I build lists!
When I first started selling Amazon products, I built sites and sent my traffic directly to the site. My traffic source was usually article marketing. I realized, however, that I was missing a lot of sales. Although in general, half of the visitors to my sites clicked through to Amazon's site, if they didn't buy within the time frame of Amazon's cookie, I would miss the sale completely. Also, if they found someone else's site and clicked through to Amazon from there, my cookie would no longer be primary, and I would miss the sale.
I needed a way of keeping my hard earned traffic in the game, so to speak. So, I started using this traffic to build a list.
I did this in two ways.
One, instead of sending the traffic to a web page that pre-sells the Amazon product (usually a blog), I experimented with sending the traffic to a squeeze page that offered a giveaway, usually a buyer's guide to whatever I was selling. That method actually works great! About 40-30% of people sign up. I'm quite sure that the other 70% weren't going to buy anything anyway.
The other method, I've experimented with is using my Aweber account to create what's called a light-squeeze page. Light squeeze pages work like this. You send the traffic to the blog, but after the person's been there for a few seconds, the blog darkens, and a box appears in the middle of the page. The box offers the same deal - download a buyer's guide for free. I get about a 20% sign up rate, here.
Honestly, I haven't been able to figure out which works best in terms of which makes more money overall. But I'm quite sure that either works better than just letting your traffic show up at your page and leave...FOREVER!
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