Amazon associates, getting clicks, not getting sales.

thelorax

thelorax

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Jun 21, 2010
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Couple K clicks, no sales.. I know they have a 24 hour cookie, sort of an amorphous question, but I'm struggling with the idea of so much leakage from my site without any reward. Any ideas? Thanks, I'm mad/leaking.

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I looked around for you and from what I can tell your problem is probably that cookies are set to just 24 hours as you already know. A friend of mine had the same problem and even though he was sending targeted traffic, the sales weren't pouring in the way he would have liked.

During the holidays he was did much better, but it slowed down after then. Sorry I can't be of more help.
 
maybe your traffic in the early stages of buying. Almost nobody buys in the first visit. Try to target people who are in comparison shopping stage already.
 
Are you sure you push offers that are actually sold by Amazon.com? Products that are on Amazon's site but are actually sold by other companies get no commission, if I remember correctly...
 
I seem to do better with items that have a fairly normal Suggested Price and the Current Price is much better.

Hard to believe I know.
 
Not freaking possible. If you are getting 0% with Amazon, your links are F'd up or something.

When you send a crapload of traffic to Amazon, you WILL get sales. Oftentimes of some REALLY interesting shit.

If you're using their APIs, try manually creating some links. Maybe your code is bad.

Also make sure you're looking at the reports properly (check the box in the top-left stating that you want to see results from ALL campaigns).
 
Yeah, bro, something is wrong. I normally convert at 4-6%. And yeah, you'll get tons of sales totally unrelated to the products you're pimpin'. Def a good time logging in each day and seeing what some cats buy.
 
Don't forget the amazon cookie is only a 24hr cookie...if your traffic isn't ready to buy you're missing them.
 
justo_tx said:
I thought it was just a session cookie?
Click to expand...
This is what I thought also.

Found this in their help section:
How long do visitors have to add an item to their Shopping Cart after clicking on one of my Amazon links until I no longer earn a referral fee on their purchase?

You earn referral fees on any qualifying items placed in a customer's Shopping Cart within 24 hours of their arrival at Amazon.com via your Associates link. However, this 24-hour window closes once the customer submits his order or reenters Amazon.com through another Associate's link. Once the window is closed, you will not earn referral fees on any subsequent purchases. However, if the customer then returns to Amazon.com through one of your Associates links, this opens a new 24-hour window.

It is of course possible that a customer may arrive at Amazon.com via your Associates link, add an item to his Shopping Cart, and then leave Amazon.com without placing an order. As long as the item was added to the customer's Shopping Cart during this 24-hour window, you will still earn a referral fee if the order is placed before the Shopping Cart expires (usually after 90 days). The referral fee will not be credited to your Associates account until the customer has purchased the item, accepted delivery, and remitted full payment to Amazon.com.
Click to expand...
Not totally clear if the browser is closed whether the cookie is still live, but I still think you're correct.
 
DanWesson said:
This is what I thought also.

Found this in their help section:Not totally clear if the browser is closed whether the cookie is still live, but I still think you're correct.
Click to expand...

I agree about the ambiguity but then I started thinking about how the only time I close my browser is when I reboot and that happens maybe once every few weeks these days.
 
I get 500+ clicks in my amazon account too with little to no sales. I've been messing around with the tracking and have to believe it's a cookie issue and will stop promoting amazon stuff soon.
 
Amazon converts around 3-4% consistently for me but that's with a good amount of volume - few thousand clicks/month. Are you sending directly to product or category pages? I found that setting up sections of my sites with category icons and links and sending them directly to targeted categories or search results works well. I also sometimes get peeps buying totally random shit unrelated to my site, I guess that's the benefit of Amazon but that 24 hr cookie does suck.
 
Maybe your site do not pre-sell? My first amazon-site had great CTR but very poor conversion rate. So I added reviews, product ratings, simple price comparison option and also information that item is available at Amazon (so people are not surprised when transferred - I suppose some of them were a bit scared when redirected). CTR went down but conversion rate went up. Also it is easier to sell amazon crap to women as once they are on amazon they want to buy something, just for a passion of buying. I've seen some really odd staff bought from my Amazon site totally unrelated to site's niche.

Also, I thing cookie is a session one. I suppose within 24 hours you will have much more item sold. It must be a session cookie.
 
Thanks for replies.. here's some info from you guy's suggestions.
Amazon-"I have reviewed the Associates link on the web pages:
and have found that the links are formatted correctly. We are able to track activity and sales placed via these links."

OK, whats odd is that other offers are baking out on the pages. I'll give it a another week or so then I'll figure something out.

Also checked with amazon about the cookie situation, its a 24 hour max cookie based on the session, or until referred by another associate. Like Dan said.
 
I'm hitting about a 5% CTR & a 15% conversion rate. Have wondered about the 24 hour conversion rate.

VinnyTheJinny (or anyone else), do you have any recommendations for websites similar to Amazon which have the breadth and consumer trust that Amazon does?
 
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