I wanted to give Amazon.com one last shot before I decided to just completely do away with participating in their affiliate program. Over the last year I can’t begin to tell you how much traffic I have sent them.
So, I am officially done with doing business, or lack there of, with Amazon.com. Last month, June 08, I decided to run one last test and send them very targeted and qualified traffic and just as predicted, I made no money.
For the month of June 08, I sent Amazon.com over 10,000 visitors and didn’t make a single sale. I knew going into this that this would be the result, but I did this for a reason because I finally wanted to get closure on the deal.
10,000 clicks is worth a lot in Google AdSense. Worst case situation lets say that each click was worth a penny. That is still $100 dollars / month. I typically make a lot more than that.
So, the lesson to be learned here is to take a close look at your outgoing traffic and evaluate whether you are making money with it. If you’re not, then it’s no different than having a dripping faucet. A drippy faucet wastes money because you waste water and get billed for it. A drippy faucet on a web site costs you money because you can make better use of the outgoing traffic.
Good bye Amazon Associates… hope that you enjoyed the free traffic, you’re not going to get a single free click from me again. 
Popularity: 1% [?]
well, then im glad im never put any effort on amazon! :p
I’d like for it to work… but history has a way of repeating itself and I am not really interested in sending free traffic where I work hard on gaining the traffic. I guess I am nothing more than an AdSense junkie.
im trying to not depend too much on adsense….
Me too but, it remains my most profitable method for making money online.
I don’t use Amazon I just do private ad sales, custom work, freelance writing etc.
This is interesting Garry,
I’m having a similar problem but with auction ads. I have sent them 500 clicks and made about $15. On the other hand, I have sent Amazon 11 clicks and made one sale ($1.99). Lets say 1 out of 20 people purchased something and I got $1.99 commission from Amazon, that would be $50 opposed to the $15 from AA’s. I was thinking of cutting auction ads out and just going with associates in place. The problem with using Google ads for me is that I don’t think they give me enough ad spots.
What are your thoughts?
I have tried Amazon on numerous websites and blogs for a couple of years now and have not made one cent from Amazon.
I have been thinking of dumping them and using that space for something more productive and that would not take much.
Thanks for the push over the edge and goodbye to Amazon.
I just tried the text links portion of the Amazon, and made a 20% conversion.
Do you think that Amazon Associates results may vary depending on the niche?
20% conversion is awesome Owen. was this on BikeRack site?
Yes Garry, this is the Bike Rack site.
Although these are not high dollar items, 2 / 10 is not bad. Hopefully I can package together some high end roof rack systems off of Amazon products and sell them. You can easily spend $500 on a good one. The commission off of that might be worth it.
Amazon always seems to be a real disappointment for me too – perhaps the people who really want to buy from them just go direct, but I’m astonished how little my targetted products do as well.
I’ve also tried their contextual products link blocks that are based on the same text as the Adsense – I’m always amazed at how little relevance some of the products on display are – if only they could provide context-relevant products they may stand a chance!
That really is my biggest gripe – I have pages where a really relevant Amazon contextual ad would do well (I believe), but it never works out right!
I have the same problem with pepperjam. thousands or clicks and no conversions. I think I will stick with CJ because I do very well with them in all aspects.
AL
I occasionally make money off of Amazon- but only through my Squidoo lenses! I have no idea what makes the difference there.
However, I always keep at least one Amazon ad on my personal blog for the simple reason that friends and family like to give me their business and shop on Amazon and eBay quite often. Plus, I talk books a lot on there, and there aren’t that many alternatives for that. I am considering switching to Powell’s or Barnes & Noble, though.