amazon sucks

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   Tilecleaninghubposted 14 years ago

   Ya I said it.  Only thing amazon does is decrease any adwords clicks I might get.  Even if I do get a sale it is only worth as much as one adwords click.  Plus the one session cookie really blows.  I got over 100 amazon clicks with $4 to show for it.  Even if I turned 10% of those amazon clicks to adwords clicks I would have doubled my money.  I am in the process of taking all amazon products off of my hubs.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I'm assuming you mean Adsense not adwords, but you are right - because they're colorful, Amazon ads can attract readers away from your Adsense ads. That's why you should only include them if they're really, really relevant to your text so there's a high chance the reader will buy.
      
      So for instance, Wilderness recently wrote a review of the Toyota Prius car.  That's obviously going to attract people who are thinking of buying the car.  Wilderness put some Amazon ads in the Hub, advertising Prius accessories.  That's going to be counter-productive, because someone who doesn't own a Prius won't buy accessories, but they might click on the ad out of curiosity - instead of clicking on an Adsense ad for the car itself.

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      ryankettposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      This has certainly not been my experience.
      
      In the past month or two I have been greatly increasing exposure to Amazon capsules across my portfolio, with no impact whatsoever on my AdSense earnings.
      
      By the time I have finished I should see my Amazon earnings tripled to around $150 per month, whilst my Adsense earnings are currently on course to slightly better my June earnings of $662.
      
      There probably is an impact, but if there is then it is showing itself to be pretty minimal for me.
      
      In fact, I do rather well with AdSense on many of my sales pages, and I have many hubs which are not set up to sell things which have generated me much more money through Amazon for semi-related products than they have for AdSense.

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      michifusposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I started out with Amazon, however made the mistake of using my amazon.co.uk account to promote amazon.com products. Amazon, despite being a global brand have no way of tracking any purchases across domains. Worth checking, as I have been doing pretty well on amazon since I corrected the problem. They could track clicks, but not purchases, making me think that no-one was buying, when they were!
      
      I had Amazon rage, and deleted all the capsules from my hubs, then I realised it was cutting my nose to spite my face, so I put them back on, and have been doing alight since.
      
      It must be said, people rarely buy the product that I have been promoting, but something catches their eye when they click onto Amazon and they buy something else. I sold 5 x telephone /answer machines to one person this month and I have not even so much as mentioned anything electronic in any of my hubs!
      
      You should be able to get a conversion rate of clicks to sales of around 5%-7% as an average, so 5 sales for every 100 clicks. If you are not getting many clicks on your amazon ads, then you may be better solely with Adsense until you can build up your visitor numbers, or write some hubs targeting amazon products, that should help.

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      GarfieldGatesposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I am sorry you feel this way.
      
      The past three months on Amazon for me have been record-setting in terms of personal income - and things show no signs of slowing down. 
      
      Maybe Amazon is just one of those things where you've "got it" or don't.

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      Christeneposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I wouldn't give up on Amazon.
      
      My average is about $0.04 per click too. But, I've had over 2,300 clicks since Jan 1st. I'm close to my first payout now.

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      Adult Contentposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      You could also eliminate ads altogether and then you wouldn't have to worry!
      LOL?

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2. 67

   relacheposted 14 years ago

   I don't think anyone has a preference for if you use Amazon on your Hubs or not.  Personally, I've been looking over the Hubs of authors who've reported good results, and have improved my Amazon earnings as a result.

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3. 52

   kmackey32posted 14 years ago

   hmmm first time I read about amazon being a bad thing... Anyone else have any takes on this?

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      Paragliderposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I am planning to remove Amazon capsules from all my hubs, and here's why:
      
      http://www.housmans.com/boycottamazon.php

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         Mark Knowlesposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Good for you Paraglider - are you planning on boycotting the war mongering, consumerism-creating  TV companies also?  Or do they pay too well?

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            Paragliderposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            Did I claim to be wholly consistent?
            
            (And I set the terms of my own contracts with the Broadcasters)

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            1. 58

               Mark Knowlesposted 14 years agoin reply to this

               LOL
               
               No you did not claim to be wholly consistent. I myself face the daily irony of ranting against the machine, but also needing to feed myself and one of those ways I feed myself is using Amazon to produce income - despite the fact that they are at least as bad as all the others. And some of the makers of the products they sell - especially those from China, make their treatment of Unions look positively charitable. Just pointing out the irony of some one who makes a good living working for The Man deleting Amazon capsules on moral grounds.
               
               What can you do?

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               1. 89

                  Paragliderposted 14 years agoin reply to this

                  Actually it was an interesting exercise going through 114 hubs deleting maybe 55 Amazon capsules. No personal sacrifice involved, because my Amazon total earnings are $0.00. But I've always been a fan of Housmans bookshop. I visit it every time I'm in London. And if they see fit to run an anti-Amazon campaign, I'm more than happy too support it.
                  
                  But when it comes to TV, for the last few years my main client has been Al Jazeera, so there's nothing controversial there

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         ryankettposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Paraglider, that article relates almost entirely to Amazon.co.uk. Hence the reference to Milton Keynes - a city in England. There is only one reference to American operations, and we are all of course affiliates of the .com. Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk are run as almost entirely seperate business entities.
         
         There is an easy solution to your problem though. The issues relate to working conditions with Amazon warehouses, and problems with the way that they set pricing.
         
         If you were to only offer 'third party' items, they will not pass through Amazon warehouses and the prices are set by the sellers - not Amazon. It seems that completely detaching yourself from Amazon as a result of less than perfect business ethics may be a little extreme. Can I assume therefore that you also never use supermarkets such as Walmart? Never eat at Taco Bell or McDonalds? Never buy a coffee from Starbucks?

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            sunforgedposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            I actually never buy anything from Walmart nor from McDonalds, taco bell or Starbucks.
            
            Its not that hard of a stretch to try and support ethical businesses.
            
            I read the Amazon article at its original source (the guardian?) and that doesnt turn me off.. Jobs can be walked away from - dont tlike the conditions, then leave.
            
            I can understand Amazons position and they dont seem to be hush hush about it..we are busy at Christmas, thats why we hire you, you will be busy while you work here - or we will find someone else.
            
            I was a warehouse manager for a national company and i ran myself equally as hard as that article stated - well, except for the long work hours and the size of the warehouse - on top of the walking there is also the constant bending and up and down ladders - its not a job for the physically weak.
            
            The only thing I disliked is the union busting - but that seems to be an unfortunate universal in this age

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               ryankettposted 14 years agoin reply to this

               I did some temporary work in a huge warehouse too last Xmas. I was simply picking orders and shoving them in boxes. It was very difficult work, I was tired a lot, but I actually finished at the end of that 2 months feeling a lot fitter physically.
               
               The working environment was crap, but guess what? It was the difference between being able to buy my girlfriend a christmas present or not, and the alternative at that time of year was unemployment.
               
               In the 'boom' years, nobody in this country wants to do those jobs and we get tens of thousands of Polish and other Eastern Europeans coming over and earning what is a small fortune for them. They are all very grateful for the work.
               
               As soon as the recession kicks in, and everyday British people have to take those jobs, we begin to complain about the working conditions. And that is precisely why Eastern Europeans were so attractive in the first place.
               
               I would hate to have to do it for years, but I did a job for them, and I put a bit of money in my pocket. Would I want to go back there? No. Would I go back if the alternative was having no money? Yes.
               
               So I agree with you wholeheartedly.

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            Paragliderposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            Hi Ryan - I will occasionally use Starbucks when passing through Dubai as it's convenient for where I stay when there. Mostly I make my own coffee at home. McDonalds I avoid like the plague (an apt word, wouldn't you say?) And Taco Bell and Walmart are not on the radar, in Qatar or Worcestershire (UK).
            
            If I was writing here for the money, I'd probably have to rethink, but as I'm not, dropping Amazon is no hardship and removes some unnecessary clutter from the screen.

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   thooghunposted 14 years ago

   Relache makes a good point. I've seen my Amazon CTR fluctuate greatly. Sometimes it can be as high as 20%, other months it can hover around 1%. It's a learning process -- part skill, part luck.
   
   I'm sticking with it for now, it suits some hubs perfectly.Besides, I still get Adsense clicks from the amazon hubs.

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   WryLiltposted 14 years ago

   I'm currently doing a thirty day challenge with sales type hubs only. They're going to be full of amazon hubs and only sales text.
   
   I think if you put your amazon capsules top right in an informational hub they can be a distraction so always make sure you have a big block of text at the top that allows a large enough space for your big adsense ad.

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   brettbposted 14 years ago

   I've sold a few things on Amazon - for me the key is finding stuff that people actually buy on Amazon. Sub $50 electrical gadgets sell pretty well. The Amazon capsules look pretty as well.
   
   I've not been here over a Christmas buying frenzy, so that will be interesting.
   
   Hubs where people click on Adsense a lot and buy from ClickBank or Amazon are very rare, so I don't think putting Amazon products on would spoil AdSense performance.

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   climberjamesposted 14 years ago

   I made £7.50 by selling a laptop via Amazon recently which has re-instated my faith in hte site

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8. 61

   kephriraposted 14 years ago

   I'd stick with it for a while before judging it too harshly. Most amazon sales might be worth a low amount, but then the average gets brought right up by the odd person who spends $1000's, either by buying a high price item or doing a whole load of shopping. Also if you can start moving up to the higher commission levels that can make a difference too.

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      brettbposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I did have a spending spree a couple of months ago - the person bought enough stuff to bump me up to the 6% commission club.

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   waynetposted 14 years ago

   Amazon is ok, it is an income stream that can be used to bring in a monthly income from it and that's all that matters really.
   
   Work on a collection of income streams whilst writing good quality content is the best that you can do, drive traffic to them and and say Geronimo!

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