My Small Success Story With Amazon Affiliate

by Shutz
21 replies
I started my first affiliate-website somwhere around july/august 2009. It was a simple blogger.com blog. No special theme, no plugins, nothing. Plain product-describing posts with an image and links to amazon. This way i made my first 1,42€ with selling something like thisthis .

With that item beeing sold i realized there is really money to be made with online marketing and simple websites. So i started to create more content for my blog. Nothing special, completly unrelated product, for each a new blog post, with an image and one or two links. Length of the content? Around 250 - 350 word from me, who didnt know anything about writing interesting and selling content. But i DID something.

Two months go by without a sale at all. I was about to give up when i logged back in just before going skiing with family. I made a whopping 34,65€ with selling chairs like thesethese (lucky christmas sales ). And this was the moment i really got caught and wanted to dig deeper into beeing an affiliate.

The thing is, after this i didnt really change much. I still wrote the articles on my own with my not-really-selling style. Only one or two images each post, linking those and making some links within the content. Yes, i did try link-builing with commenting on many wordpress blogs but now i doubt it was really worth it. The only thing i did different was getting my own hosting with niche-matching domain-names in place.

Month and month go by, and im generating a steady income of around 50 - 100€, with the peak in december 2012 - 213€ in one month, where i probably didn't move a finger!

But content writing still wasn't my strength and i didn't think outsourcing would generate enough money to be profitable. So i only made some small other sites in hope of hitting a gold mine (which never happened). Tried som other affiliate programs and finally left everything in an unfinished state. Once moved to another hoster which resultet in damaged on-page links and dropped 4 spots in google which i never got back.

But i was making money with my sites even though i only did very sporadically something.

Last week i randomly logged into one of my other affiliate programs and saw a sale i made another 2 weeks ago. A high end chair for ~1000€, i got 80€ provision!!


My conclusion of this story?
If you found a way (for example a specific niche website) to make money, stick to this one and optimize it to no end. Dont jump around like a bunny, it won't make you any good.

My earnings with amazon.de from the beginning of 2010 until now:
#affiliate #amazon #small #story #success
  • Profile picture of the author KenJ
    Gut Gemacht Shutz, Sie springen um nicht wie ein Kaninchen
    Well done, Don't jump around like a bunny.

    You are so right! Richtig!

    KenJ

    (Hoping my fading German skills still work)
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  • Profile picture of the author Randall Magwood
    Cool news. But i hope that Amazon doesn't ban your account for whatever reason (they're infamous for that), and at the wrong time. Have you tried your methods with other affiliate networks like Clickbank, Commission Junction, or even JVzoo? I'm thinking you'd make more money with these sites.
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    • Profile picture of the author Synnuh
      Originally Posted by Randall Magwood View Post

      Cool news. But i hope that Amazon doesn't ban your account for whatever reason (they're infamous for that), and at the wrong time. Have you tried your methods with other affiliate networks like Clickbank, Commission Junction, or even JVzoo? I'm thinking you'd make more money with these sites.
      They sell high end chairs on Clickbank?

      They've only banned accounts once and there was a workaround, using Viglinks.

      I've spammed the hell out of 4 Associates accounts, and never had an issue. I got 3 AdSense accounts banned for click fraud, buying junk traffic, and having the same ID on hundreds of sites when I was testing a bunch of junk spam from 2010 to 2011. Never an Amazon account, though.

      Are you talking about bans outside of the affiliate law changes in a few states?

      OP, congrats on your first few sales. I'd be looking into how to promote high end chairs.
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      • Profile picture of the author StephenGB
        Originally Posted by Synnuh View Post

        They sell high end chairs on Clickbank?

        They've only banned accounts once and there was a workaround, using Viglinks.

        I've spammed the hell out of 4 Associates accounts, and never had an issue. I got 3 AdSense accounts banned for click fraud, buying junk traffic, and having the same ID on hundreds of sites. Never an Amazon, though.
        .
        Nice and you pm me to offer services, sorry I won't bother.
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        • Profile picture of the author Synnuh
          Originally Posted by StephenGB View Post

          Nice and you pm me to offer services, sorry I won't bother.
          lol -- You couldn't afford me.

          I don't know anyone willing to work with / for someone who does things like this, either.

          If you're hiring a VA to build you Adsense sites, you're in trouble. That was in 2010.

          Not exactly a service I'm offering up.

          Best of luck with your endeavors.
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  • Profile picture of the author icoachu
    Why don't you scale up?

    That way, there are less 'dead spots' as far as your income is concerned.

    Spread out among many sites, you can enjoy many streams of income.

    Many small streams of cash can add up to a large river of CASH.
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  • Profile picture of the author Marked09
    Awesome man! It only proves that Internet Marketing is not that complicated!

    The number 1 reason why a lot of people fail is because they complicate things.
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  • Profile picture of the author magneticweb
    Congrats, Shutz, on your success with Amazon, and thanks for sharing your method with us.

    I totally agree that it's wise to promote high ticket products on Amazon. Even though the commission rate is no more than 8.5 per cent maximum, high prices mean you still earn a decent commission from each sale, and it's no more difficult to sell something expensive than something cheap.

    The big advantage of selling physical products on somewhere like Amazon over selling digital products on Clickbank is that on Amazon you have buyers who are already half sold and looking to buy, not just information seekers who have to be persuaded they really do need an ebook or piece of software (even if they don't).
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  • Profile picture of the author gcreationz
    Thanks for sharing the tips , This is what something i was missing .

    And yes its very important to being a same niche rather than jumping around and around.
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    • Profile picture of the author discrat
      Thanks for sharing your story.

      I like your analogy with the bunny. It is sad but a ongoing theme here with many Newbies.

      If they can get out of this one mindset then things can really turn around for them

      Pick one efficient model,stick with it until you master it



      - Robert Andrew
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  • Profile picture of the author mark healy
    Thanks for sharing your successes it will inspire others to do the same. I agree that once you find something that works keep at it and improve the method and then scale it up.
    Signature

    Build a Real Online Business from scratch today!
    Get Your FREE Webinar Training Here

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  • Well, I actually do jump around. Some niches are converting much better than others and you don't know in advance which niche buys most. My amazon sales since 2010 (still nothing to write home about):
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  • Profile picture of the author Van Dam
    Congratulations on your success. Onwards and upwards. Keep going.
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  • Profile picture of the author Devilfish168
    Originally Posted by Shutz View Post

    I started my first affiliate-website somwhere around july/august 2009. It was a simple blogger.com blog. No special theme, no plugins, nothing. Plain product-describing posts with an image and links to amazon. This way i made my first 1,42€ with selling something like this.

    With that item beeing sold i realized there is really money to be made with online marketing and simple websites. So i started to create more content for my blog. Nothing special, completly unrelated product, for each a new blog post, with an image and one or two links. Length of the content? Around 250 - 350 word from me, who didnt know anything about writing interesting and selling content. But i DID something.

    Two months go by without a sale at all. I was about to give up when i logged back in just before going skiing with family. I made a whopping 34,65€ with selling chairs like these (lucky christmas sales ). And this was the moment i really got caught and wanted to dig deeper into beeing an affiliate.

    The thing is, after this i didnt really change much. I still wrote the articles on my own with my not-really-selling style. Only one or two images each post, linking those and making some links within the content. Yes, i did try link-builing with commenting on many wordpress blogs but now i doubt it was really worth it. The only thing i did different was getting my own hosting with niche-matching domain-names in place.

    Month and month go by, and im generating a steady income of around 50 - 100€, with the peak in december 2012 - 213€ in one month, where i probably didn't move a finger!

    But content writing still wasn't my strength and i didn't think outsourcing would generate enough money to be profitable. So i only made some small other sites in hope of hitting a gold mine (which never happened). Tried som other affiliate programs and finally left everything in an unfinished state. Once moved to another hoster which resultet in damaged on-page links and dropped 4 spots in google which i never got back.

    But i was making money with my sites even though i only did very sporadically something.

    Last week i randomly logged into one of my other affiliate programs and saw a sale i made another 2 weeks ago. A high end chair for ~1000€, i got 80€ provision!!


    My conclusion of this story?
    If you found a way (for example a specific niche website) to make money, stick to this one and optimize it to no end. Dont jump around like a bunny, it won't make you any good.

    My earnings with amazon.de from the beginning of 2010 until now:

    interesting , but you never do any promoting like post your site on social medias etc?
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  • Profile picture of the author zdebx
    You've probably done better than 80% of "marketers" out there, despite the fact that less than 3k euros over the last 5 years doesn't sound like much...

    What you need to do is find a way to scale what you're doing, possibly bigger niches or maybe products with higher commissions? Think how you can expand to bigger numbers and you'll be even more proud of yourself.
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  • Profile picture of the author AlexRich
    Hi,

    I did the same and it is a good start to learn Affiliate Marketing. I started much later with Amazon and earn more, but I am doing the same as you.
    Amazon Germany changed the advertising fee, so you are in a good product category with 7% but no limitation (before it was 10 Euro max). I made some money with electronics, but now it is just 1%! Too much competition and not enough money for this category, especially for a newbie.
    The problem is, that you are limited to amazon and should start a list, if possible in your niche.
    But stay focussed and just do it - simply take action. There is always a lot to learn and you have to test things out, to see what is working.

    Well done!
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  • Profile picture of the author mekus@mekus.com
    Excellent story. Curious. Have you found any themes that work best for Amazon Affiliate sites?
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    • Profile picture of the author czb197
      Great story, I agee. It feels like I have been a newbie for 7 years now hopping around like a bunny!

      Started with Adsense and then had 130 websites de-indexed by big G in one day. Did nothing for 2 years but spend money on products then looked at Amazon Associates program 18 months ago.

      Income peaked at $900 in Dec 2014 and got another 130 Amazon websites de-index. Did nothing for 3 months after the tank, but then notice I am still making money from these sites via Bing and Yahoo traffic (about $300pm) so I started building again and I think I will be back at $500pm by month end and growing.

      This story and thread made me realise I need to stick to Amazon Associates, scale and change approach so my websites don't get de-index all the time. I am only building Amazon stores, which are basicly scraper sites that big G LOVES! (not)

      I now know I need to move to review websites with origanal contect that G and Amazon will love again.

      Thank you once again for all the great info on this post! I am motivated again!

      Happy days are back again.

      Will keep you posted with my progress.
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    • Profile picture of the author czb197
      Originally Posted by mekus@mekus.com View Post

      Excellent story. Curious. Have you found any themes that work best for Amazon Affiliate sites?
      RE: Amazon store themes

      The best ROI I have seen is from Xenia Store themes. I get 7% to 9% conversion and it is set and forget.

      I am testing Fresh Store Builder (15 websites so far) in the last 30 days, but it is to soon to say.

      So far Xenia works better for me than Covert Store (about 50 websites), Covert Viral Wizard (about 35 websites), Covert Video (about 25 websites).

      The big negative is that all the websites about get de-indexed in about 12 months or less. FSB excluded because they are new. I started testing FSB because you can spin and edit the content, which should help delay or prevent de-indexing due to scraping content from Amazon.

      What themes are you using?
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  • Profile picture of the author Robert999
    Originally Posted by Shutz View Post

    I started my first affiliate-website somwhere around july/august 2009. It was a simple blogger.com blog. No special theme, no plugins, nothing. Plain product-describing posts with an image and links to amazon. This way i made my first 1,42€ with selling something like this.

    With that item beeing sold i realized there is really money to be made with online marketing and simple websites. So i started to create more content for my blog. Nothing special, completly unrelated product, for each a new blog post, with an image and one or two links. Length of the content? Around 250 - 350 word from me, who didnt know anything about writing interesting and selling content. But i DID something.

    Two months go by without a sale at all. I was about to give up when i logged back in just before going skiing with family. I made a whopping 34,65€ with selling chairs like these (lucky christmas sales ). And this was the moment i really got caught and wanted to dig deeper into beeing an affiliate.

    The thing is, after this i didnt really change much. I still wrote the articles on my own with my not-really-selling style. Only one or two images each post, linking those and making some links within the content. Yes, i did try link-builing with commenting on many wordpress blogs but now i doubt it was really worth it. The only thing i did different was getting my own hosting with niche-matching domain-names in place.

    Month and month go by, and im generating a steady income of around 50 - 100€, with the peak in december 2012 - 213€ in one month, where i probably didn't move a finger!

    But content writing still wasn't my strength and i didn't think outsourcing would generate enough money to be profitable. So i only made some small other sites in hope of hitting a gold mine (which never happened). Tried som other affiliate programs and finally left everything in an unfinished state. Once moved to another hoster which resultet in damaged on-page links and dropped 4 spots in google which i never got back.

    But i was making money with my sites even though i only did very sporadically something.

    Last week i randomly logged into one of my other affiliate programs and saw a sale i made another 2 weeks ago. A high end chair for ~1000€, i got 80€ provision!!


    My conclusion of this story?
    If you found a way (for example a specific niche website) to make money, stick to this one and optimize it to no end. Dont jump around like a bunny, it won't make you any good.

    My earnings with amazon.de from the beginning of 2010 until now:
    Good Post.

    Try to do it properly to earn passive income from amazon affiliate program. Make small niche websites on different topics and promote Amazon products. The main reason you are not making much money is lack of original, high quality and enough content. I think you must writer long reviews of 1000+ words. Reviews must be original, interesting and should help reader. Emebed 5-10 affiliate links and some image links within each review to get high CTR. Publish at least 100 such quality reviews on your each website.

    This will give you steady flow of traffic and sales from Amazon.

    Good Luck!
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    • Profile picture of the author mosher123
      I don't like amazon germany anymore.
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