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Amazon Christmas Strategies?

by PoweWhey
37 replies
What are your Amazon strategies for this Christmas period?

Although I am only making about $50 per month at the moment from Amazon affiliate sales I am priming myself for the Christmas period.

I have a couple of strategies that I list below, but I would also be interested to see what your strategies are.

Finding products
One is to find what Amazon products are selling well right now by looking at the bestseller lists. I pick items that have a green arrow and that have been on the bestseller list for 100 days or less.
The other is to look at the ToysRUs web site and find their bestsellers. Pick a few of them and promote them.

Creating a good Christmas Sales page.
I think it is too late now to create stand alone web sites because these take time to be indexed and to gain good ranking. However, it is almost never to late to use Hub pages because they get indexed by Google almost immediately and can get ranked for new products pretty quickly.
Hub pages have lots of options and if you use them correctly they can make you money quickly.

From my experience and what I have read on this forum, long and detailed reviews work best. Or lists where 5 or more similar items are compared and ranked.

Building back links
For the Amazon products that I have sold so far I have not used back links. This is because Hub pages get indexed quickly and I use the product name as the main key to get good search results.

Given all of this, I do think that luck plays a large part in Amazon affiliate sales. For example, last year Zhu Zhu pets were the big seller. If you were on the Zhu Zhu pets train early enough then you made big $$. If you missed it then my guess is that you made crumbs. I was not doing IM at that point but that is the way it looks to me.
Still, it is worth trying to find the hot new toy or product for this Christmas and at least building a hub page for it.

What do you think, and what are your strategies?
#amazon #christmas #strategies
  • Profile picture of the author latrice17
    Your holiday plan sounds good to me. I hope to be able to make some money this holiday season as well.

    From your experience, do you think that using Hubpages is better than using Squidoo or Blogger?

    Also, I was wondering if the same applied to web 2.0 sites: I've been hearing that we should avoid using the product or brand name as part of our domain names. The owners of the product could come after us. Is this only advised when purchasing a domain name and not when we use 2.0 sites?
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    • Profile picture of the author PoweWhey
      Originally Posted by latrice17 View Post

      Your holiday plan sounds good to me. I hope to be able to make some money this holiday season as well.

      From your experience, do you think that using Hubpages is better than using Squidoo or Blogger?

      Also, I was wondering if the same applied to web 2.0 sites: I've been hearing that we should avoid using the product or brand name as part of our domain names. The owners of the product could come after us. Is this only advised when purchasing a domain name and not when we use 2.0 sites?
      I think that blogger works too, but hub pages for me have been quicker to make sales. I am not sure if it is because of hub pages high PR but they work quickly for me. I have not used Squidoo, but I understand that it is quite restrictive. On hub pages you can add your associate id and like on blogger, you can automatically integrate all Amazon links. That said, hub pages do take something like 40% of associate sales, so there is a price to pay.

      For domain names, I definitely use them in the web 2.0 sites name. I have had hub pages suspended for duplicate content when I have used an exact long product name. Then I shorten the name to something reasonable and it works okay.
      For the normal web sites, I think that you are safe with the product name in the url. Just google Zhu Zhu pets and see how many people have created affiliate sites with the name Zhu Zhu pets.
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  • Profile picture of the author PoweWhey
    My thought for this christmas is that the hot toy will be "My Pillow Pets Miss Lady Bug." I just googled that and I can see someones hub page on page 1 and I bet that this person is going to make serious $ this year. I think it is too late for me to catch up on this one, but for next year I am going to be the one.
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    • Profile picture of the author cnrimgr1
      Originally Posted by PoweWhey View Post

      My thought for this christmas is that the hot toy will be "My Pillow Pets Miss Lady Bug." I just googled that and I can see someones hub page on page 1 and I bet that this person is going to make serious $ this year. I think it is too late for me to catch up on this one, but for next year I am going to be the one.
      A Google Search for "MY Pillow Pets Miss Lady Bug" there is a squidoo and a hubpage on page one- Squidoo has 73 backlinks and hubpages has 18

      That would be easy to get page one- even higher too

      Google search for "My pillow pets" has a hubpage with 273 backlinks.

      Now this one would take more work... there is still 66 days until Christmas.
      Also you have to consider conversion. My pillow pets would be harder to place for but also have a lower conversion while my pillow pets miss lady bug is more likely to be buying customers.
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      • Profile picture of the author dsm091
        It is not too late. I started this time last year with a goal to make $200 before Christmas. I know it is low but I wanted something really easy. I sold kids books and games. I had no problem making that with only about 3 hours of work. Just have to find the right product and run your campaigns. I used PPC.
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        • Profile picture of the author PoweWhey
          Originally Posted by dsm091 View Post

          It is not too late. I started this time last year with a goal to make $200 before Christmas. I know it is low but I wanted something really easy. I sold kids books and games. I had no problem making that with only about 3 hours of work. Just have to find the right product and run your campaigns. I used PPC.

          PPC, now that is interesting. I was thinking of trying that myself and you have given me the impetus. I love PPC even though I have not made a profit with it yet. Maybe this is my year
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      • Profile picture of the author inter123
        I was checking out the backlinks on "My pillow pets" hubpage, I am curious to know how one goes about getting these types of backlinks? I am guessing the hubpage creator does not own these websites and they are not the type where you can leave a comment that gives a link back to the hub.

        Originally Posted by cnrimgr1 View Post

        Google search for "My pillow pets" has a hubpage with 273 backlinks.

        Now this one would take more work... there is still 66 days until Christmas.
        Also you have to consider conversion. My pillow pets would be harder to place for but also have a lower conversion while my pillow pets miss lady bug is more likely to be buying customers.
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      • Profile picture of the author PoweWhey
        Originally Posted by cnrimgr1 View Post

        A Google Search for "MY Pillow Pets Miss Lady Bug" there is a squidoo and a hubpage on page one- Squidoo has 73 backlinks and hubpages has 18

        That would be easy to get page one- even higher too

        Google search for "My pillow pets" has a hubpage with 273 backlinks.

        Now this one would take more work... there is still 66 days until Christmas.
        Also you have to consider conversion. My pillow pets would be harder to place for but also have a lower conversion while my pillow pets miss lady bug is more likely to be buying customers.
        Very nice analysis thank you! I will get to the backlinking.
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  • Profile picture of the author warrenski
    When do the Christmas trends first start appearing ?
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  • Profile picture of the author PoweWhey
    Google Trends: Oct 15, 2010
    change the date and you will get the searches for last year Christmas. I think that you need to have a hub page or web site up already or at least before November.

    Also, take a look at toysRus or the other big toysellers. They are doing Christmas marketing already.
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  • Profile picture of the author DeborahDera
    Originally Posted by PoweWhey View Post

    What are your Amazon strategies for this Christmas period?

    Although I am only making about $50 per month at the moment from Amazon affiliate sales I am priming myself for the Christmas period.

    I have a couple of strategies that I list below, but I would also be interested to see what your strategies are.

    Finding products
    One is to find what Amazon products are selling well right now by looking at the bestseller lists. I pick items that have a green arrow and that have been on the bestseller list for 100 days or less.
    The other is to look at the ToysRUs web site and find their bestsellers. Pick a few of them and promote them.

    Creating a good Christmas Sales page.
    I think it is too late now to create stand alone web sites because these take time to be indexed and to gain good ranking. However, it is almost never to late to use Hub pages because they get indexed by Google almost immediately and can get ranked for new products pretty quickly.
    Hub pages have lots of options and if you use them correctly they can make you money quickly.

    From my experience and what I have read on this forum, long and detailed reviews work best. Or lists where 5 or more similar items are compared and ranked.

    Building back links
    For the Amazon products that I have sold so far I have not used back links. This is because Hub pages get indexed quickly and I use the product name as the main key to get good search results.

    Given all of this, I do think that luck plays a large part in Amazon affiliate sales. For example, last year Zhu Zhu pets were the big seller. If you were on the Zhu Zhu pets train early enough then you made big $$. If you missed it then my guess is that you made crumbs. I was not doing IM at that point but that is the way it looks to me.
    Still, it is worth trying to find the hot new toy or product for this Christmas and at least building a hub page for it.

    What do you think, and what are your strategies?
    Amazon has actually posted some "best christmas gifts for 2010" lists - you might want to Google them.

    I don't care what anyone says - people are driven by the media. I wrote some PLR packs based on ToysRUs, KMart, and Amazon toy/gift suggestions - because I know that when consumers see those items advertised they'll look at them and consider buying them.
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    • Profile picture of the author steveshoemaker
      I want to put together some niche websites from amazon and tie it in to a mother site. I have been doing some research on what the big sellers are going to be online and I have friends that are retail managers. I am trying to pick their brains for the top 10. After I have that I will get to work on my site design and SEO. Thanks for your tips as well.
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    • Profile picture of the author PoweWhey
      Originally Posted by DeborahDera View Post

      Amazon has actually posted some "best christmas gifts for 2010" lists - you might want to Google them.

      I don't care what anyone says - people are driven by the media. I wrote some PLR packs based on ToysRUs, KMart, and Amazon toy/gift suggestions - because I know that when consumers see those items advertised they'll look at them and consider buying them.
      Excellent idea, thank you! I just had a look and what is great about this list is that it covers all categories, men, women, husbands wives, children ages etc. I found some good ones already.

      Great idea with the PLR. Sounds like you have gone through the lists completely already and are ahead of the game unlike me
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  • Profile picture of the author Kevin_Hutto
    Im not a big amazon affiliate, so take this with a grain of salt. But you might already be too late for Christmas this year. My buddy is a big amazon & ebay affiliate (makes about $50k a month) and he started working on Christmas stuff back in August.

    He finds what he thinks will be the hot toys. Last year he had the ZuZu(sp) pets.

    So, if you are gonna do good with it, you better get in gear and work your butt off between now and then to get those rankings up.
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    • Profile picture of the author PoweWhey
      Originally Posted by Kevin_Hutto View Post

      Im not a big amazon affiliate, so take this with a grain of salt. But you might already be too late for Christmas this year. My buddy is a big amazon & ebay affiliate (makes about $50k a month) and he started working on Christmas stuff back in August.

      He finds what he thinks will be the hot toys. Last year he had the ZuZu(sp) pets.

      So, if you are gonna do good with it, you better get in gear and work your butt off between now and then to get those rankings up.
      Thanks Kevin. I agree. I think I have missed the boat this year. Nonetheless I am going to give it my best go. At least all the work and learning that I do for this year will help me for next year.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ruth P
    I think this post will be useful to a lot of people.

    I especially agree that using product names as keywords is a fabulous idea. And I've been writing loads of content about Christmas products this year - I always keep my eye on the different "hot" holiday lists that different retailers are releasing. You can tell that certain products are just going to be huge this year, so it's time to get promoting them.

    I also agree that longer reviews work best. I haven't made loads from Amazon yet, but I'm slowly building more product-related pages, and my longer reviews get traffic from all sorts of long tail keywords which is great.
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  • Profile picture of the author PoweWhey
    One great tip I just realised is that some of the gifts on the hot gifts list were on the list last year. If makes no sense to promote those. You can easily see what was on the list last year by searching for the term in google trends.
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    • Profile picture of the author WildGale
      We started in August which I think may have been a bit late. We're still working on ranking. We'll see how it goes...
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  • Profile picture of the author PoweWhey
    Given all this feedback, I am going to start my 2011 stuff now. At least in that way I know I will be ready.
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  • Profile picture of the author taron22
    I found the tiffany dow 52 squidoo thread on here useful just use the search option it has some great information and ideas on christmas marketing on amazon the pdf is free
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  • Profile picture of the author petevamp
    If you havent been working towards your xmas products you are more then likely far too late. Unless you already have a set of great keywords you could use to target very specific products then you will likely find your self in trouble. You should have started working the xmas angle atleast a month or 2 ago. Granted I have been an amazon affiliate for almost a year or so. I also have not pushed the amazon sales as I have my other affiliate sales. But if you work extra hard you may beable to get find a very profitable set of product terms. You should try and stick with very very specific products at this point or it will be a lost cause.

    So instead of trying to target say small lap tops choose a brand of laptop and build a series of pages for that brand and specific product. You can bet people will be looking for the exact brand coming this xmas which should be really really easy to get high rankings from a site like hub pages or squidoo. Thus increasing your chances of a great return. I wish you the best of luck though. I just think you should have been starting last month if not sooner.
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    • Profile picture of the author sellerscompanion
      I don't think you are too late at all, but you best get started soon. For instance, I have several Christmas related PLR packs that my customers just bought within the last week. One person posted their 25 toy articles and emailed me a few days later to say they had already made 8 sales. So, it can definitely be done. You just need to get the content out there, get your links out there and start sending traffic to those money pages.

      Personally, I started in August, but sales are just now starting to pick up so you still have time!

      CC
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    • Profile picture of the author JRCarson
      Originally Posted by petevamp View Post

      If you havent been working towards your xmas products you are more then likely far too late. Unless you already have a set of great keywords you could use to target very specific products then you will likely find your self in trouble. You should have started working the xmas angle atleast a month or 2 ago. Granted I have been an amazon affiliate for almost a year or so. I also have not pushed the amazon sales as I have my other affiliate sales. But if you work extra hard you may beable to get find a very profitable set of product terms. You should try and stick with very very specific products at this point or it will be a lost cause.

      So instead of trying to target say small lap tops choose a brand of laptop and build a series of pages for that brand and specific product. You can bet people will be looking for the exact brand coming this xmas which should be really really easy to get high rankings from a site like hub pages or squidoo. Thus increasing your chances of a great return. I wish you the best of luck though. I just think you should have been starting last month if not sooner.
      I think you make good points, but I don't think it's too late...but being VERY specific on products is just always a good idea.

      You aren't going to have a chance with keywords like "Christmas gifts 2010" or something like that.

      But a specific product? You could write a piece of content on Dec 5th that makes sales well into the next year in my experience.

      I personally really like Ezine Articles for immediate traffic to a product and content that can rank highly and fastly in Google. You'll have to set up a re-direct for that, but it works.
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      • Profile picture of the author garybooth
        A useful resource for what will be top toys in the UK this Xmas is toyretailersassociation dot co dot uk

        It's also worth checking what products have sold out on the big retailer websites, to guage what is in big demand this year.

        Cheers, Gary
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  • Profile picture of the author Anup Mahajan
    I have a question here.. I have never done marketing during Holidays & Christmas but would love to get into it .. My question is what kind of products sell best during Chrsitmas & Holidays.. I can think of gifts, toys, decors etc but other than that what else?

    Anup
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    • Profile picture of the author PoweWhey
      Originally Posted by anup.mahajan View Post

      I have a question here.. I have never done marketing during Holidays & Christmas but would love to get into it .. My question is what kind of products sell best during Chrsitmas & Holidays.. I can think of gifts, toys, decors etc but other than that what else?

      Anup
      Just read my very first post in this page.
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      • Profile picture of the author Rachel Zaouche
        Powewhey

        You can use your own amazon id link in hubpages too. You may find that if you dont use the hubpages amazon module but instead use your own aff id in a text link your conversions will increase. It is not too late to start for this year. Get your content and build a load of pages and you should see sales.

        These hubs or web pages can make sales all year round and they will have aged nicely by xmas 2011. Dont worry about the hottest product, people buy all sorts at xmas, just get going and get your links up there.

        Good Luck

        Rach
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    • Profile picture of the author Tracey_Meagher
      Originally Posted by anup.mahajan View Post

      I have a question here.. I have never done marketing during Holidays & Christmas but would love to get into it .. My question is what kind of products sell best during Chrsitmas & Holidays.. I can think of gifts, toys, decors etc but other than that what else?

      Anup
      My tip if you are looking to get into Christmas marketing is to think outside the box. Some of the most searched for gifts are not what you'd typically expect. I spent a long time researching my Xmas Riches List and some of the best seasonal sellers are products such as high end kitchen appliances. Also the jewellery niche can be a great place to start if you target very long tail keyword phrases.
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  • Profile picture of the author Randy Daugherty
    this sound great.... Merry Christmas everyone!
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    • Profile picture of the author JRCarson
      I agree it is NOT too late to earn money for Christmas. I made well into the 4 figures with just a few pieces of content written in October last year. I saw it was working and just kept on writing up until the end of the year!

      If you can focus on Christmas, and what is selling, for an hour a day, you could make some serious cash between now and then.

      THEN there's the period after the holidays when they start shopping for the bargains.

      Bring it!!!
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      • Profile picture of the author PoweWhey
        Originally Posted by JRCarson View Post

        I agree it is NOT too late to earn money for Christmas. I made well into the 4 figures with just a few pieces of content written in October last year. I saw it was working and just kept on writing up until the end of the year!

        If you can focus on Christmas, and what is selling, for an hour a day, you could make some serious cash between now and then.

        THEN there's the period after the holidays when they start shopping for the bargains.

        Bring it!!!
        Thank you! Very inspiring.
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  • Profile picture of the author Testy Today
    [QUOTE=flowers24;2776735]I would like to know that what sort of flowers you,people like during christimas and new year.I have a well known flower shop in london that deals with christmas trees.

    --- poinsettias
    --- amaryllis
    --- any red (and white) flowers arranged with evergreen branches or ivy and some ribbons and small seasonal sparkly ornaments

    Mistletoe is a plant, I guess, not a flower. I live in California where mistletoe is a parasite on oak trees. At this time of year, neighbors and their kids pull the mistletoe strands out of the oak trees, put a few inches each in small plastic bags and sell them in town or at roadside stands. They make a bunch of money.

    P.S. This isn't an "Amazon" strategy, but I think it is an "amazing" strategy
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  • Profile picture of the author SK123
    Thanks everyone for the generous sharing of Xmas sales tips. I didn't even think about these yet... Well, it differentiates the experienced guys from the rest of us. Thanks once again. Got to start working on these tips.
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    • Profile picture of the author PoweWhey
      Originally Posted by SK123 View Post

      Thanks everyone for the generous sharing of Xmas sales tips. I didn't even think about these yet... Well, it differentiates the experienced guys from the rest of us. Thanks once again. Got to start working on these tips.
      Agreed, very interesting set of responses. And now I am trying PPC but on Bing, just to see if that is a good market. I am kinda hoping that everyone else is focussed on Google.
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  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    ZhuZhu Pets will likely be hot again, but no telling how many new "hot" toys will come out. Christmas decorations are also a big seller and Share a Sale has some good programs for that. I do a combination of decorations and hot products.
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