Running a private ad network with custom Amazon ads
It seems as if their base ad inventory are links from major networks like LinkConnector and Pepperjam. To that, they've added their own clients, presumably on a pay-for-impressions basis.
I have a secondary site in a similar niche that is getting a consistent 50 or so uniques per day from Google that I want to experiment with. I've used OpenX in the past, and it seems like a viable platform to begin my own internal ad network. My plan right now is to go through Amazon's "Best Sellers" listing for areas in my niche, and create a series of a half dozen or so custom ads for those products. I then want to rotate these ads on my sites and see what is performing the best. The tracking will be a challenge - I'll have to set up 10 or so Amazon tracking IDs to test conversion, and keep records as to when each ID is tied to each ad.
I've got a request in to Amazon.com to see if they will allow me the use of their name and logotype in my ads (as in "buy on Amazon.com"), as I strongly suspect their logo on the ad will increase conversions. Even if this is not granted, though, I intend to go ahead without using their name.
Has anyone here had experience in running commission-based ads through OpenX? What tools did you use to measure CTR and conversions on an ongoing basis?
I plan to update this thread as my experiment progress, so if you have any questions, shoot.
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