The Official Amazon Associates Blog

Earn 6% on Gift Cards

Here is some information that will help you through the last stretch of the holiday shopping season including our holiday ordering cutoff dates, information on how you can earn 6% by referring purchases of Amazon Gift Cards, and a list of great holiday shopping deals from our product categories.

Holiday Ordering Cutoffs for U.S. Shipping
Below are the holiday ordering cutoff dates for U.S. shipping of items shipped from and sold by Amazon.com for delivery on or before December 24th. For complete holiday shipping information and restrictions visit our holiday shipping page.

• Sunday, December 16th – Gift Cards sent by mail (e-mail gift cards can be sent immediately at any time)
• Monday, December 17th – Free Super Saver Shipping (on qualified orders over $25)
• Tuesday, December 18th – Standard Shipping
• Wednesday, December 19th – Two-Day Shipping (Free with Amazon Prime, Last full day to order)
• Thursday, December 20th – Two-Day Shipping (Free with Amazon Prime, Order as late as 3pm PT, but varies by item)
• Friday, December 21st – One-Day Shipping ($3.99 per item with Amazon Prime, Last full day to order)
• Saturday, December 22nd – Two-Day Shipping ($3.99 per item with Amazon Prime; Order as late as 3pm PT, but varies by item)

Earn 6% on Amazon Gift Cards
Once our shipping deadlines have passed, Amazon Gift Cards are a great way to earn referral fees through the rest of the holiday shopping season. Amazon.com Gift Card referrals will earn a flat 6% referral rate. They can be sent via email, an e-card, or on paper through snail mail (gift cards ordered by December 16th will be delivered by December 24th).

To begin promoting Amazon.com Gift Cards on your site, visit the Gift Cards section of Associates Central. This page contains links to the Gift Cards banners you can place on your site, information on how to build text links to the Amazon.com Gift Cards page from your own site, and an FAQ.

Amazon.com Product Category Holiday Promotions
Amazon.com's Last Minute Gifts store gives customers lots of options for gifts they can give in the few days before Christmas - even on Christmas Day. Many gifts feature quick shipping, some with even free overnight shipping:

• Magazine subscriptions, featuring an instant $5 rebate, with free, printable gift cards
• Free overnight shipping on select jewelry and watches (valid 12/21 12:00am to 12/22 12:00pm, PST)
• Software under $30 available to ship up to noon on 12/22 PST

Here are some other great holiday shopping promotions:

• Save up to 70% on Toys and Games
• For a limited time you and your site visitors can get 10 free HD DVDs with select HD DVD players in addition to up to $100 of savings on select HD DVD players
• Save up to $700 on select Sony notebooks offered by Amazon.com. From ultraportables to desktop replacements, these powerful notebooks are great gift ideas for your site visitors.
• 18-Month No-Interest Financing on Select HDTVs - Purchase select HDTVs offered by Amazon.com using the Amazon.com Store Card and you and your site visitors will receive 18 months of no interest if paid in full in 18 months. The offer is good through February 29, 2008, but it does not apply to products sold on our site by third-party merchants or through third-party areas such as Amazon.com Marketplace or Auctions. Minimum payments are required, and additional restrictions apply.

The Amazon Associates team has enjoyed working with you in 2007. Best wishes for a safe, happy, and successful holiday season. We look forward to another great year working with you in 2008.

-Sean, Associates Product Manager

Context Links Update

Thanks to everyone that has provided feedback on our Context Links Beta!  The feedback has been very valuable, and we are continuing to work on the tool to make your experience even better.

We wanted to share with you the most common questions and issues sent to us by different Associates as they've used the Context Links Beta.

1. "I put the Context Links javascript on my website, but I do not see any links yet."

Context Links scans your webpage to determine what keywords should be linked. If our systems have already processed your page then we take only a few seconds to create the automatic links. If you have added the script to a new page which has not yet been processed by our systems, it will typically take a few minutes to determine the phrases to link. However it also depends on how fast your Web site serves the content to us and how much traffic your Web page receives. So be patient - it will work in two minutes for some sites and take up to a few hours for lower traffic websites.

2. "My browser hangs when I hover over a link created by Context Links Beta."

This happened in some versions of Firefox, but we have corrected the issue causing this.  Thanks to all of our Associates who helped us identify and repair this issue.

3. "The Context Links javascript seems to be adding some space on the bottom of my page."

We have corrected the issue causing this.  Thanks again!

4. "I see very few links on my page, but I have so many product names in the text."

If there are already a number of links on your page, Context Links may not link any new phrases. This determination is primarily based on the current link density of the page and the maximum number of links setting you configured in Associates Central.  If the content has changed and enough time has not lapsed for our systems to re-process your page for the new content, it will fail to link the phrases on your pages.

5. I installed the javascript on my Blogger blog, but it does not work.

The preferred way of adding the Context Links Beta javascript to your Blogger blog is to add a new "Page Element" from the Layout page, selecting a "HTML/Javascript" component.

If you edit the HTML of your template and place the Context Links javascript, Blogger sometimes strips off the javascript that appears inside the comments tag. If you are very keen on installing it this way, please remove the comments tags from the Context Links javascript (remove "<!--" from the start and "-->" from the end).

6. Context Links do not show up on IE, but they work fine on Firefox.

We have corrected this issue. Thanks to everyone that helped!

If you still face any issues regarding this, please report it via an email to associates-beta AT amazon.com along with the URL where you see the problem.

7. How do I select what content should be considered for automatic linking? I tried the include and exclude tags, but they don't seem to work.

First, let us tell you about inclusion and exclusion markers that allow you to control what parts of your pages will be eligible for automatic linking.

Our inclusion markers will allow you to specify exactly which portion of content on your page should be available for automatic linking by Context Links.  You would place the inclusion markers as follows:
<!--Amazon_CLS_IM_START-->
Content available for Context Links here
<!--Amazon_CLS_IM_END-->

In other words, if you use inclusion markers in your page, links will be created in the content only between these markers.

Our exclusion markers will allow you to specify exactly which portion of content on your page should not be available for automatic linking by Context Links.  You would place the exclusion markers as follows:
<!--Amazon_CLS_EM_START-->
Content available for Context Links here
<!--Amazon_CLS_EM_END-->

In other words, if you use exclusion markers in your page, links will be created in the content only outside of these markers.

Please note that markers are optional. If no markers are specified, Context Links will consider the whole content of the frame in which it is enabled. Also, please avoid using both exclusion and inclusion markers on the same page.

If you previously used the Context Links Beta and later added nclusion or exclusion markers, you have in effect changed the content of your page. Please wait for our systems to re-process your page to determine that you have added any of these tags.

8. The keywords or products linked by Context Links Beta are not relevant to my page.

Context Links is in Beta and we are working constantly to improve the tool's quality. If you have specific complaints, please send them in detail to associates AT amazon.com. We appreciate the time and effort you take to send us feedback and help us provide better products for all our Associates.

-Jeetu, Associates Software Development Engineer
-Sean, Associates Product Marketing Manager

Associate Tip: Add Variety to your Product Links

Many Amazon.com Associates use Enhanced Display Product Links like this one to conveniently display a single product with its image, product name, and up-to-date prices.

If you have many repeat visitors to your site and a small amount of space for product promotions, one option to give your visitors more variety is to configure your product links to randomly display one of several products instead of always displaying the same one.

Here's how it works: use the Build Links tools in Associates Central (requires login) to build a product link that features a product you want to display on your site. You can also use the link customization options to specify preferences like colors. Then modify the resulting HTML to include additional ASINs that may also interest your site visitors. After you paste the modified HTML into your Web site, one of the listed products will be randomly selected for display each time the page loads.

Here's a specific example: The HTML below is an Enhanced Display Product link for the Grant Lee Phillips Strangelet album above. (Just substitute your Associates ID for storeid-20).

<iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=storeid-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1
&asins=B000MTPAEK&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1
=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe>

To modify this link to randomly select from a list of ASINs, first locate the place in the HTML where the initial ASIN is listed. In this case, it says asins=B000MTPAEK. Then, add additional ASINs after the initial ASIN, separated by commas. The code below shows how the link would look after modifying it to randomly display either Strangelet, Nineteeneighties, Virginia Creeper, or Mobilize, all albums by Grant Lee Phillips.

<iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=storeid-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1
&asins=B000MTPAEK,B000FKO5F6,B00019JQ1Y,B00005LCFW&fc1=
000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=
ifr" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe>

Here is the resulting Enhanced Product Link.  If you refresh the page you'll see one of the four albums randomly selected.

-Karen, Associates Senior Product Manager

-Sean, Associates Product Marketing Manager (and Grant Lee Phillips superfan)

Associate Tip: Refine Search Results Links

Have you ever wanted to send your visitors to a specific page of search results on Amazon?

• Not just running shoes, but Adidas® or New Balance® women's running shoes
• Not just blenders but discounted 5-speed blenders
• Not just children's books but children's books about pirates by John Matthews

You can use the method below to construct a link to a page of search results that has the refinements you want.

Step 1: Look up the "node" of the category in which you want to perform your search by going to Amazon.com, browsing to your desired category, and looking for "node=" in the URL. For example, the node for Women's Shoes is 1044764, the node for Kitchen - Small Appliances is 289913, and the node for Children's Books is 4.

Step 2: Construct a basic search results link to that node using the following format:

http://www.amazon.com/s/?node=NODE_HERE&linkCode=qs&tag=
ASSOC-ID-HERE, substituting the node you looked up for NODE_HERE and your Associates ID for ASSOC-ID-HERE

Step 3: Add one or more of the following refinements to make the search results more specific. Each time you add a refinement you should add an ampersand -- & -- followed by the type of the refinement, an equals sign, and the value to which you want to refine the results.

• Keywords: Use keywords to narrow the results to items that meet a descriptive quality. If your keyword phrase is more than one word, we recommend using the URL-encoded value of a space -- %20 -- between words.

Format        http://www.amazon.com/s/?node=NODE_HERE&linkCode=qs&tag=
ASSOC-ID-HERE&keywords=KEYWORD_PHRASE_HERE

Example: 5 speed blenders within Kitchen - Small Appliances
http://www.amazon.com/s/?node=289913&linkCode=qs&tag=
ASSOC-ID-HERE&keywords=5%20speed%20blender

• Brand: Use brand to narrow the results by the maker of the product. If the brand name is more than one word, we recommend using the URL-encoded value of a space -- %20 -- between words. In many categories, you can show results from more than one brand using the pipe character -- | -- between brand names.

Format http://www.amazon.com/s/?node=NODE_HERE&linkCode=qs&tag=
ASSOC-ID-HERE&brand=BRAND_NAME_HERE

Example: Women's shoes by Adidas or New Balance
http://www.amazon.com/s/?node=1044764&linkCode=qs&tag=
ASSOC-ID-HERE&brand=New%20Balance|Adidas

• Discount: Specify the percent off to show products that are discounted. You can specify an exact range like 10-20 (between 10% and 20% off) or an open-ended range like 40- (40% off or more).

Format http://www.amazon.com/s/?node=NODE_HERE&linkCode=qs&tag=
ASSOC-ID-HERE&pct-off=X-Y 
X is the lower end of the discount range and Y is the upper end. You can leave either one off to specify an open-ended range.

Example 1: Women's Shoes that are 40% off or more
http://www.amazon.com/s/?node=1044764&linkCode=qs&tag=
ASSOC-ID-HERE&pct-off=40-

Example 2: Small Kitchen Appliances between 10% and 20% off
http://www.amazon.com/s/?node=289913&linkCode=qs&tag=
ASSOC-ID-HERE&pct-off=10-20

• Book author: Specify the author's name or part of it to refine a list of book search results. Note that you add two items to the link format to do this: the author's name and the type of author search. If you specify the full name of the author, use last name comma first name.

Format http://www.amazon.com/s/?node=NODE_HERE&linkCode=qs&tag=
ASSOC-ID-HERE&author=AUTHOR_NAME_HERE&select-author=
field-author-like

Example: Children's books by authors with the name Matthews
http://www.amazon.com/s/?node=4&linkCode=qs&tag=
ASSOC-ID-HERE&author=Matthews&select-author=field-author-like

• Book publisher: Specify the publisher's name to show only books issued by that company.

Format
http://www.amazon.com/s/?node=NODE_HERE&linkCode=qs&tag=
ASSOC-ID-HERE&field-publisher=PUBLISHER_NAME_HERE

Example: Children's books published by Atheneum
http://www.amazon.com/s/?node=4&linkCode=qs&tag=
ASSOC-ID-HERE&field-publisher=Atheneum

Here are examples of combining these refinements:

• Adidas or New Balance women's running shoes: http://www.amazon.com/s/?node=1044764&linkCode=qs&tag=
  ASSOC-ID-HERE&keywords=running&brand=New%20Balance|Adidas

• 5 speed blenders that are at least 25% off: http://www.amazon.com/s/?node=289913&linkCode=qs&tag=
  ASSOC-ID-HERE&keywords=5%20speed%20blender&pct-off=25-

• Children's books about pirates by John Matthews: http://www.amazon.com/s/?node=4&linkCode=qs&tag=
  ASSOC-ID-HERE&keywords=pirate&author=Matthews,John&select-author=field-author-like

Note: Since Amazon product categories may treat search differently, we recommend testing your link to make sure it shows the products you want.

Happy refining!

-Karen, Associates Senior Product Manager

-Sean, Associates Product Marketing Manager

Omakase and Content-based Advertising Platforms

We are often asked by Associates "Can I run Amazon Associates' context-based tools, such as Omakase™, on the same page as other content-based advertising such as Google AdSense™?"

The short answer is "Yes!"  For more details read on…

We are aware that some advertising platforms include exclusivity clauses that restrict site owners from using other 3rd party advertising products on their sites.  However, Amazon Associates is an affiliate program focused on providing tools that allow website owners to refer their site visitors to purchase products for sale by Amazon and our merchants.  We are not a 3rd party advertising provider.  As such, Omakase and other context-based solutions from the Associates program are not in direct competition with contextual advertising tools, which means they can be placed on the same page.  In addition, Amazon.com places no comparable exclusivity on our Associates. Our perspective is that website owners should control how they monetize their sites to be able to select the best mix of advertising links and affiliate programs.

It is also important to differentiate the meaning of context as it applies to Omakase.  Whereas advertising platforms such as AdSense focus on the page content and the site visitors' geographical location to display relevant text advertisements, our engine recommends to your site visitors products from Amazon's vast catalog based on our unique understanding of the site, the user, and the page content.

We realize that it can be tricky to navigate the various exclusivity clauses from other companies and wanted to clarify our position. If you receive feedback from other advertising providers that you are not permitted to put Amazon's affiliate links on your site please contact us.

Do you have questions or comments on this topic or others?  Please join us on our Associates discussion boards!

-Sean, Amazon Associates Product Marketing Manager

Amazon.com Holiday Shipping and Gift Certificates

We'd like to remind you all that this Friday, December 15 is the last day you and your site visitors can place orders on Amazon.com and receive Free Super Saver Shipping.  Visit our  Holiday Shipping page on Amazon.com to learn more about Amazon.com's shipping deadlines for standard shipping and Amazon Prime.

However, this represents another great opportunity to make your site visitors aware of Amazon Gift Certificates, on which you can earn referral fees through December 31.  For full details and where to find banner graphics read our earlier post announcing that are Associates are eligible to earn referral fees on Amazon Gift Certificates.

We wish you continued success throughout the remainder of the holiday season!

ISBN-13 and Amazon Associates

We've received a lot of questions from Associates regarding ISBN-13; so, we wanted to provide you all some information on the new standard and how you're affected.

The International Standards Organization (ISO) recently approved a change to the length of the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) from 10 digits (ISBN-10) to 13 digits (ISBN-13) effective January 1, 2007. We have created an FAQ in Associates Central (login required), but here is a condensed version of some of the information in that FAQ.

Amazon plans to continue using 10-digit ASINs; so, in the future a book's ASIN will be different than its ISBN, just as items in product categories like Electronics or Kitchen may have a manufacturer SKU (stock keeping unit) different than the Amazon ASIN.

How does this affect Associates links to books?
ASINs for existing books will not change.  So, any Associates links to specific books on Amazon will continue to work, and you do not need to update them.

If I know the 13-digit ISBN for a book, can I use that in a Associates Link to Amazon?
No. Associates Product Links must include the 10-digit ASIN of the item. If you know the 13-digit ISBN, you can look up the ASIN by searching for the book in Associates Central or on Amazon.com using the ISBN as your search term. Our Build Links (login required) tool in Associates Central will generate the HTML needed to build the link to Amazon.com.

Is there an automated way to create a Product Link if I have the 13-digit ISBN?
Yes. You can programmatically generate Associates links from 13-digit ISBNs using the E-Commerce Service (ECS) from Amazon Web Services. The ECS ItemLookup function allows you to look up items using an ASIN, international article number (EAN), or other identifiers.  For more information, see the ECS documentation.

Associate Tip: Create Links While Browsing Amazon.com

If you frequently create text links to Amazon products you'll appreciate this easy way to do so while you're reading about a product on Amazon. The technique described in this post allows you to create a special bookmark in your browser that automatically generates the HTML, with your Associates ID contained, in Associates Central to link to the product you're viewing on Amazon. Bookmarks like this that consist of JavaScript snippets are known as "bookmarklets."

First, you need to create the bookmarklet using the following process:

1. In Internet Explorer, choose Favorites -> Add to Favorites. (In Firefox, choose Bookmarks -> Manage Bookmarks -> New Bookmark.)
2. Name the bookmark.
3. In the "Create In" box, select the Links folder and click Ok.
4. From the "Links" toolbar, right click on your new bookmark and select "Properties." If the Links toolbar is not visible, you can enable it by choosing View -> Toolbars -> Links.
5. Delete any text in the URL box. Copy the JavaScript snippet below and paste it in the URL box (You may have to copy each line individually, but there shouldn't be any spaces when pasted into the URL box):

javascript:var%20re=/\/([0-9A-Z]{10,10})\//i;if(re.test(location.href
)==true){var%20asin=RegExp.$1;void(win=window.open
('http://associates.amazon.com/gp/associates/network/build-links
/individual/get-html.html
?asin='+asin+'&linkType=static-text'));}

You're now ready to use your new bookmarklet. First, go to Associates Central and log in to your Associates account. Then, go to Amazon.com and start browsing. When you find a product that you want to add to your Web site, just click the bookmark in the Links toolbar. A new window will appear with the HTML you need to link to the product, and it will include your Associates ID. After you've copied the HTML, you can close the window and continue browsing on Amazon.

Do you have other shortcuts or time-saving tips to share? Discuss them on the Associates Discussion Boards or send them to us via email.  We may post them on the blog in the future.