The Official Amazon Associates Blog

Introducing Site Stripe

Last week we announced the launch of the newly redesigned Associates Central website, including the roll out of the new Site Stripe feature. We’d like to take this opportunity to tell you more about this new enhancement, which will make linking to Amazon.com even easier than ever.

The Site Stripe feature allows you to create links to your favorite products and pages on the Amazon.com site so you can update your website more frequently and with fewer clicks.

If you are logged into your Amazon Associates account, the Site Stripe will automatically show up on the Amazon.com website just below the navigation bar (see example below):

There are four buttons available to you on the Site Stripe:

•    'Link to this Page': By clicking on this link, you will be taken directly to Associates Central and receive the HTML code needed to add that particular Amazon.com page to your website or blog. After visiting Associates Central, you’ll see a link to take you back to the same page on Amazon.com that you were on prior to clicking on the Site Stripe. This allows you to create links to any page on Amazon directly from Associates Central while browsing the Amazon.com site.

•    'Add to aStore': Adding links to your aStore is just as easy as creating text links. By clicking on this link, you will be taken to the Associates Central aStore configuration page where you can quickly add this product/link to your aStore. After visiting Associates Central, you’ll see a link to take you back to Amazon to continue shopping.

•    'Your Earnings Report': Keep track of your earnings with this shortcut to your earnings report directly from any page of the Amazon.com retail site. Find out where you are earning referral fees while navigating the Amazon.com site to add more links on your website or blog to products and pages that appeal to your readers, based on your earnings performance.

•    'Settings': The Settings tab allows you to configure your Site Stripe tabs as you like and also gives you the ability to turn off the Site Stripe if you would prefer not to see it while you are on the Amazon.com website. Please note that if you do turn off the Site Stripe, you will need to visit your Account Settings within Associates Central to turn it back on. All of your Site Stripe settings can be accessed there. You can always hide the Site Stripe at any time without turning it off. Just click on the “hide” button on the toolbar. To see it again, click on the “tab” at the top left.

We hope you’ll enjoy this new feature and want to hear your feedback about what you like and what you’d like to see improved.

Associates Central: Launch of New Look and Features!

We are very excited to announce the launch of our newly redesigned Associates Central website. Since 1996, Amazon affiliate marketers have been advertising millions of new and used items, driving sales, and making money through the Amazon Associates program. And now with an improved website design that offers integration with the Amazon.com website and easy-to-use linking capabilities, earning referral fees has never been easier for Amazon Associates.

What's New:

• Site Stripe: With the introduction of our Associates Site Stripe feature on Amazon.com, creating links to your favorite products and pages on the Amazon.com site is easier than ever. Site Stripe lets you build Associates links directly from the Amazon.com website so you can update your website more frequently, with fewer clicks and less time. Next time you go to Amazon.com you will see the Site Stripe at the top of any Amazon.com page you visit.
• Linking to Amazon.com: Explore a variety of link and widget options with our new user-friendly design that helps you discover products to advertise that work best for your website and your customers, including product links and banners.
• A new look: Our improved website design makes it easier for you to navigate through the Associates Central website to find the information you need with fewer clicks. Check out our Get Started Tour to get a quick overview of the new site.

We’ve been listening to your feedback over the last year and we hope you’ll find that these changes improve your experience as an Amazon Associate and help you increase your ability to make money through the Amazon Associates program.

Start exploring the newly redesigned Associates Central today!

Earn 10% on Amazon Kindle Referrals

The Associates program is excited to announce that Associates can now earn 10% in referral fees on the Amazon Kindle wireless reading device and Kindle Edition books.

What is Amazon Kindle?

Amazon Kindle (http://amazon.com/kindle) is a revolutionary portable reader that wirelessly downloads books, newspapers, magazines and blogs to a crisp, high-resolution electronic paper display that looks and reads like real paper, even in bright sunlight.

Kindle customers, no matter where they are in the U.S., can wirelessly shop the Kindle Store and download new content — all without a PC or a WiFi hot spot. Amazon pays for Kindle’s wireless connectivity so there are no monthly wireless bills and no service commitments for customers. The Kindle Store contains over 90,000 books that can be purchased and delivered wirelessly to Kindle, each in less than a minute. Customers can choose from hundreds of top newspapers, magazines and blogs and have their subscriptions auto-delivered wirelessly. All New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases are $9.99, unless marked otherwise.

At 10.3 ounces, Kindle is lighter and thinner than a paperback book, carries two hundred books, and includes built-in access to The New Oxford American Dictionary and wireless access to the Earth’s biggest encyclopedia, Wikipedia.org.

Earnings

Associates are eligible to earn 10% in referral fees on both the Kindle device and content. With Kindle priced at $359 you can earn $35.99 on each Kindle purchase you refer. We do not yet pay referral fees on subscription content such as Kindle newspapers, blogs, or magazines, but we will be announcing that support in the near future.

Building Links

Building links to Amazon Kindle is no different than other products on Amazon.com. To build a Product Link, simply visit the Product Links page in Associates Central and select "Kindle Store" in the search menu. You can find the Kindle device itself under the "Electronics" search menu. You can also build a Slideshow or My Favorites widget to showcase your favorite Kindle titles.

We have also made Amazon Kindle banner graphics available to you in Associates Central.

To link directly to the Kindle device, simply substitute your Associates ID in the link format below:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FI73MA/?tag=YourIDHere-20

Learning More

To learn more about Amazon Kindle, please visit the the Kindle detail page on Amazon.com where you will find a wealth of information including video demonstrations, product specifications, and more. As always, please contact us if you have any questions or feedback, and thanks for your continued support of the Amazon Associates program.

Earn 20% on Unbox Referrals in November

In January we posted that Associates could earn 10% by promoting Unbox Video Downloads. We're excited to announce that during the month of November Associates can earn 20% (up to $3.00 per item) on Unbox items.

To make it more fun for your site visitors to discover Unbox titles we last month launched the Unbox Video Player Widget (login required) for Amazon Associates, which means that you can now show, directly on your site, movie and TV trailers and previews for a huge range of recent and classic titles from Unbox. If you’re looking to earn money using online video and increase stickiness on your site, this widget delivers streaming video directly to your site, allows you to customize and choose what you want to show, and includes Buy and Rent buttons. There are also purchase links to the corresponding DVD and CD, if they are available. Here is a live widget that showcases the latest and greatest from Unbox:

The Amazon Unbox selection has grown significantly over the past several months, with top TV shows from NBC, CBS, Fox, Showtime, Starz, the WB, and more. Our movie downloads are released at the same time as DVD, so you can offer hits like Spider-Man 3 or Fantastic Four: Silver Surfer as soon as they are available on Amazon.com. In addition, the Unbox 2.0 client is now available with reduced download times and increased performance. You and your site visitors will see a whole new look and feel to Unbox.

Build your links to Amazon Unbox videos today to take full advantage of the 20% promotion, and this is a great reason to join the Associates program if you have not already done so.

Amazon MP3 Downloads - Associates Earn 20%

The Amazon Associates program is excited to announce that Associates can now earn 20% in referral fees on Amazon MP3 Downloads.

What is Amazon MP3?
Amazon MP3 offers Earth's biggest selection of a la carte, DRM-free MP3 music downloads. With over 2 million songs from more than 180,000 artists represented by over 20,000 major and independent labels, Amazon MP3 complements Amazon.com's existing selection of over 1 million CDs to offer customers more selection of physical and digital music than any other retailer.

Every song and album on Amazon MP3 is available exclusively in the MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM) software. This means that Amazon MP3 customers are free to enjoy their music downloads using any hardware device, organize their music using any music management application, and burn songs to CDs.

Most songs are priced from 89 cents to 99 cents, with more than 1 million of the 2 million songs priced at 89 cents. The top 100 best-selling songs are 89 cents, unless marked otherwise. Most albums are priced from $5.99 to $9.99. The top 100 best-selling albums are $8.99 or less, unless marked otherwise.

Every song on Amazon MP3 is encoded at 256 kilobits per second, which gives customers high audio quality at a manageable file size.

Earnings from Amazon MP3
Through December 31, 2007 Associates are eligible to earn 20% on all MP3 referrals (up to $1.50 per item). Beginning January 1, 2008 the referral fees will be 10%. There is no limit to the number of items on which referral fees are earned.

Building Links
Building links to Amazon MP3 downloads is no different than other products on Amazon.com. To build a Product Link, simply visit the Product Links page in Associates Central and select "MP3 Downloads" in the search menu. Please note that you can build links to MP3 albums or to individual MP3 songs – it's up to you.  Here is an example of an MP3 Product Link:

Our newly launched Slideshow and My Favorites Widgets are another great way to promote MP3 downloads. You can build a widget that cycles through the album covers of your favorite songs and albums and insert your own comments on top of the album covers. Here is a Slideshow of some my recent favorite music available from the MP3 store:

We have also made general Amazon MP3 banner graphics available to you in Associates Central.

As with other ASINs you can also use the format below to build links directly to MP3 items. Simply substitute the corresponding MP3 ASIN for "B000S56R1I" and your Associates ID for "YourIDHere-20" in the format below.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000S56R1I/?tag=YourIDHere-20

Using the format above also allows you to build links directly to Artist pages in our MP3 store. For example, you can see in the URL for Feist’s artist page:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000T2E71M

an Artist ASIN of "B000T2E71M." Simply copy the Artist ASIN from the URL of your favorite artist’s page at Amazon MP3 and paste it into the link above.

Learning More
To learn more about Amazon MP3, please visit the Amazon MP3 Getting Started page. And if you are interested in trying out Amazon MP3 for yourself, you can download a free song from Apples in Stereo.

If you have not already joined the Associates program, join today to take advantage of this earnings opportunity.  And be sure to get your links to our MP3 store up today to take advantage of the 20% referral rate

As always, please contact us if you have any questions or feedback.

-Sean, Amazon Associates Product Marketing Manager

Announcing Amazon Widgets

The Associates program is excited to announce the worldwide launch of Amazon Widgets! These new widgets are small, visually dynamic, easily configurable widgets and allow you to feature products from Amazon on blogs, websites and social networking pages. In as little as one minute, you can populate a widget with your favorite Amazon products, your comments about those products, and select from a set of color and layout themes to match both your mood and website. From the music you are listening to, movies you're watching, clothes you're wearing, and even the food you are eating, with earth's biggest selection of products Amazon widgets provide you unlimited options for voicing your tastes. The simple-to-use web interface for building and implementing a widget is at http://widgets.amazon.com, and can also be found through Associates Central.

You have the option to make money with our widgets by joining the Amazon Associates program. Just as with our existing tools, when a visitor to your site clicks on a product in your Amazon Widget and makes a purchase, you can earn up to 10 percent in referral fees from Amazon. With the exception of the Amazon Unbox Video Previewer all of the widgets can also be used without joining the Associates program.

Today we've launched seven new widgets in the Amazon Widgets Gallery, and there are more specialized widgets coming soon. Here are some descriptions and examples:

Slideshow: Pick your favorite images from the Amazon catalog and present them as a stylish slideshow. Showcase favorite CD cover art, present recently read books, or even reveal favorite breakfast cereals. Slideshow also lets users caption the selected images. Here is an example:

My Favorites: Express yourself by recommending and commenting on products from Amazon. This widget lets everyone know how you feel and what you like by showing product images, information and your own comments. Here is an example:

Wish List: Display an Amazon Wish List on a blog or profile page, and let friends, family, and others know what you want. Here is an example:

Product Cloud: Take tag clouds or word clusters one step further by showing Product Clouds. Product Clouds engage site visitors by displaying product titles that are relevant to the content of the page in a cloud or cluster with the most popular product bolded. Site visitors can click on the title to directly visit the product page on Amazon. Here is an example:.

Amazon Unbox Video Previewer: Show movie studio and TV network previews for a wide range of new release and classic movies or television shows available from the Amazon Unbox video download service. Users can select by attributes such as genre which previews they want to show on their web sites. Here is an example:

Quick Linker: By inserting a set of custom HTML tags as you write your content you can quickly link to products on Amazon without having to visit Associates Central to build links. For example, typing <a type="amzn">Harry Potter</a> would link to a Search Results page on Amazon for the term "Harry Potter."

Search: Allow your site visitors to search Amazon directly from your site. You can even have the search results displayed within the widget itself. Here is an example:

So, come and check them out and build one (or several!) for your site at http://widgets.amazon.com. As always, we would love your feedback as well!

-The Amazon Widgets Team

New aStore Features

The Amazon Associates team is excited to announce a great new set of aStore features! Since the launch of aStore last summer we have been overwhelmed by the enthusiasm you all have for the tool. Thanks for your feedback and suggestions so far, and keep it coming since we are basing our new releases on your feedback!

With the release of our latest features we have increased your ability to customize your aStore while keeping it easy to use. Some of our newer features include:

• Access to every Amazon.com category and subcategory for automatically populating your product categories – If Amazon.com has created a group for it, such as Biographies of Frank Sinatra, you can create a category page to automatically pull in those products and organize these categories however you like.
• Unlimited category/subcategory nesting – Create as many levels of product categories and subcategories as you like, and populate the products in each category by Amazon best-sellers, hand-picking them, or importing a Listmania list.
• Build your own category navigation – Advanced users can take integration with their existing websites a step farther by hiding the aStore category navigation and building their own directly within the core site navigation.
• CSS control – Advanced users can also now directly edit the stylesheets for their stores, and share those with others.
• aStore Banner Widgets – Advertise your store to your site visitors using these new banner links, and increase your aStore traffic.

Log in to Associates Central or join the Associates program today to take advantage of these and other new features! We would love your feedback on your experience with them and other things you would like to see added to aStore in the future. Keep in mind that you can build up to 100 aStores on your Associates account!

-Sean, Associates Product Marketing Manager

Now Earn Referral Fees With the UnSpun Widget

In April we told you about UnSpun by Amazon and a widget they had released.  The UnSpun team wanted us to let you know that they have improved their widget specifically for Associates by making items in the list widgets link directly to Amazon.com when they have an Amazon link on their corresponding UnSpun page.  This means you can now earn referral fees if your site visitors visit Amazon.com from the widget.

For example, in the widget in our last UnSpun post you will notice that some of the items in the Top Albums list have an Amazon icon next to them that links to the detail page.  If I see an item in the list that doesn't have a link, I can go to the Top Albums list page on UnSpun and add a link to an Amazon detail page.  The item in the list will then link to Amazon.

Using this widget you can show community rankings on any existing topic or one you create yourself at http://unspun.amazon.com.  Your site visitors will then be able to vote on your list.

To put a list on your site, click the "Put this list on your site" link, and then click "Customize" to specify a size and input your Associates ID to ensure you are credited for your referrals.

If you have feedback on the UnSpun widget, please visit http://unspun.amazon.com and you'll see a "Submit Feedback" link at the top of the page.

-Sean, Associates Product Marketing Manager

Earn a $15 Bonus on Cell Phone + Service Referrals

Our team has teamed up with the Amazon.com Cell Phone team to create an exciting new offer for Associates to earn additional referral fees. Beginning today (and retroactive to May 1, 2007), when you refer a cell phone with a service plan, you will earn an extra $15 bonus on each referral!

Why market Amazon Cell Phones and Service? Amazon offers the hottest phones, 30-day returns, an easy comparison shopping experience, and some of the most competitive cell phone pricing on the Web. Learn more about Amazon's great deals on cell phones and service.

Get started today! We've updated our Cell Phone banners with graphics of the newest phones in the market. You can also build direct product links by linking to your favorite cell phones and then recommending your visitors also sign up for service with one of the service providers.

You can use your Earnings Report on Associates Central to determine the bonus you will receive. In the Cell Phones and Service section of the Earnings Report the bonus-eligible products are listed as "Service Plan + Phone" (e.g., Cingular Nation 900 Rollover Minutes + Sony Ericsson W810i Phone). This bonus will be applied at the end of each month, at which time you can view how much you've earned by going to Associates Central >> Your Account >> View your payment history. Please note that the only referrals that are eligible for the bonus are cell phones sold with service plans in the same order. All other wireless products, including accessories, still earn referral fees up to 8.5%.

And, of course, this opportunity is a great reason to join the Associates program if you haven't already done so!

-Mary Ellen, Associates Program

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Graphics

We just wanted to pass on that we recently updated our Harry Potter graphics to reflect the official cover art.  You can see a sample above.

For those of you that already placed the graphics on your site, those have been automatically updated to reflect the changes.  For those of you that have not downloaded them, you are welcome to do so in Associates Central at Build Links-->Banner Links-->Harry Potter.

-Sean, Associates Product Marketing Manager