Amazon Site Stripe

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

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.

Tips to Help Drive Amazon Prime Traffic

You still have until October 31, 2008 to earn $12 for each new Amazon Prime Free Trial member referred via the Amazon Associates program (subject to program terms ). Amazon Prime is a popular Amazon.com program that gives its members unlimited Free Two-Day Shipping on millions of eligible items. All new members are offered a free trial, allowing them to experience the convenience of shopping with Amazon Prime benefits for an entire month at no charge.

Read on for tips to help you effectively promote Amazon Prime and earn more referral fees today!

Three Tips for Driving More Amazon Prime Referrals
1. Make Amazon Prime a regular part of your posts by promoting the program in conjunction with products available on Amazon.com. If you’re promoting a product, let your readers know that it’s available with Free Two Day shipping from Amazon Prime.* Include a reference to Amazon Prime with product mentions and you’ll receive a bounty for any signups driven directly through your Amazon Prime links.

Example: “Check out Thomas Friedman’s newly released Hot, Flat and Crowded (available on Amazon.com with Free Two-Day Shipping from Amazon Prime ). Great book…”

2. Write about the Amazon Prime Free Trial offer and about the Amazon Prime program— check out the “What is Amazon Prime?” section below for program highlights. For added relevance, try Amazon Prime yourself and write about your experiences. (An Associate’s personal enrollment in Prime does not qualify for the $12 bounty.)

3. Post Amazon Prime banners on pages where you promote items that can be purchased on Amazon.com.

*Not all products are eligible for Amazon Prime shipping benefits, so please confirm that the product is eligible by looking for Free Two-Day Shipping messaging on the product’s detail page on Amazon.com.

What is Amazon Prime?
Amazon Prime is a popular Amazon.com program that gives its members unlimited Free Two-Day Shipping on millions of eligible items. All new members are offered a free trial, allowing them to experience the convenience of shopping with Amazon Prime benefits for an entire month at no charge.

Amazon Prime members enjoy the following benefits:

* Fast Delivery
* Simple Shopping
* Convenient Sharing
* Free Trial

Earnings
Associates can now earn $12 for each eligible customer sent directly from a banner or special link to the Amazon Prime signup page who subsequently enrolls in an Amazon Prime Free Trial (subject to program terms).

How do I Promote Amazon Prime?

There are two ways to promote Amazon Prime as part of this program:

1) Build a link to the Amazon Prime page, using the link below as your template (just replace your Associate ID):

http://www.amazon.com/gp/subs/primeclub/signup/extmain.html?ref=prime_assoc_bt&tag=YourIDHere-20

2) Place an Amazon Prime banner graphic on your website including ones shown here:
 

Amazon Launches Social Music Site

By Mike Sachoff

Amazon.com has launched a Wikipedia style site dedicated to music and bands called SoundUnwound.

The site features information from Amazon’s retail site and from its Internet Movie Database. The site is currently in beta.

On the SoundUnwound blog page it lists several ways users can navigate the site. "Explore connections between artists - band memberships, family, shared credits and more. Visualize timelines for artists with our interactive discography."

"Discover similar artists and releases by genre and Amazon purchase data. Experience new artists through photos, videos and music clips."

Music can be searched for by studio recording, live album, and compilation. The site provides track listing for each studio album in its database along with the length of the song and the original year it was released.

SoundUnwound also features embedded YouTube videos of artists and bands along with links at the bottom of the page with Amazon like recommendations for other related releases.

The site also offers a direct link to Amazon allowing users to browse or purchase the music they may be interested in.

All edits made on the site are filtered by Amazon staff before being displayed in order to ensure accuracy.

The site also features a nice timeline of artists or bands and displays thumbnails of when a particular album was released. A nice addition to SoundUnwound would be information on video compilations released by a band and live video recordings.

Introducing Amazon Video On Demand

The Associates program is excited to announce the availability of Amazon Video On Demand . With Amazon Video On Demand, customers can now instantly watch movies and television shows commercial-free on Macs or PCs. With this new service, you can offer your customers the ability to enjoy instant playback of hit Hollywood movies and the latest TV shows.

Take advantage of the launch of this popular new Amazon movie & TV streaming service and earn a 10% referral fee on all movies, TV seasons, and TV episodes such as The Office, House and Law & Order. Leverage Amazon Video On Demand’s Preview Player widget and add movie trailers to your site. Hit movies and top TV episodes are among the most compelling forms of video on the web with the highest conversion rates.

To make it even easier for customers to decide to rent or purchase a movie or TV show, the first two minutes of videos automatically play at no charge to customers when they visit the product detail page. At any time during this 2-minute viewing period, customers can choose to purchase or rent the title to watch it in its entirety, driving higher conversion and increased referral fees for Associates. TiVo® customers can still download movies and TV shows to their TiVo DVR and watch on their TVs as before.

Earn 15% on Endless.com Referrals

The Associates program is excited to announce that Associates can now earn 15% in referral fees on Endless.com shoe and handbag purchases. With free overnight & free return shipping, 110% price guarantee, and 365-day returns window on over 500 brands, Endless.com is THE destination for shoe and accessory shoppers.

Building Links

Building links to Endless.com is no different than other products on Amazon.com. To build text links visit the text links page and link to your favorite destination or search results page by selecting ‘endless.com’ from the drop down menu.

We have also made stylish Endless banner graphics available to you in Associates Central in a number of sizes- here are a couple of examples:

As with other ASINs you can also use the format below to build links directly to Endless.com items. Simply substitute the corresponding Endless ASIN from the product detail page for “XXXXX” and your Associates ID for “YourIDHere-20” in the format below.

http://www.endless.com/dp/XXXXX/?tag=YourIDHere-20

Stay tuned for even more ways to build links to Endless when we roll out our product link functionality later this summer.