Actually, I'm quite impressed with the technology and am surprised that this launch was so quiet. Let's take a look!
What makes the Amazon Associates program so interesting is that you can link to most any product Amazon sells (and they have millions!) and generate cash commission on each sale. If you do a really good job of picking the product by matching it to the content of your web site or blog, you can bring great value to your readers and monetize your site well.
The look and feel of your site is also very important -- it brings your readers back! And this is where the new Product Previews come in. I've been a great fan of this technology while it was in beta (showing 50% of the time) and am very excited now that Amazon has finally rolled it out.
Check out these two product placements. They look very similar, don't they? Now, roll your mouse over each one.
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| Amazon Ad Without Product Preview | Amazon Ad With Product Preview |
When you mouse over the ad with product preview, you should see this Pop-Over next to the ad itself:
I think the ad on the right is more engaging and interactive. It makes your site come alive. It gives the sense of your site "talking" to your customers and selling them on your product. I highly recommend you try the new Product Previews from Amazon.
So how do you make this work?
Unfortunatly, Amazon made it a bit confusing as to how to make Product Previews work on your site, so let me make this process a bit more clear.
1. If you are not already a registered member of Amazon Associates, join Amazon Associates right now.
2. Log in to Amazon Associates Central and click on "Build Links" link on the navigation menu.
3. Product Preview works only on Product Links, so you will need to choose one or more specific products that you will feature on your site. You should then decide what products to feature, whether you would like to show an image of the product, text of the product, or both. You should now click on
button next to the Product Links section of the Available Link Types for Amazon.com.
4. Enter the ASIN number of the product (you can find this number on any Amazon.com product detail page) or just the keywords that you think describes the product.
5. Click on
for the product you want to feature.
6. You will now see that the default link type chosen is Text and Image. Unfortunately, Product Preview does not work on the Text and Image link type. For Product Preview to work, you must change selection to either Image Only or Text Only. You can combine both Image Only and Text Only on the same page but you will not be able to show the price of the product right there on your page (it will show up on the preview page). As you can see, in my example above, I have combined both the Image Only and Text Only links.
October 10, 2006 UPDATE: When you select "Image Only" link option, the HTML code you get assumes that you copy the graphic and host it on your site in the same directory as the page which contains this image. If you do not perform this step, you will not see an image on your page. This is NOT the same behavior as the "Text and Image" link option which gets the image from the Amazon server. I understand that Amazon is planning to make this process easier in the upcoming update. In the meantime, please read my comment to this post for what I suggest you should do to work around this issue.
7. You should copy the HTML produced and paste it on your site where you would like to feature the product.
8. You are not done yet! You must now copy the Product Preview JavaScript in section 4. This is what is going to enable the Product Preview on your page. Place this script anywhere inside the <BODY> tag of your site. You only need to do this once, no matter how many Product Links you have built on your page. They will all convert to Product Preview links! Now you are done!
If you already have text and/or image product links on your site, you must still follow the above steps (skip step 7) to get the JavaScript you will need to enable Product Previews.
If you have build the new Product Preview links on your site, please leave a comment and let me know your site -- I will review it and offer as an example for others to follow. Good luck!
Gene Kavner








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