Amazon.co.uk Associates Blog

Last Call for UK Associate Success Stories

This is the last call for you to submit your Amazon.co.uk Associates success stories and potentially be rewarded for your success! The deadline for submissions is July 9, 2007!

We are looking for students, website owners, entrepreneurs and individuals that have taken their Amazon.co.uk Associates account and built successful businesses from the Associates leads. If you have experienced success on the Amazon.co.uk Associates platform, send your story to associates-contest-uk@amazon.co.uk.

The author of the best story will receive a £250 Amazon.co.uk gift certificate! The second place winner will receive a £100 gift certificate with the honorable mention receiving a £75 gift certificate.

The submitted stories and websites may be featured on the Amazon.co.uk blog and in our marketing communications – which will drive more traffic to your website!

We look forward to hearing from you and reading about your success on the Amazon.co.uk Associates program.

Kind regards from your Amazon.co.uk Associates team

Musicovery: The right music for every mood

Today we would like to present another cool application an Amazon Associate has developed using Amazon Web Services (ECS).

In the mood for really dark heavy metal? Or something upbeat and classical? The Amazon Associate Musicovery offers an interactive web radio on its website www.musicovery.com. Here, music lovers can select and listen to the best songs from their favourite music genres (e.g. rock, jazz, classical, metal). For 18 different music genres, you can either choose your preferred mood (dark, positive, energetic, calm) or define how suitable the music you are looking for is to dance to. There is a timeline so you can restrict the search to music from a particular era (e.g. music from the Sixties).

Musicovery then provides a display, with excellent graphics, of the best matches for your song search. You can listen to your favourite song and with just a few mouse clicks buy the CD from Amazon.com. A click on the Amazon icon for the displayed matches takes you to the product detail page at Amazon, where you can find out more about the CD, read customer reviews and order the CD.

See for yourself:

Have fun trying it out at www.musicovery.com!

Amazon.co.uk would like to hear from UK Associates who are using Amazon E-Commerce Services to build innovative web services and solutions! Just send us your examples of successful applications by clicking on the link “comments” at the bottom of this post. We look forward to featuring your examples in our future blog posts!

Find out more about ECS here. Read answers to the most frequently asked questions from ECS newcomers in one of our previous blog posts here.

How to track impressions for Basic Display Product Links and Text Links

Are you looking for an easy way to track impressions of your Basic Display Product Links and Text Links? 

Amazon.co.uk has two, easy to implement options:

Option 1: Track impressions and simultaneously activate Product Previews

To track impressions of your Basic Display Product Links and Text Links while enabling our new Product Preview functionality please follow the instructions below:

Step 1:
In the code below, replace the text "your-assoc-id-21" with your actual Associate store ID.

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/s/link-enhancer?o=2&tag=your-assoc-id-21"> </script> <noscript> <img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/s/noscript?tag=your-assoc-id-21" alt="" /> </noscript>

Step 2:
Copy the code and paste it at the end of each Web page in which you want to include an impression counter. The Product Preview and impression counter code should be placed at the bottom of your webpage, after the content but before the closing "body" tag.
If you use a Web template, you can paste this script into the "footer" or other end-of-page template, as long as product preview and impression counter code comes after your content and before the final "body" tag.

Step 3:
As soon as you have inserted the HTML code (with your own Associates store ID) on a Web page, we will display the impressions for your Basic Display Product Links and Text Links in Associates Central.

Option 2:  Track impressions without activating Product Previews

To track impressions of your Basic Display Product Links and Text Links without activating any Product Previews, please use the following HTML code:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/s/impression-counter?o=2&tag= your-assoc-id-21"> </script> <noscript> <img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/s/noscript?tag= your-assoc-id-21" alt="" /> </noscript>

Here too, replace the text "your-assoc-id-21" with your actual Associates ID and, as described under Option 1, insert the code at the end of each web page on which you want to include an impression counter.

You can also find the HTML code containing your automatically inserted Associates store ID here in Associates Central.

Please note: Amazon.co.uk will only track impressions for Basic Display Product Links and Text Links for those Web pages on which the impression counter code been inserted.

New widgets for TypePad bloggers: Create links to Amazon in minutes

We are pleased to present our newly developed Widgets for Typepad bloggers. These Widgets enable TypePad bloggers to embed Amazon.co.uk content and functionality in to their TypePad blog in minutes and share it with their readers. The Widgets are available to all TypePad bloggers regardless of their participation in the Amazon.co.uk Associates program. Typepad users can easily configure these new widgets to suit their blog´s look and feel using our easy-to-use interface.

There are currently three easy ways of integrating Amazon.co.uk content and functionality  in TypePad blogs:

Amazon Express Yourself Widget
This Widget  enables TypePad bloggers to select Amazon.co.uk products, comment on them and recommend them to their readers. This widget helps TypePad bloggers let their readers know what they think and like – from their favourite childhood books to the latest DVD recommendations.

Amazon Quick Linker Widget
After installing this Widget, Typepad bloggers can quickly and easily link to relevant Amazon.co.uk products while drafting their blog posts by including custom HTML tags as they type. 
For example, if the Quick Link widget is used, the command <a type=amzn>Harry Potter</a> links directly to the Harry Potter search results page on Amazon.co.uk. Typepad users who use the Quick Link widget therefore no longer have to create search links manually. 

Amazon Search Widget
This widget lets TypePad blog readers find and explore interesting products from Amazon.co.uk. The search results  are displayed directly in the widget so readers don't have to exit the blog.

Simply click on the links above to view and try the Widgets now! If you´re already a Typepad user, you can get started now and install the Widgets in your blog by following the links above. For an overview of all three widgets simply visit our TypePad Widget Gallery.

Earn up to £250 by submitting your Associates Success Story

Amazon.co.uk is looking for Associates success stories and will reward you for your success!

• Are you a student that has taken their Amazon.co.uk Associates account and built a successful business from the Associates leads?
• Are you a website owner who successfully monetized their website through the Associates?
• Have you been able to grow and diversify your business through Associates?

If you have experienced success on the Amazon.co.uk platform send us your story! The author of the best story will receive a £250 Amazon.co.uk gift certificate! The second place winner will receive a £100 gift certificate with the honorable mention receiving a £75 gift certificate.

The submitted stories and websites may be featured on the Amazon.co.uk blog and in our marketing communications – which will drive more traffic to your website!

Please submit stories to associates-contest-uk@amazon.co.uk. Please Note: The deadline for submissions is July 9, 2007!

We look forward to hearing from you and reading about your success on the Amazon.co.uk Associates program.

Kind regards from your Amazon.co.uk Associates team.

Context Links (beta): You Create the Content. We'll Link It.

##Late addition - because of the adoption rate for this product, it may take up to 24 hours for you to start seeing links.  We are working on reducing that time and appreciate your patience.##

Today we would like to announce another great feature now available to all Amazon.co.uk Associates: Context links (beta).

What are Content Links?

Context Links are a quick and convenient way to add links to your website and monetize your content.

After you embed one simple piece of code on your pages, Context Links automatically identify and link relevant phrases within your page content to Amazon products, unlocking new ad inventory and saving you the time from having to manually create links. You can add the links to your pages in minutes, and we provide a wealth of options to customize how they are displayed.

If you enable the preview functionality your site visitors will see a preview for the Amazon.co.uk products relevant to the phrase selected. Clicking on the link will send your site visitors to the product detail page on Amazon.com, and you will earn referral fees when the products are purchased.

The following example from Amazon.de demonstrates how Context Links work:

Visit our Context links page in Associates Central to learn more about this great new feature.

Setting up Context Links for your website is quick and easy. Simply:

1. Visit Associates Central->Build Links->Context Links
2. Specify the maximum number of links you'd like on each page
3. Optionally customize the display of the links with a couple clicks
4. Copy/paste the generated code into your pages

Log in to Associates Central or join the Associates program to try Context Links today and send us your examples of successful applications by clicking on the link “comments” at the bottom of this post. We look forward to featuring your applications of this new technology in our future blog posts!