Battle of Being an Amazon Affiliate: Darren Vs John

Amazon.com has one of the worlds’ largest affiliate programs. Becoming an amazon affiliate grants you access to the best and worst products in any market. Whether it be TV’s, play-stations, clothing, books, you name it, Amazon has it. This is great because you can base your internet business around almost anything and then find related products to sell as an amazon affiliate.

This morning, just going through my RSS feeds I found 2 controversial issues with being an affiliate of Amazon. As you know Amazon has its own affiliate system where you sell an item and you earn 4% depending if its a book, DVD, etc. Myself I am an amazon affiliate (just started) and I have created my own ads than using the icon boxes or Adsense style boxes to my blog that Amazon provides.

But besides from all that I have read 2 great posts about being an Amazon affiliate. One post was from Darren Rowse and another from John Chow. Both gave their views on why or why not they are an Amazon affiliate. I myself as I stated is an Amazon affiliate. I find selling products, especially physical products can interact with me selling digital products as well. Giving the Blog a more sense of variety can mean a lot more interaction and more clicks, maybe even potential sales.

Let’s see who sounds reasonable:

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.com says:

9 Reasons Why I AM An Amazon Affiliate

1. Amazon is a trusted Brand
2. Commissions
3. People Buy More than One Item
4. Easily Integrated
5. Payment Options
6. Small Payments Add Up
7. Its an Investment that Measures Over Time
8. The Holidays are a Boom Time
9. Wide Array of Products

John Chow Says:

Why I Am Not An Amazon.com Affiliate

Amazon.com offers a base commission of 4% on sales and the average book cost $15.00. I would need to sell a lot of books to make any money at those rates. When I’m on the lookout for an affiliate program, the first thing I look for is the payout. Four percent of sale and a $100 minimum to receive a check would mean I need to sell 167 book at $15.00 before I can get a check (its $10 if you choose direct deposit).

Darren wrote his Post after reading John Chows post about Amazon’s Affiliate Marketing Post. Darren has far more traffic than John where John’s RSS readers are at close to 6000 where Darren is just over 25500 (at time of checking). So Darren might be making more cash from Amazon than John because of traffic. Here is a snapshot of the current traffic both are receiving.

As you can see traffic has a great role here on both websites. Thought it may seem Darren and John have their UPs and DOWNs, Darren seems to overwhelm John with traffic. Traffic always plays a huge role when making money on the internet. How do you convert traffic to sales, I need more traffic to make at least 1$, etc. Traffic and content on the internet is key to having a great blog/website and even potential sales.

Content is the most important factor in drawing traffic to your web site. Providing useful content is imperative to the success of your internet marketing endeavors. Content is King and Search Engines love fresh content. As you must of heard before content is the way to go, if you site has great content the search engines will gobble up your pages and rank them nicely, compared those who fill their sites with junk.

The success of your Blog/Website depends on getting more traffic, it is very important that you get lots of it. Getting visitors is not the solution. You need to get quality traffic. If the prospective customer visits your website with the intension to buy your product, the chances of getting more business are greater. This is the reason that online marketers stress on getting more traffic and that also of better quality

John on the other hand sells Blog Space for ads via Text-Link-Ads. He says:

Text Link Ads pays me $25 for signing up a new advertiser or publisher. That’s the same as selling over 40 books on Amazon. For this blog, signing someone up for Text Link Ads is a lot easier than selling a book because it doesn’t cost anything. This brings up point number two.

So to John selling space is far better than selling books from Amazon. He even doubts his review of the 4 Hour Work Week, saying he does not think he would sell more than 12 books since they are available everywhere on the internet and in bookstores.

Should that stop yo getting that 4% from those 12 books? To me any extra money is great. Darren even states

I use it and this month it’ll earn me over $2500 USD - not my biggest income stream, but not the ‘pennies and dimes’ that some say it has the potential to earn.

He says its not his biggest income stream, but that extra $2500 can go towards anything you want! Also, having multiple sources of income is great, just combine $2500 with all of his other income streams and you have a good source of passive income.

They both have great content and great traffic; does Darren’s traffic seem to be more of quality than of John’s? Is there content of high unique quality? Darren’s blog do post several postings a day and everyday. As for John he post everyday but not as much. So does the content play a role in here as well to grab that quality traffic?

Just like John says, you should have a standard before choosing your affiliate program. Do not just choose an affiliate program because it looks cool. You need to have some standards, as for John Amazon does not make sense to him and does not properly blend into his blog, where as Darren likes that extra potential income combining with his other sources.