My girlfriends have asked me to explain a little bit more about the Amazon Affiliate stuff.

• What is it?
• How does it work?
• What do we get?
• How does it impact their Amazon experience (read: does stuff cost more)?

Too easy.  I want this to be crystal clear so you don’t get the impression we’re trying to be shifty.  I hate shifty… ‘shifty’ is like ‘gypsy’ in my world.  Pass.

What is the Amazon Affiliate program?  Amazon wants more customers, aka “traffic”.  If you have a web site that meets certain standards (i.e. enough people visit it and you’re not some scummy weirdo), you can apply to be an affiliate.  If approved, you put Amazon links on your page (ideally for items that you’re recommending or there’s a great flash deal you want to highlight).  If you, the potential customer, click on the link, Amazon can see that you’re coming from The Amators.  For the next 24 hours, we get a small percentage of anything you buy through Amazon.com.

How does it work? You click on the link from anywhere on TheAmators.com (on the main page or inside a post) and Amazon takes care of the rest.  We get a check at the end of the month if we have earned more than $100. If we haven’t earned that much, they wait to send the check until we get there.

We are going to have 2 kinds of Amazon links – we made a big green button that will take you to Amazon and/or we’ll have links to specific items if it’s something I’m talking about in the blog.  Any time there’s a link in a post, I’m going to categorize that post as “affiliate” so you’ll know.

The Amator’s promise – the only items we’ll put on the site are items that we’ve personally used or ones we desperately want ourselves and think we’ve found a great deal.  If it’s the former, I’m going to try to attach a picture of said item and a little bit about why we like it.  If it’s the latter, I’ll include something about why we want it and how we plan to use it.

What do we (The Amators) get out of it?  We get a small percentage of anything you buy from Amazon.com within 24 hours of when you clicked the button.  I say small percentage not because I’m trying to be coy, it’s because it is dynamic.  It start as 4% for the first 6 items shipped to people we send to the site.  When ITEM #7 is shipped, our percentage increases to 6%.  After that…. well, here’s the fee schedule from the Amazon web site:

Does stuff cost more if you use the link?  No, it does not.  You’ve probably already made lots of money for Amazon affiliates and you don’t even know it.  The cost of the item is the cost of the item.  Amazon looks at this fee like a cost of advertising.

Ultimately, we thought this would be a straightforward way to monetize the blog without impacting the user experience for you.  If you’re already an Amazon user, you’re going to make purchases anyway.  If you’re interested in the items we’re using to make this year work, it’s curated content to help you figure out what you may need for your own adventure.  If you don’t care at all about the link or the items, don’t click them…. we won’t know and won’t care and we’re still happy to have you read along.

Hit me follow up questions.  I’m happy to answer them.  Cheers.