Are you using amazon link localization service? Here's my thought about Genius Link
Are you Amazon affiliates?
You may have heard somewhere about suggestions on using Amazon link localization service.
But, first of all...
What is Amazon link localization service?
In short, it is a service that allows you to direct your readers to proper Amazon stores based on their geographic location.
So, if your reader is in UK, s/he will be redirected to Amazon.co.uk instead of the default amazon.com.
Similarly, a reader from Canada will be redirected to Amazon.ca.
All of this were done, provided that you have signed up for the affiliate program from the corresponding Amazon
Why Use Amazon Localization Service?
Simple, to increase the opportunity to earn more sales (translated to more $$) from various Amazon stores.
Why I choose Genius Link?
I first heard about Genius link from Pat Flynn's website (if you haven't visited it, do check it out, his podcast is awesome). At that time, I haven't taken any action yet.
Then, a fellow WA member wrote a blog about it.
By then, I'm already intrigued to try.
But, after researching further, it seems there are two favorite options, Easyazon and GeniusLink.
Initially,I could not decide, should I try GeniusLink or EasyAzon (which has a free scheme).
But after reading comparison between them here (http://blog.geni.us/2015/11/20/geniuslink-vs-k-and...), I am sold to try GeniusLink.
Here's why I chose Genius Link:
- Genius Link offers smarter link redirection service, not only by directing the reader to the search result of a particular product, but choosing one particular product page. It also takes into consideration what to do if that item does not exist (or out of stock) in local Amazon stores. So in the case that product does not exist, your readers won't be greeted with irrelevant lists of product (which may make them think that your website has a broken link, bummer).
- GeniusLink offers a lot of statistics about where your readers come from, how many clicks per product link, the source of the link (is it your website, links you put in social media?), etc.
- My favorite is that it can give you suggestion to sign up to a particular Amazon store based on your readers' demographic. For example, I was recently suggested to sign up with Amazon store in Germany because about some fraction of my readers who click my Amazon links are from there. Cool, isn't it?
- You don't need a plugin to use GeniusLink. Yes, they do have a plugin for that, but you can always use their online dashboard to create new links and check your stats. This is my preferred way since I want to minimize the number of plugins that I have on my website.
- You can customize your link, provided that the name is still available. For example, I am linking to a Spectra breast pump, and I can name my link as Geni.us/spectra instead of a link with random character generators (i.e. Geni.us/aK76jr).
- It's FREE if your Amazon clicks within a month is less than 1000. Or you pay $10 for that month if you gather more than 1000 clicks. This click counter is reset from 0 at the beginning of every month so it's not like once you hit 1k clicks, you must pay forever. It's based on your performance for that particular month. I personally think the 1000-click limit is pretty reasonable, because once you hit 1k, it is more likely that you have generated a decent affiliate earning (definitely more than $10).
UPDATE:
Genius has revised its pricing scheme. Now you can a FREE trial (unlimited clicks) for 14 days, and then $9/month for up to 10,000 clicks.
My experience so farI have been using GeniusLink for about two months now.
I haven't converted all my affiliate links to genius links (it takes time to do it), but so far I have been using it in my most popular posts.
To be honest, initially I didn't expect to earn something from other Amazon stores, but surprisingly I did. Though the value is still small, the total amount that I got from other Amazon stores (exclude amazon.com) already surpasses the monthly fee (should I need to pay if my total number of clicks exceed 1000).
Not bad, right. At least, it pays for itself (and give me some extra).
From there, I can see the increasing prospect of using Genius Link and I will continue to use it.
What about you? Do you use any Amazon link localization service? What's your experience so far?
Recent Comments
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I usually get around 1 million clicks per month and I am already using the genius service. Didn't know they had changed their pricing structure - seems like I should be upgrading to the Power plan. Thanks for the post and keep up the good work.
Hi Alex, wow it seems that you are doing very well in sending traffic to Amazon.
Yeah, GeniusLink has just changed the pricing structure, but it seems old customers are not affected as long as the number of links does not exceed their 'plan' limit. I just checked mine and am still on the old plan structure.
Interesting that when I googled for a comparison between Genius Links and Easyazon, your WA blog entry was on page 1!
I wanted to share Genius Link's own blog post comparing themselves to Easyazon http://blog.geni.us/2015/11/20/geniuslink-vs-k-and-easyazon/
It looked like that they've similar functionality yet have their differences.
One thing though, Easyazon's feature to search for products right in Wordpress itself seems the exact same as the Amazon Publisher Studio feature.
Also, Genius Link's pricing structure has changed. There is a 14 day trial but a US$9 subscription required thereafter https://www.geni.us/pricing
Thanks for sharing this info with us, Fiftarina.
Ha, I didn't even know that I rank no 1 in Google. Thanks for letting me know about that.
And thank you for sharing the newest update about its pricing. I guess I need to update this post soon.
Hi there - I just installed and used the plugin too. Its quite exciting because, for one of my sites, a majority of people were from the US and I'd focussed on a UK market. Now I'm going to keep things more neutral to appeal to both. A majority of my links there are Amazon, so I'm very excited to see if this makes a difference for me! :) :)
I've been using this too - it was easy to set up and I got a friend in the UK to test it out for me. All the Amazon links on my site are Amazon.com - sure enough she was directed to amazon.co.uk.
It works!
Thanks for drawing my attention to this. I didn't really understand what it was all about until I read this.
Thank you for discussing the genius link feature for amazon. It has helped me get clearer on this. J
Great if you find it useful, Janelle. If you happen to have opportunity to try it in the future, do let me know how it goes for you.
I am using geni.us, however I do use the plugin. I really love how it automatically has worked on all my links, old and new posts. I didn't have to do a thing!
I had looked at easyazon but found it very confusing.
Hi. Tanja, yeah, I found easyazon plugin confusing. So with genius plugin, you don't need to convert links manually? I should check it out then.
Nope, it does it all for you. I only log in to geni.us to look at my report once a week to see if I am getting clicks from countries I am not an affiliate with. But the reports seem a bit off. Last month I had 159 clicks on amazon.com, but my geni.us dashboard said I had 83 clicks for the month. I emailed them and they didn't know why there was a discrepancy and suggested I wait a few months to see if their system catches up.
I highly suggest the plugin. It does make your links look funny when you hover over them though. Starts with georiot.com/(and then a bunch of numbers and letters with amzn near the end)
Wow thanks for sharing. I haven't heard of these great tools yet but I will definitely check out the podcast that you mentioned as well as save this link to come back and reread it in the future.
Thanks!
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Do you have to go through and change the Amazon affiliate links on your post to Genius links? Or does Genius reaffiliate them for you? Can this be done within the dashboard itself without the use of the plugin?
You have to change them manually.
Ouch...
Thanks for the response :)
No, Genius Link created a WordPress plugin to do it automatically: Amazon Link Engine