Amazon referral links?

[Cheli]

Is there anyone here who can help me with some questions about monetizing a blog, specifically about the Amazon referral links?

My blog isn't where I can make money off of it but I'm thinking later on when I get on the road I would like to turn it into a travel blog kind of site and would like to take advantage of using referral links.

I'm fairly tech savvy but I'm confused as to how people put referral links on a blog post for specific items they are blogging about when from what I can tell, an Amazon link is only active for 24 hours?  So if someone comes across an old post the link is useless for me?  So they don't do affiliate links per say, just item links that expire?

Am I missing something?  Is there another way to utilize Amazon to make passive income?

Thanks. 

 

[akrvbob]

You misunderstood, whenever a person clicks through from an affiliate link, for the next 24 hours everything that person buys will be credited to the link owner. If that person uses the link a day later, the 24 hour starts over again. If they click through every day, every day it will start over and all their purchases will be credited to the link owner.

 

[frater secessus]

Assuming they don't click a different referral link in the interim.

 

[Cheli]

You misunderstood, whenever a person clicks through from an affiliate link, for the next 24 hours everything that person buys will be credited to the link owner. If that person uses the link a day later, the 24 hour starts over again. If they click through every day, every day it will start over and all their purchases will be credited to the link owner.

So if I post a link and someone clicks it two weeks later the link owner still gets credit?  So the 24 hour thing is per person who clicks the link?  Ok yes I misunderstood then.  I've dealt with affiliate links many times in the past but the Amazon was confusing me.  Thanks for explaining. 

 

[Cheli]

Can I ask one more question Bob? Would you recommend setting up a completely different Amazon account for blog stuff or does it not matter if I used my personal account that I've had for years. Is there a need to keep that separate?

 

[1960HikerDude]

Can I ask one more question Bob?  Would you recommend setting up a completely different Amazon account for blog stuff or does it not matter if I used my personal account that I've had for years.  Is there a need to keep that separate?

I use my personal Amazon account for my affiliate links.  I don't see any reason to have a separate account.

 

[Cheli]

I use my personal Amazon account for my affiliate links.  I don't see any reason to have a separate account.

Awesome, thank you. 

 

[KASibson]

Just thought I'd offer a suggestion
I've seen a lot of blogs that have a page with "stuff I like" from Amazon. Which ends up being affiliate links to a number of things on Amazon.
The people also usually have sentence or two explaining how the affiliate program works (you get a percentage of whatever they buy, it doesn't cost them anything extra, and they don't need to buy the items you're linking to) and asking them to please consider clicking an affiliate link whenever they're going to shop at amazon.com.

 

[akrvbob]

Amazon requires that verbage to be on the page or they will drop you from the program. But the reason they require it is that there is now a federal law that affiliates have to disclose that it is an affilliate link.

 

[Cheli]

Yes I am very familiar with affiliate links and that I need to disclose it, I have worked with affiliate links for years. I have just never used Amazon and was confused by the verbiage of 24 hour link, it made no sense to me.

Thank you for all the information and suggestions, it's greatly appreciated.