I sold a book for Amazon two days ago. I put an small affiliate link in my review of ‘behind the cloud‘ and it received 2 non-bounced clicks. One of those clicks converted and bought a kindle version of the book.
Two people also clicked on a Kindle, but did not buy it. (In case you were curious, I would make $25.90 if you buy a Kindle.)
Unfortunately, Kindle books do not pay commission. (Once you have a Kindle, Amazon owns you as a customer, so they do not pay affiliate commission.)
Lessons Learned
Eric Ries talks about the “validated unit of customer learning” as progress in a start-up.
The affiliate links exist to monetize the blog while adding to the user experience, instead of detracting from it. Mint.com did the same thing – they offer only products that would save the user money.The user experience improves and the value proposition is further re-enforced every time a user purchases, creating a virtuous cycle of engagement and revenue behavior.
In that way, my hypothesis about monetization through CPA advertising is validated. Blogs can be monetized through subtle affiliate links effectively, without detracting from user experience.
On the other hand, I still didn’t get paid.
How do you monetize your blog? Does it hurt user experience? Leave a comment…
[...] how to monetize your blog without hurting user experience 2010 January 28 tags: affiliate, CPA, monetization, user experience by mattgratt This post (and many other much better posts) is now at Grattisfaction.com. [...]