Surprised that there are so few defending Adsense. Amazon has the capability to change the market and it is a competitor of which Google should be wary. The muppetry from Google with its animal farm updates has lost Google a lot of good will with webmasters and many will only be too happy to see an alternative emerge. However it remains to be seen if Amazon's offering will be an alternative.

Regards...jmcc

What exactly is the TAB called in the Amazon Associates tab?

Surprised by some comments. None of them are interested on our benefit so we should stop dreaming, still competition is good.

@WolfLover - It is called Amazon CPM Ads

What do you think is Google's #1 problem with AdSense?

What do you think is Google's #1 problem with AdWords?


For me, the answer to my second question is the same as it was before I "died" and came back to life. They've made AdWords too complicated.

FarmBoy

What exactly is the TAB called in the Amazon Associates tab?

The consensus view over at the Amazon Associates Forum is?

Nobody really knows. It appears, for the moment, to be an "invitation only" Beta model.

I'll be the last to get excited about anything Amazon does. Too many of us going back well over a decade now know full well that Amazon studied very carefully why the most successful Associates were in fact successful.

I'm not referring to "smarties" who gamed the system, because they were summarily thrown out. Many very early creative models were encouraged, and then copied by Amazon, who subsequently changed the rules.

I'm unaffected, so it's not sour grapes, but I well remember over ten years ago working on XSLT over XML feeds as one example to subsequently realise we were all a voluntary experimental laboratory for them.

Speaking of Amazon being a new competitor, and no to get off the AdSense path too far here. Does anyone know how things are going with those new Amazon "Fire" phones?


FarmBoy

I realize Amazon isn't really "profitable" but I've been an Amazon Associate since 2001 and they haven't missed a payment. For the record I'm a small fry to them.

I say bring it on. More competition in this space would be a good thing, and Amazon just might be big enough to make a dent in Google's slice of the pie. We know Yahoo/Bing couldn't do it, but Amazon is a different beast altogether.

I realize Amazon isn't really "profitable"

wrt profits, I found this comparison to be interesting.


Google's ad-supported business is highly profitable. It generated more operating profit in the first six months of this year than Amazon has since it was founded 20 years ago, according to researcher S&P Capital IQ.

[online.wsj.com...]

Personally I'm thrilled to be part of this from Amazon. I can't pick on negative thing to say. If the payouts are poor? So what. It's new. It would be completely unrealistic to expect revenues to be Adsense like at this stage of the game. When big companies get into profit sharing and include me in that? When it makes me less reliant on one revenue source? It's all good. I have pessimism regarding the future of being able to monetize, so this is encouraging news to me on a very basic level.

Quick heads up. The CPM ads tab does NOT appear if you access things on a tablet-mobile, at least not for me, so make sure to check on a desktop to see if you've been invited.

Initial take on my site test: relatively low fill rate, and CPM, and seeing only one advertiser displayed to me (but I'm in Canada).

Suspect they'll eventually offer text ads, but amazingly little information about the system at this point.

As per amazon's profitability, keep in mind their huge expenditures on infrastructure over the last years. I believe their retail operation IS profitable if you remove the deducted expenses on that. Just sayin.

It's buggy even on desktop

I have the Amazon tab in one of one of our computers. But I can't see the tab when I log in to the SAME account but on a different computer. I tried a lot of things -- rebooted, clear cookies, but the tab just won't show up in any other computer except for that one. Talk about strange -- considering I am logging into the same account!

I'll still stick with my tried and true "watch and see".

1. For the moment I wouldn't allocate AdSense space for it, I can't see it likely exceeding AdSense eCPM.

2. I most certainly wouldn't allocate space occupied for specific Amazon product items.

3. Historically, the people to benefit from Amazon generic banner ads has only been Amazon, never Amazon Associates.

I'll await reports of positive developments, I gave away being an Amazon guinea pig over a decade back.

[Edit] 4. I won't increase any form of advertising on my pages, they don't exist to generate revenue, they exist to educate and inform. Not the other way around.

I just read an article about Google launching a drone delivery fleet that's better than Amazon's.

This competition should be lots of fun to watch.

FarmBoy

I just read an article about Google launching a drone delivery fleet that's better than Amazon's.

If we're lucky, they'll outsource the drones to independent contractors, a.k.a. people like us. We'll be able to attach advertising banners and get a cut of the ad revenues. (And what about low-altitude skywriting? Imagine people sitting in a sidewalk cafe and seeing cigarette-size puffs of smoke spelling out "Drink Corona" above their heads.)

If we're lucky, they'll outsource the drones to independent contractors, a.k.a. people like us. We'll be able to attach advertising banners and get a cut of the ad revenues. (And what about low-altitude skywriting? Imagine people sitting in a sidewalk cafe and seeing cigarette-size puffs of smoke spelling out "Drink Corona" above their heads.)

I can see it now. XYZ Company will buy an ad to an ad on a drone that flies near me. I get a cut. They'll call the new program "FlySense".

FarmBoy

Getting back to the original subject - I wouldn't get too excited about an Adsense competitor. If there is a finite number of advertisers they will be spread thinner, and any competitve advantage will be lost - unless they provide a better service to advertisers, or give us a bigger cut.
Frankly, I doubt they will achieve either - but we can hope.

Personally I'd be more hopeful for results out of a Facebook advertising network, if they can get over the privacy hurdle.

Getting back to the original subject - I wouldn't get too excited about an Adsense competitor. If there is a finite number of advertisers they will be spread thinner, and any competitve advantage will be lost - unless they provide a better service to advertisers, or give us a bigger cut.
Frankly, I doubt they will achieve either - but we can hope.

If advertisers only advertised on one platform this would be true, however most advertise on more than one platform. A real adsense competitor would only serve to help all publishers in the long run. That being said, if a partnership with microsoft/yahoo/media.net can't do it, i don't know how Amazon hopes to pull something off.