flanerie.org

I received an email from Amazon yesterday: "Amazon.co.uk Associates--Activate Your Account Now". It goes on to suggest I place links on my website and possible even banner ads.

I do indeed have an Amazon Associates account and I use it for both banners ads, for example in the right-hand sidebar, and specific product links, as on the left-hand sidebar.

So my account is already active. Indeed if I go to the Associates extranet I can see that I served over 10,000 impressions in Q3 2005 and there were 54 click-throughs. But no orders.

All of which reveals two things:

Firstly that the script that sends out the associates emails is lame. My account is very active, it just isn't successful. What the email should have said was 'Improve your conversion rates numb nuts' and list a few tips on ad placement and ad relevance.

Secondly, my UK readers are not doing the decent thing and navigating their Amazon shopping via my links. So support my idle lifestyle by ordering via my links and I will be moderately grateful.

And two and a halfly, since most of my visitors are US-based I should serve Amazon.com ads instead of .co.uk