NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> The Amazon.com model
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> The Amazon.com model
glenn fleishman (glenn_at_popco.com)
Thu, 24 Jul 1997 22:36:52 -0700
Michael Sloser <mike_at_mesagrp.com> wrote:
>I believe you will be better served by going with a local, specialized
>source. At the end of the day, the customer's main concerns are price,
>selection, and availability.
If this were true, national brands wouldn't have the impact they do. I
worked for Amazon.com from October to May as a senior manager, and I can
tell you that although the PRIMARY focus was customer service -- top to
bottom, that's what we talked about all the time -- brand had its own group
of people thinking about it all the time, and that was #2 on the list.
I recently had to make the decision in setting up a bookstore for a third
party (still in progress) of choosing between becoming an Amazon.com
Associate and working with another party. There are several players and
drawbacks for each. The most serious contender is c|books (recently merged
with Computer Literacy Bookstores or "clbooks"); they offer $10.00 for each
new referred customer. A bounty.
Now from working at Amazon.com, I know that the Associates program is a
cheap method to acquire new customers vs. other advertising. It extends the
brand in intangible ways, but tracking systems allow Amazon.com to know
what the lifetime value of the customer and even short-term value is.
That's why they can offer 15% fee on all books in regular distribution.
It's worth it.
My job as a bookstore is to establish enough value that I don't "lose" my
customer to Amazon.com but get them to come back for the editorial to my
site and continue to click through to order additional titles in subsequent
sessions. I may or may not make $10/customer on average and beat the
c|books offer.
What pushed me over the edge to Amazon.com's program, though, is not a
lingering sense of loyalty but brand. Amazon.com is spending a remarkable
amount of money promoting themselves. Nobody outside of Silicon Valley
knows c|books. (That's "nobody on average"; not meaning to denigrate them
at all. They have an unbelievable selection, good pricing, great shipping,
and with their merger can ship tens of thousands of obscure books overnight
that other folks don't even list.)
If a customer looks at the clickthrough and sees Amazon.com, they should
get a warm feeling inside. Seeing c|books brings up a blank spot in that
branding part of their brain and I don't get the sale.
On the same subject, Les Morgan <lmorgan_at_IX.NETCOM.COM> writes:
>My understanding of
>Amazon.com's cookie-based visitor tracking is that all sales made during a
>single visit to Amazon.com go to me, even if the visitor moves to another
>page at Amazon.com.
This is incorrect, and they don't emphasize but do clearly state that you
get credit only on books where the book page being viewed when the user
clicks the market basket has been referred from your site. Several clever
Associates (maybe hundreds) use frames to encourage peope to click to
Amazon.com, add book to basket, then click on the back button to return to
the Associate site. Any page reached via a single click from an Associate
will get a sales credit.
>>A "Visitor" is a person who clicks on book links from your site,
>>and is counted as 1 visitor (above) regardless of the number of
>>different titles they click on. We keep track of this by watching
>>their shopping basket ID, which remains the same for every book they
>>click on.
They track the above for their own purposes, not for giving you fees.
Amazon.com has an amazing database with which they can slice and dice data
to their hearts' content for analysis. This is one of their most powerful
tools.
DISCLAIMER: As I note above, I no longer work for Amazon.com or have any
business relationship with them. I'm speaking for myself, an unsolicited
pundit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Glenn Fleishman, unsolicited pundit. Or, in German, ungefragter Ratgeber
mailto:glenn_at_popco.com . NEW! http://www.glenns.org . fax 206.285.0308
contributing editor and "web watcher" columnist . . adobe magazine
currently working on the book Real World Scanning Halftones, 2nd edition
conference chair, web advertising '98/new york conference, feb 2-4, 1998
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