First of all I’d like to say that yes you can probably replicate these easily, but making them scalable can become more difficult.

I often run experiments on different methods of generating streams of revenue on the internet. Of course SEO has been my main source of online visibility, but sometimes I like to vary things up to learn. I would like to tell you about two approaches based on Amazon’s affiliate program.

A few years ago, I created an Amazon affiliates account (I send traffic their way, they pay me a small commission) and ran some tests.

1- Twitter approach (loser)

I built a comedian profile, and worked up to a unfocused audience of about 1000 followers. I often posted jokes and sometimes I posted tiny url versions of my affiliate links of funny products. Then I let it simmer for a while.

Time Spent: 5 Hours

Revenue generated over 2 years: $32.00

eek!

2- Yahoo Answers approach (winner)

This one I knew from the beginning that it would go well. But had I known how well, I think I would have spent many more hours doing it. I searched on Yahoo answers for open questions that asked “Where to buy X item.” You can guess what I did next. Yes, Amazon affiliate link, tiny URL it, and shared on yahoo answers.

Supposedly Amazon doesn’t really like this approach. But seriously Amazon, chill, I’m selling your products.

Time Spent: 45 minutes (answered  18 questions)

Revenue generated over 2 years: $146

I currently have a number of other Amazon related tests running. When I get some results I will make sure to share again!

– Edipo Cravo