Online Shopping — Amazon India (Online Retailer)

WordPress — Link Builder Plugin

If you are a blogger and create content on a WordPress blog, and you are also an Amazon Associate then you may use an Amazon associates link builder plugin to create Amazon product links directly into the WordPress editor while writing your blog post. There are many such plugins available but I want to introduce to my readers the free offical plugin from Amazon Associates Program.

Amazon Associates Program

Amazon Associates Link Builder Plugin

Amazon Associates Link Builder is the official free Amazon Associates Program plugin for WordPress. The plugin enables you to search for products in the Amazon catalog, access real-time price and availability information, and easily create links in your blog posts to products on Amazon. You will be able to generate text links, create custom ad units, or take advantage of out-of-the-box widgets that are designed and included with the plugin.

Features — Link Builder Plugin

Features of the Link Builder plugin include:

• Amazon’s product catalog search built directly into the WordPress editor
• Product link posting via shortcode
• Four, pre-built ad templates including multi-product options
• Responsive ad sizes as well as fixed, custom sizes
• Custom ad template options
• Ad performance tracking
• Access controls

Download Amazon Associates Link Builder

You may install and then activate the plugin from within your WordPress blog, or download from WordPress Plugin Page:

Once the plugin is installed and enabled on your WP blog, you need to setup the Settings and Templates. Once you have done that the plugin logo could be seen in your editor, and you may start using it with ease.

Getting Started with Link Builder

Step 1 — Become an Associate

To become an Associate, if you are not already, create an Amazon Associates account using URL for your country. At present, associates are allowed from 12 countries:
Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom, and United States. Your Associate ID works only in the country in which you register. If you would like to be an Associate in more than one country, register separately for each country.

Step 2 — Sign up for Amazon Product Advertising API

The Amazon Product Advertising API is a popular e-commerce service, powering Amazon-integrated experiences around the world, serving tens of thousands of applications and more than 1 billion API requests every day. It exposes a web-service, which allows Associates to programmatically search and look up items in the Amazon product catalog. The Link Builder plugin integrates the Product Advertising API, allowing you to access Amazon product catalog data without requiring additional software development.

Step 3 — Configure Plugin for First Use

Use the Associates Link Builder->Settings screen to configure the plugin.

• Set Access Key ID and Secret Access Key in the Settings section. These credentials are used to invoke requests to the Amazon Product Advertising API for fetching information on an item.
• Set default Associate ID. Associate ID is used to monitor traffic and sales from your links to Amazon. You can also define a list of valid Associate IDs (store ids or tracking ids). You should create a new tracking ID in your Amazon Associates account for using it as Associate ID in the plugin.
• Set the default Amazon marketplace based on the Amazon Associates Program for which you are registered (for example, if you’ve signed up for the Amazon Associates Program in UK, then your default marketplace selection should be UK) and select an appropriate template for rendering your ads.

Now you are all set to start adding Amazon affiliate links to your posts using the Amazon Associates Link Builder plugin.

Examples:

Searched for product by ASIN.

You may put the product ad on your blog post aligned left or right using CSS for your template.

When I was using the plugin for the third product ad link, I got an error message: You are submitting requests too quickly. Please retry your requests at a slower rate. For more information…

Efficiency Guidelines

If your application is trying to submit requests that exceed the maximum request for your account, you may receive error messages from Product Advertising API. The request limit for each account is calculated based on revenue performance. Each account used to access the Product Advertising API is allowed an initial usage limit of 1 request per second. Each account will receive an additional 1 request per second (up to a maximum of 10) for every $4,600 of shipped item revenue driven in a trailing 30-day period (about $0.11 per minute). You can verify that your sales are being attributed to your calls to the Product Advertising API by checking for the following:

• You are using the links provided by the API when linking back to Amazon.
• Your Associate account and Product Advertising API account were created using the same Amazon account (i.e. email address).
• You are passing your Associate tag in all your requests to the API.

Searched for product by keyword. You may align the product ad center using CSS.

Amazon Associates Link Builder Guide

Amazon Associates Link Builder User Guide