2 Questions: WP widgets / user buying other stuff

  • Hi Paul,

    your plugin looks great, I’m just trying to get across all its possibilities, which seem to be endless!

    Just a couple of questions:

    1.- The code generated by the plugin is intended to be in post/pages, fine. But, can I just copy this code and put it in a text widget, for example? Will it have/cause any problem? I’m willing to put my affiliate links and banners on the side bars, footer, etc.

    2.- So you’re a Iain M. Banks Culture books fan, uh? Me too! I’ve read them all, they’re fantastic.

    So let’s say that a user comes to my site and follows a link to buy, say, “The use of weapons”, but he’s german. So he goes to Amazon.de, ok. Let’s say he does not find the book in english or in german and it’s redirected to the main german amazon page. But then he just goes on and discovers “Consider Phlebas” and he buys it.

    My question is: as an affiliate, I’m supossed to get a comission for other purchases from any user in the same session, even if he doesn’t buy the original adverted product. Does this happen like so with your plugin? Will Amazon.de (or any Amazon with my affiliate code for them) work properly or do you have any information about some trouble?

    I know this is not exactly a technical question but it would be really interesting to be more or less sure about this.

    Thanks a lot, and keep up the good work!

    Carles, from Barcelona

    https://www.ads-software.com/extend/plugins/amazon-link/

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • Plugin Author paulstuttard

    (@paulstuttard)

    Hi Carles,

    To answer your questions:

    1/ The plugin shortcodes will work in the post/page content and in text widgets automatically, if you want to use it in other parts of your theme template there is some php functions you can use <?php amazon_shortcode("shortcode arguments")?> e.g. if you want a banner in the footer.

    2/ Iain Banks is one of the few authors I never tire of reading!

    Assuming Amazon don’t change their rules what you have written is exactly how the commission system should work. But only if they are directed to the amazon.de site first and you have signed up for the german affiliate site and put your associate ID in the german id setting.

    If they, for some reason (e.g. localisation isn’t turned on), get sent to say amazon.com first and then navigate to the German site, you won’t get commission (as they used the US affiliate link that won’t be recognised at amazon.de).

    Hope this makes sense,

    Good luck with your site.

    Thread Starter Goodvalley

    (@goodvalley)

    Paul,

    Thanks for the quick responses

    1- I did read in the first place that the plugin has no problem with WP text widgets, but I just wanted to be sure because I’m also using two other plugins that affect text widgets. Perhaps you would be interested in doing some research on them, as I suspect there are some other potential users of your plugin that also use them: Dynamic Widgets, which I use to add banners, links or ad’s that relate exactly to the matter of the post or article that I’m writting (for example, a post about Iain M. Banks books will have links to his books only and a post about Peter Hamilton books will have other specific links), and Custom Content by Country, which uses Ip2Nation database and allows you to discriminate content by country’s visitor. One of my blogs is about drumming, so I can show affiliate links of european vendors for european visitors, and american vendors for american visitors. Amazon american and british sites do sell musical instruments but not spanish or italian Amazon sites, so I can put another affiliate links for these visitors.

    So I’m having trouble when putting Amazon links based on your plugin in my WP text widgets, which depend on Dynamic Widgets, but I suspect this problem relies on Dynamic Widgets programming. Anyway, I think I’ve found a way to overcome this.

    2.- I thought this would be your answer and it’s ok, I guess this is how it goes. But I asked you this because I’ve seen that when going to, say Amazon.de through a Iain Banks book link, the url in the browser shows my Amazon.de affiliate code as part of the url, which makes me think everything is ok, but if I then go to find another book, the url doesn’t show my affiliate number anymore. That made me suspect something was not going that well. But I may be wrong and Amazon.de somehow “remembers” that this visitor in this same session comes from that blog which has an affiliate number. Did you get any comments or experience regarding this?

    Thanks very much,

    Carles, from Barcelona

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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