Jun 18, 2018
How Kinja Earns So Much In Commission Revenue
While Amazon may be vaporizing traditional retail, the role of salesperson isn’t dead at all. On the contrary — it’s become vastly more distributed. Thanks to the Amazon Affiliates program, web publishers can earn up to 10% of sales that originate on recommendations from their website. We created WP Commission because we saw how well big brands were capitalizing on Amazon Associates, and we wanted to unlock that potential for everyone. Here’s a look at how one brand’s effective use of Affiliates links turned their brand equity into revenue.
One of the legends of online content production is Gawker Media, which, while it no longer exists in its current form (following a spectacular trial involving Hulk Hogan and one of President Trump’s lawyers), lives on as the Kinja network, now a property of Fusion Media Group. Kinja is a unique blogging platform with a suite of flagship brands such as Gizmodo, The Root, and ClickHole. It’s fair to say that a certain kind of blogging metabolism was established there, if not a whole type of internet writing. But one of its major traffic and revenue drivers is a standalone property called Kinja Deals.
Kinja Deals is a vertical on the FMG website that constantly posts roundups of which online merchants are offering deals that day. It’s a simple proposition, and doesn’t pretend to be much more than a listing. Here, the premium on finding and selecting the best products to offer to readers is less central than the precept of saving readers money. Instead of a claim about which item is best for a given consumer, Kinja Deals simply reports on big cost reductions. “ELAC’s Terrific Entry Level Speakers Have Never Been Cheaper,” notes one headline — which makes no claims about whether or not you’ll want them. But Kinja Deals readers and brands alike don’t seem to mind.
The FMG philosophy is simple: “TRUTH BEGETS TRUST WHICH ALLOWS TRANSACTION.” This means that inflammatory, irreverent or informal blog posts all have their own kind of value, as long as they make the reader trust the platform to tell the truth. “What we do is based on truth-telling. Our readers have come to establish a level of trust with our editors’ opinions on everything from the newest gadgets to the best stain removers,” the FMG ad kit goes on. “We provide readers with can’t miss deals on a wide range of product categories, exclusive promotions from trusted partners, and reader submitted recommendations from an extremely engaged audience.”
Transparency is crucial to maintaining the trust Kinja relies on to drive transactions, and keeps everything they say above board.
Posts take the same form of a post on any other of FMG’s properties, though some are headed by this disclaimer: “Commerce Content is independent of Editorial and Advertising, and if you buy something through our posts, we may get a small share of the sale. Click here for more.” This kind of transparency is crucial to maintaining the trust they rely on to drive transactions, and keeps everything they say above board.
An example of the irreverence that they’re able to deploy is on display in this post for an 18-outlet power strip. “What were they thinking inventing this surge protector and not calling it the Power Tower? Missed marketing opportunities aside, it comes with a whopping 18 outlets, four USB ports, and its own 6.5' retractable power cord,” the copy reads. But as if to sweeten the deal, Kinja Deals readers are treated to a unique promo code. A “buy now” dialog box, populated with the product image, details and price in a bright circle follows. There’s no pretense here, visual, textual or otherwise, that they’re doing anything other than informing you about a good deal, and it’s that lack of pretense that makes the reader want to make a purchase.
Luckily for you, WP Commission makes it possible to generate professional-quality affiliates links with a seamless tool to achieve an enterprise-level appearance. Extremely powerful but easy to use, WP Commission is the easiest, cheapest cloud service for bloggers, publishers, new media companies, and influencers to leverage Amazon to the max.
While you may not have the budget for a developer and a designer like Kinja Deals does, you can still monetize your audience and brand equity to supercharge revenue. What’s better than that?
