AmaLinks Pro: a Heavy-Duty WordPress Plugin for Amazon Affiliates
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Jesse is a Native Montanan and the co-founder and CEO of Geniuslink - or, as he likes to say, head cheerleader. Before Jesse co-founded Geniuslink, he was a whitewater rafting guide, worked at a sushi restaurant, a skate/snowboard shop, was a professional student, and then became the first Global Manager at Apple for the iTunes Affiliate Program.
- August 30, 2023
There’s a lot of competition when it comes to WordPress plugins for Amazon Associates. From time to time we at Geniuslink like to endorse solutions that are complementary to our service and just plain useful. We’re here today to tell you all about AmaLinks Pro, a stellar WordPress plugin that Amazon Associates can use to generate informative, highly customizable ads—all without leaving the WordPress editor.
Let’s get right into it.
The Creators of the Plugin
First, I’d like to take a moment to introduce the dynamic duo that created this plugin.
Please meet Matthew Allen, a straight-shooting, prolific writer who happens to be the only known trucker who also blogs about creating passive income online. (This is great for us, as it gives us free reign to fill this post with trucking references.) Standing right beside Matt is his technical counterpart: a WordPress developer who prefers to remain anonymous, known as Alchemy Coder, or AC.
AmaLinks Pro is the product of their partnership, which has grown and evolved organically over countless Google Hangouts into the powerhouse it is today. Together, these two are in it for the long haul.
If you’re interested in the origin story of AmaLinks Pro, you can read their manifesto.
Check out Matt’s Dumb Passive Income blog for tips from a seasoned affiliate marketer, and if you’ve got a few minutes to spend pushing floating particles around a webpage, be sure to check out Alchemy Coder’s website as well!
Getting Signed up for AmaLinks Pro
To use AmaLinks Pro, you’ll need two things:
The first is a WordPress website.
The second is an Amazon Associates account that has access to Amazon’s Product Advertising API.
The first ingredient above is easy, but the second can be more involved when you’re just starting out, so let’s unpack that a bit. To access the Amazon Product Advertising API, you’ll need an Amazon Associates account that has made at least 3 sales. Once you’ve hit that requirement, you should have no trouble getting your API Key + Secret from Amazon. Matthew Allen has written up this helpful guide for fetching your API credentials.
If you’re all set with those two requirements and eager to start, you can install AmaLinks Pro using this link, or just keep reading to hear more about why you’ll want to.
Sing along with me now: life is a highway; I wanna drive traffic all night long.
Why AmaLinks Pro is a Great Choice
There are quite a few plugins that do similar work to AmaLinks Pro, so we’re going to focus on what sets it apart from most; notably, ease of use through its user interface and baked-in compliance with Amazon’s Operating Agreement.
User Interface
Most competitor’s plugins don’t use a full user interface (UI) to get the job done.
Generating showcase boxes from within WordPress is done using shortcodes and ASINs, with a settings page for tweaking options on the side.
On the other hand, AmaLinks Pro offers a full UI, which allows you to search for products from Amazon’s database without ever leaving the WordPress editor.
However, for those of you who remain faithful to shortcodes, those are supported as well.
To get a feel for the process of building links using the UI, check out this video:
Compliance with Amazon’s Operating Agreement
Secondly, Matt and AC worked tirelessly to ensure this plugin is compliant with the Amazon Associates Operating Agreement. I’m sure you’re familiar with that document: it’s a lengthy text—filled with legalese—that you’re bound to when you become an Amazon Associate. Interpreting the details of this agreement can be quite an undertaking, which is why we put together the Ultimate Guide to Getting your Amazon Associates Account Banned.
The good news is that Matt and AC applied this same level of attention to detail when building their plugin, to ensure that you won’t ever regret relying on their tool to generate affiliate links. They even went so far as to contact the Amazon Associates team to be sure they understood the terms correctly!
While there’s no replacement for understanding the terms that you are bound to, it’s relieving to know that the tool you’re using is handling all the fine details on your behalf. In our opinion, one of AmaLinks Pro’s greatest strengths is that it was assembled with Amazon’s terms in mind!
How to Build Links with AmaLinks Pro
Building links with AmaLinks Pro is a breeze thanks to their UI.
The plugin supports text links, product image links, custom call-to-action buttons, product showcase boxes, and responsive product comparison tables.
Regardless of which link style you’re after, the method remains the same throughout.
Simply open up the AmaLinks Pro menu and run a search query for the products you’re looking to promote.
In less than a second, you’re provided with a list of products, straight from Amazon’s database.
From here, you just select the product you want and it’ll drop right into your link. Then you’ll be able to adjust everything visually until it’s just the way you like it, and then publish the link to your page.
The UI of AmaLinks Pro makes building product comparison tables as easy as it gets. We’ve played with a few similar plugins and the AmaLinks Table Builder is our favorite for how intuitive it feels. Adding products to your table is as simple as searching them up as normal then making your selections with a few clicks. From there, you can rearrange and customize your table to your heart’s content. Rest easy knowing that the AmaLinks Pro tables are responsive—your table is always going to look good, whether it’s viewed on a desktop or a mobile device.
And if you’re ever feeling lost, Matt Allen has done a great job of recording a handful of videos detailing the most common uses of AmaLinks Pro. You’ll find video tutorials for building links using the classic editor or Gutenberg, or you can watch Matt build out a mobile responsive product comparison table in less than three minutes.
Amalinks Pro + Geniuslink
Implementing AmaLinks Pro with Geniuslink couldn’t be easier. Here’s how it works:
- AmaLinks Pro queries the Amazon API and serves up raw product URLs directly onto the page.
- Then, the Geniuslink WordPress plugin converts these URLs into buy.geni.us links which as you know automatically localize across the various Amazon storefronts and affiliate using your Associate IDs.
Matthew Allen and Alchemy Coder are both affiliate marketers who personally use Geniuslink and AmaLinks Pro in tandem on their sites. They even went so far as to build out a Localization section of their plugin where you can embed our Javascript Snippet! Or, if you prefer to install our WordPress plugin, that works great as well.
All you need to do is install our code (the JavaScript Snippet or Amazon Link Engine WordPress Plugin) on a site that’s running AmaLinks Pro and you’re good to go. From here on out, any AmaLinks Pro links that you build (be they tables, showcase boxes, or text links) are going to be blessed with that Geniuslink special sauce.
Also, our Amazon Link Health Monitor will let you know whenever we detect an issue such as Out of Stock on one of your links. So you have to worry about a thing—just hook up two plugins and keep on truckin’!
Further Explorations
Holy customization, Batman! I’m not sure I’ve seen this level of personalization since clicking through early MySpace pages back in 2005. Just look at all these options for the Call-to-Action buttons.
This level of control allows you to easily match your branding and serve up something like this:
Or, when you’re feeling creative, you can dish up a truly spicy number:
Pretty sweet, right? These kinds of options are ubiquitous throughout AmaLinks Pro. If you poke around, you’ll find a similar set of toggles in the Table Builder sub-menu as well.
Finally, if you’re interested in gleaning as much information as possible from the traffic through your links, you’ll be happy to learn about how AmaLinks Pro is compatible with Google Analytics.
AmaLinks Pro Pricing
So, now that you’ve seen all the horsepower behind AmaLinks Pro, what’s it going to cost? There are a few different tiers of AmaLinks Pro licenses, the primary difference being how many sites you can run the plugin on.
This cost is a yearly subscription. If you’re unable to renew, your website will not break, but you may miss out on important updates and customer support.
The Table Builder was originally only available with the Premium license, but the introduction of the new Blogger license puts this power in the hands of smaller affiliates. If you’re managing an individual site, you can now pick up the Blogger license and get access to the Table Builder right away.
Choosing your license gets complicated if you want the Table Builder on more than one site. If you’re in a position to afford the Premium license, you can build tables on 25 sites at once! Otherwise, you’re looking at 2 separate Blogger licenses, or a Blogger license and an additional Basic license to cover 5 more sites that you won’t use the Table Builder on.
Final Thoughts
AmaLinks Pro stands out in a crowded field of Amazon Associate WordPress plugins. With its easy-to-use UI, deeply researched Amazon terms compliance, and responsive Table Builder, we consider it the premium choice for Amazon Associates of all experience levels. Last, but certainly not least amongst our considerations, is that AmaLinks Pro is compatible with Geniuslink’s programmatic link conversion tools and Amazon Link Health Monitor.
So if you’re looking for an Amazon affiliate linking solution for your WordPress site, you can rest assured knowing that AmaLinks Pro will get the job done. We’re confident you’re going to get a lot of mileage out of this tool!
Thanks for your time and attention! You get get started with AmaLinks Pro here. Please leave us a note in the comments below if you’ve got any questions or feedback to share about the plugin.
Author
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Jesse is a Native Montanan and the co-founder and CEO of Geniuslink - or, as he likes to say, head cheerleader. Before Jesse co-founded Geniuslink, he was a whitewater rafting guide, worked at a sushi restaurant, a skate/snowboard shop, was a professional student, and then became the first Global Manager at Apple for the iTunes Affiliate Program.
Author
-
Jesse is a Native Montanan and the co-founder and CEO of Geniuslink - or, as he likes to say, head cheerleader. Before Jesse co-founded Geniuslink, he was a whitewater rafting guide, worked at a sushi restaurant, a skate/snowboard shop, was a professional student, and then became the first Global Manager at Apple for the iTunes Affiliate Program.
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