Amazon Leans on Google

Affiliate marketing is alive and well at Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN).

The leading online retailer is reaching out to Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Blogger.com community, to provide easier integration of Amazon product links to Google's bloggers.

A new utility makes adding a link to Amazon's storefront as easy as two clicks. Bloggers simply highlight text to perform a product search through Amazon. They then get the option of having Amazon insert a link or a graphical ad into the entry. Bloggers receive up to 15% of any sales that result from the link.

Yes, Amazon is just that smooth of an operator.

The e-tailer turned heads last month, when it offered affiliates one-click access to pitch Amazon products through Twitter. The Blogger.com integration is just evolutionary, especially since many Blogger bloggers already send leads to Amazon.com.

Naturally, this won't top Google itself, Blogger.com's monetization tool of choice. Writers can have Google's AdSense program populate their entries with paid-search ads that are relevant to their blogs.

Google is the runaway leader in contextual programs for publishers and webmasters -- a niche where Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) has been struggling for years and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is a rare no-show when it comes to small and medium sites and individual bloggers.

Amazon has always run a tight ship with its affiliates. It's one of the few online companies to take things strictly in-house, as smaller dot-coms lean on action-based networks including ValueClick's (NASDAQ:VCLK) Commission Junction and Rakuten's Linkshare. Then again, maybe this is also the reason Amazon finds itself on the cutting edge with Twitter -- and now Blogger.com -- integration. It's hungrier than the rest because it's doing this all on its own.

Do you have any affiliate marketing experiences to share? Positive or negative, chime in over in the comment box below.