Open theshillito opened 11 years ago
Any further thoughts on this?
I'm not sure how complicated it'd be to derive links from our metadata or how useful those links would be. I also have no idea how these website's affiliate programs work, no idea what tax laws we'd have to be careful about and I don't want to deal with or even acknowledge the politics of where the money would go.
I also doubt it'd make it to double digit revenue, so we wouldn't be able to even pay for royalties or hosting.
…but then I get uncomfortable around pretty much any advertising, so I could just be rationalising.
Looking at existing affiliate links on The Cat for Amazon, it takes title and artist data, along with a static category (music) in the URL. It uses a tracking cookie to follow you through the process of buying something through that link. As for tax laws, you're right that we'd probably have to declare it, regardless of where it goes. As for where it would go, I was only really thinking of for buying CDs for the show. As you rightly say though, advertising and stuff would be a funny one since people block stuff like that, but also more people are blocking tracking cookies (I do) so it wouldn't always work anyways. Might be more trouble than it's worth.
I have zero experience with how much money you can get from affiliate links. Do you believe we could make a significant dent in your CD expenses?
If not, this should be closed.
I also have zero experience to be quite honest. It was an idea, but as I think we've established, it would be too problematic for likely very little return.
Following the introduction of JPU Records' new affliate scheme, I am once again thinking about this. Even if we don't have a link per track (as that would be impossible and unreliable to manage), we could have a page linking people to legit sources for Japanese music with affiliate links on top. JPU's 5% commission is quite a lot compared to things like Amazon and iTunes (if they still have affiliate schemes). Even if we don't go down the affiliate route, a page saying "hey go here for legit music" seems like a good idea.
Adding affiliate links might be worth looking into. Several listeners regularly use cdjapan, yesasia or others, so it could make an amount. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them offer more if you spend it at their own site, which I could then do to get hold of CDs for the show.