MAM
Amazon introduces Amazon Associates Program in India
BENGALURU: Amazon.in today unveiled the Amazon Associates program (AAP) in India. AAP is a marketing program that lets online publishers of all sizes effectively monetise their content by advertising contextually relevant products and referring visitors to Amazon.in.
Publishers can select from over 17 million books, tens of thousands of DVDs and Audio CDs, thousands of genuine items in consumer electronics, and the entire Kindle range of devices. Amazon says that AAP is free to join and is an easy and effective way to improve experience for visitors and make money at the same time.
Amazon Associates provides a cost-per-action advertising model where any associate ranging from large and small businesses to bloggers, authors, nonprofits, personal home pages and more, can easily create a link to a contextually relevant product from the Amazon.in catalog.
Associates earn a percentage-based referral fee when customers click through and make a purchase on Amazon.in. The commission extends to all products the visitor buys and not just the specific product that was advertised.
As part of an introductory offer, Amazon is launching AAP with commission rates ranging from five per cent for consumer electronics to 10 per cent in all other categories, including books, movies and all Kindle devices.
Explaining the benefits, Amazon India VP and country manager Amit Agarwal said, “Millions of online websites, small and big, around the world showcase relevant Amazon products and earn high commissions. It is a win-win proposition, your visitors see contextually relevant products and you have a new source of income. Associates in India will have access to the same tools and the trustworthy tracking and reporting that millions of associates worldwide have enjoyed over the last 17 years.”
Website owners who sign on for the Associates program also get access to Associates Central, a dedicated Associates portal where associates have the option to build links, view traffic and earnings reports, and read about the latest news and opportunities available through the program.
“We are happy to partner with Amazon via Amazon Associates program” said Quickr CEO Pranay Chulet, “India‘s leading on line platform to buy and sell goods. “We are seeing good results, and are pleased with the program‘s transparency on payments and reporting. We look forward to further deepening our relationship in the days to come.”
Associates Central also offers access to a library of convenient and effective widgets, linking tools including text links and rich banners that make this very easy to use for individual and small publishers. Associates also have access to the ‘Associates Site Stripe‘ – the quickest and easiest way to link to any page on Amazon. The Site Stripe lets signed in Associates build links as they browse the Amazon.in website.
Associates with development resources can also use the Product Advertising API and XML data feeds to seamlessly integrate Amazon‘s rich catalog with their content.
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Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
