Over the years, I’ve watched Amazon.com expand its affiliate program in a remarkable number of ways. It’s pretty darn impressive – they’re always tweaking the program and offering affiliates a tiny slice of more and more different transactions. Today their “Associates Newsletter” outlines yet more possibilities, including a special gifts store. Check it out yourself: visit your Amazon gift store.

Oh, and if books, sporting goods, and whatever else Amazon has isn’t enough, they’re announcing a gourmet food store too. As they say, “use the mouthwatering images” to link to them, or just visit their site. Not enough marketing savvy from them? The newsletter also suggests that I, the Associate, buy keywords on Google to push customers to them, and even talks about how cellphone number portability can be exploited to sell Amazon cell phones.

They don’t miss a trick. If you want to learn about online marketing, a close study of Amazon.com is time very well spent.