8 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
8 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

How Does Amazon Determine What a Personal Purchase Is And What Isn't?

by Jon Tees
6 replies
Suppose a father and a son have the same name, the son is an Amazon affiliate and the father decides to purchase his son a gift by visiting his website and buying the gift through his son’s affiliate link, so that the son can also earn a commission on the purchase of the gift. How exactly would Amazon determine whether or not it was a personal purchase or a customer sale? I have seen instances of this happening to a few different people where a relative ordered them something through Amazon via the receivers affiliate link, and Amazon neither tracked the link or paid the commission for the placed order.

Amazon either pays nothing or next to nothing on personal purchases and may not even track them. The former and the latter depend entirely on whether or not you use custom links or links Amazon generates for you.
#amazon #determine #isn’t #personal #purchase
  • Profile picture of the author Mike Hlatky
    Actually, you don't get any commission for purchasing through your own link.

    They can tell because your Amazon account is linked with your Amazon Associate account. You would need two separate accounts in order to receive commission.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3321165].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Ellen C Braun
      Originally Posted by Mike Hlatky View Post

      Actually, you don't get any commission for purchasing through your own link.

      They can tell because your Amazon account is linked with your Amazon Associate account. You would need two separate accounts in order to receive commission.
      Precisely.

      Imagine how much commission Amazon Affiliate Marketer John Smith might be losing on all the purchases made by people who simply share his name if the above theory was correct!
      Signature

      HelpEllen.com - the zaniest affiliate blog in cyberspace.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3321518].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author kurtistb
        In addition to the two separate accounts you would also need two seperate credit cards and the items would need to be sent to a different address.

        If father and son live in two different residences and have two completely separate accounts (payment and billing information) there shouldn't be an issue. As far as amazon would be concerned the father would be just another customer.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3321977].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author ProfWriter
    What if you have the same IP? Does Amazon pay any attention to that?
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3322216].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Mrs S
    I don't think IP matters. I accidentally bought something using my husband's account (different account, same credit card, same delivery address) instead of mine on my computer and the commission was applied.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3326441].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Jon Tees
    I find Amazon’s tracking of personal purchases/purchases from the same household /IP address to be very inconsistent. For example, sometimes these are tracked and you receive a commission as you normally would if someone would have purchased the product from another location. Other times orders and clicks of particular products from that affiliate link are not even acknowledged much less credited as payable commissions. I have noticed that Amazon generated links by linking to pages tend to be more easily tracked and credited than are specially generated links that tend to be in use to sell Amazon products on PLR blogs and Amazon related product websites.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3327330].message }}

Trending Topics