Can Family Use Your Amazon Affiliate Links? (What You Need To Know)

There’s a lot of rules when being an Amazon Affiliate. For example, you can’t share direct links in email campaigns. You can’t share direct links in Ebooks. The list goes on and on. people get banned for so many different reasons with Amazon and it’s important to know the rules. One common question is whether or not it’s against the rules for family to use your Amazon Affiliate Links.

In this blog post we will go over whether or not it’s possible for them to use your links and what can happen if they do.

Answer To The Question Can Family Use Your Affiliate Links:

If you have family within your home using your affiliate links, this will make it easy for Amazon to see you’re giving your link to them because of your IP address. If your family happens to click on your link from your website from a different IP address the chances of them noticing are very low.

Why You Shouldn’t Share Your Affiliate Links With Your Family

The Amazon Associates program is not designed to give you discounts. It’s designed to be a marketing system where people are able to earn commissions through recommendation.

If you get caught letting one of your family members use your affiliate links, Amazon can shut down your account.

Not only can it get you banned, but sending affiliate links to family members to make a buck off of their purchase is not a good business practice.

If you want to be an Amazon Associate you should do it properly. How much money do you think you’re going to make with the volume your family uses Amazon anyway. You’ll only make a couple dollars per year in comparison to how much you make if you use true affiliate marketing tactics.

What Can Happen If They Use Your Affiliate Links?

As stated above your account may get banned. At first the click and sale may show up in your account but when it comes time for the commission to reflect in your account it won’t show up. So in other words, don’t waste your time trying it.

Can You Use Your Own Affiliate Links?

If your family can’t use it, what about you. Can you use your affiliate links? The answer is no. As stated above the Amazon Associate account is not a discount program. It’s a marketing system designed for people to earn commissions through recommendations.

If you buy from your own links, similar to your family using them, your account is at risk of being banned.

Will Amazon Associates Ban You Permanently?

At first if they think it was just a mistake they may just put a hold on your account. If you do it over and over again they can ban your account outright. If they ban you your chances or appealing are very low and you will have to reapply with a different account in the future. Just make sure next time you don’t make the same mistakes.

What Are The Proper Ways To Promote Affiliate Links?

Blog:

If you have a blog, use your blog to share affiliate links. For example if you’re writing an Ebook about Big Robot Toys then create some content on your blog that is relevant to the topic of Big Robot Toys then link back to the product on Amazon with an affiliate link.

Email Marketing:

If you are building an email list, create a niche specific newsletter that relates to your niche. Then use it as an opportunity to promote some of the products you’re making income with through the Amazon Associates program. Keep in mind you have to link to a blog post that contains the affiliate links because it is against the rules to promote affiliate links directly in emails.

Social Media:

If you have a Twitter account or Facebook page, consider sharing your affiliate links on them. This is if they are relevant to the content on your social media.

Youtube Channel:

If you have a Youtube channel, create videos that are relevant to the content of your niche then use each video as an opportunity to promote some of your affiliate links.

Figure Out What Works Best For You

You have to decide what works best for you. As stated above there are many different ways to market affiliate products through Amazon Associates. Choose the ones that work for you and then run with it.

In the end you can end up doing all of these at the same time but it’s important to take this one step at a time. Figure out what works best for you then master it. Once you get a good workflow down pat with one of the platforms slowly learn the next one and so on.

The two best options to start with are either a YouTube channel or a blog. these two will give you the best return on your time when it comes to earning commissions with Amazon Associates.

Conclusion:

It is not advisable to share your affiliate links with family. Chances are you will get banned. Even if it doesn’t directly get you banned, this is most likely not what the program was designed for.

We hope this blog post helped you to answer the question: “Can Family Use Your Amazon Affiliate Links?” We’d love to hear your feedback in the comments!

It would be helpful if you could share this post on social media and with your friends and family as well!

If you’re interested, also take a look at our other most recent blog posts:

Can Family Use Your Amazon Affiliate Links? (What You Need To Know)