Why Didn't My Amazon Affiliate Link Work? (Reasons)

Being a successful Amazon Associate is a hard task and takes a lot of patience and hard work. You need to put out quality content over and over in order to eventually be successful and become your own boss.

One common problem people run into when being an Amazon Affiliate is sometimes their links won’t work. In the rest of this blog post we will go over why your Amazon Affiliate Link didn’t work and how to avoid this in the future.

Short Answer To The Question Why Didn’t Your Amazon Affiliate Link Work:

There may be many reasons your affiliate link didn’t work. If your way to test out your link is by clicking it yourself this would be the wrong way to test it. Amazon knows you’re the one clicking it, therefor when you go to check the data on your links you will still see zero clicks even if it’s working.

Reasons Your Affiliate Link May Not Work

There is no one reason your affiliate link may not work. Pay attention to the following reasons links don’t work and see if you’re doing one of them. You don’t want to waste all of your time putting out content doing things incorrectly so if you are doing any of these correct it.

Link was not copied correctly:

Never try and copy your link by typing it yourself. Always copy the link directly from the Amazon Associates Site. There are two ways to copy Amazon links. You can use an HTML link which will automatically load the product and price on your page. Or you can simply embed the link within the text of your blog post. No matter which way you choose, just make sure you do it the right way.

A Friend Or Family Member Used Your Link:

Amazon doesn’t allow sales on the same IP connection. This means that if someone else within your household ends up using your link. Chancers are a user won’t get credited for the sale if they send them to friends and family.

Using A Link Shortener:

This can make it hard for Amazon to track who clicked the link and make it less likely for you to get your affiliate sales. Make sure you put the link within the text or wherever you put the way you got it from Amazon. This shouldn’t be a problem either because within the Amazon Associates dashboard you’re able to use shortened links.

Cookies Were Disabled On The Users End:

Cookies are what Amazon uses to track your traffic. When a buyer doesn’t have cookies enabled they will not be tracked by Amazon and thus no sales will be credited to you. This is something that unfortunately is out of your control.

Sometimes It Takes a Bit For Sales To Show:

It can take up to 48 hours for sales that are attributed to your links. Instead of contacting Amazon Associates support right away give it some time and check your reports within the next 48 hours to see if there were any sales made.

Not Every Product Brings Commission:

Make sure to check the list of Amazon products and make sure the products you’re creating links for do reward you with affiliate commissions. If not, there is really no point in having those links on your site.

The Click Came From a PDF or Ebook:

You can’t get Affiliate commission through Amazon if your click came from a PDF or Ebook. If you want to lead someone to an affiliate offer the best way is to link to a blog post that contains the affiliate offer, they will have to click from there in order for you to get the sales.

The Click Came From an Email Campaign:

This is the same thing as PDF’s and Ebooks. Make sure to link to the content within your website and not straight to your affiliate offer. This way you will definitely get the sale.

Canceled Orders:

Depending on the refund policy of the product, you may not receive commission for a canceled order. This tool can be found within in your Amazon Associates dashboard.

The Product Can Be Discontinued:

You have to be sure to keep your affiliate links up to date. Sometimes companies selling specific products can go out of business or discontinue that product. So if you’re linking to a product that can be discontinued your affiliate link may not work.

The Customers Payment Was Invalid:

Amazon will not send you a commission from an order if the payment is invalid. So if the customer accidentally used a card that is no longer valid, you will not get paid for that sale.

Why am I not getting paid Amazon affiliate?

The way Amazon Associates works is you get your commission once the order or orders from your links are shipped to the buyer.

So depending on shipping times, it can take a few days for your order to get shipped and thus become commission eligible.

Also, payments are made to you 60 days after your earnings for that month. For example all of your commission from January will get paid out sometime in March. So being an Amazon Associate takes a little bit of patience.

How do I know if my Amazon affiliate link works?

There is actually a link checker within your Amazon Associates account. This will let you know whether or not the link you’re using is valid or not. Make sure after you upload a video or blog post that you always check if the link is working correctly.

Does Amazon affiliate pay for clicks?

The Amazon Associates program does not pay for clicks. What can happen though, is you can get commission for products that you didn’t promote.

The reason behind this is because when someone clicks your link, anything they buy within 24 hours you get commission for. This is why the Amazon Associates program is so valuable.

Conclusion:

We hope this blog post helped you figure out why your Amazon affiliate links may not be working.

If you have any experience with this stuff happening you leave a comment below and we will get back to you ASAP! Did you find this blog post helpful? If so share it on social media!

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