Can You Use Your Own Amazon Affiliate Link? (Read This!)

Every new Amazon affiliate out there thinks of clicking his/her own Amazon link and making a purchase to earn affiliate commissions or advertising fees!

Isn’t that the truth? When I was introduced to Amazon affiliate marketing, it happened to me as well!

But there are a lot of ifs and buts that start popping up in your mind when you ponder about buying from your own link.

So, what’s the deal here? Is it allowed to purchase from your own Amazon associate link? Can Amazon take down your affiliate account if you do that? Can your family members purchase from your link? What does Amazon has to say about this action?

Looking for answers to the questions I just mentioned and a lot more? It’s the perfect blog post that you have landed on.

In this post, as an Amazon affiliate myself, I’m going to share with you everything a beginner needs to know about self-clicking and purchasing from Amazon for earning compensation. Let’s do this!

Can You Buy From Your Own Amazon Affiliate Link?

Well, a lot of people on YouTube and forums can confuse you with this but I won’t. Here’s a simple yet effective answer for you:

No, you can’t buy from your own Amazon affiliate link. It’s because Amazon’s Associate program is an advertising scheme/affiliate marketing scheme and not a discount program for people to save money. If an associate is found out breaking this rule, he/she might get terminated from the program.

Amazon doesn’t allow individuals to earn associate fees/advertising fees by clicking their own affiliate links because it is a violation of their Operating Agreement 7.

You might put yourself in risk if you try to ‘save money’ or ‘earn money’ by using your tracking IDs/links.

There are a lot of people who will write or speak that Amazon is a huge company and it won’t notice if you purchase from your own link but that’s simply not true!

Amazon does track whether or not you as an associate are complying with their terms or not on a consistent basis.

To be honest with you, one of my accounts was kicked out for violating one of their terms and it never got reinstated.

You have to be very careful with what you do as a partner of Amazon. To be straightforward, earning from your own link won’t make sense at all because it really won’t make you rich!

Let’s say you bought a fifty-dollar product from your own link and. if the advertising fee offered by Amazon is 2%, you will be earning a dollar for that and that’s it!

Do you think that makes sense? If you ask me, frankly, it doesn’t! You will have to have at least some kind of audience or network to be able to earn enough money with the Amazon associates program.

So, in simple words, it’s not allowed to purchase from your own link and it’s not worth it as well.

What Exactly Happens If You Use Your Own Amazon Associates Link?

I’ve already discussed that Amazon can terminate your affiliate account if you utilize your own Amazon link for making purchases but what exactly happens that it violates a policy of Amazon?

Well, when you become an Amazon associate, you become a member of the community that’s dedicated to offering value to people either in the form of information, genuine offers, and useful products!

If you click your own link to make some money, you aren’t actually creating any kind of value and performing an unacceptable activity because the program isn’t for availing discounts.

So, when you do this or perform this action, Amazon might spot you, consider you as an irresponsible partner, and get you removed from the partner program.

Should You Buy From Your Own Amazon Link?

Let’s actually discuss it from being a responsible person’s perspective. Should you really do this creepy task of making purchasing from your own links?

If you ask me, I’d say it’s not worth it at all. Although you’ll get kicked out from the Amazon associates army but as I said above, you won’t really make any ‘real amount of money’ if you do this.

I mean what can an extra dollar a month do for you? You could easily earn a lot more if you do a little overtime! If you are in the affiliate marketing industry, you should think about a big audience for monetizing because that’s where the money is.

Can Family Use My Amazon Affiliate Link?

Now, this question makes a little more sense in this pool of AMZ associate links so let’s just go ahead and answer it:

Yes, your friends and family can use your Amazon Associate links to make purchases and you will be able to earn commissions off of that but they need to use different IP addresses.

Your family members need to use a different device than yours to be able to buy from your Amazon affiliate links. You won’t have any risks of losing your affiliate account at all if your relatives use your links.

And why is that? Well, that’s because you are creating value here…and not using it for your own orders from Amazon.

As a matter of fact, I myself have sent my Amazon links to a lot of my family members and earned associate commissions over and over again.

Amazon Policies Regarding Link Usage

Now that you know a little bit about using AMZ links for self purposes, let’s quickly take a look at the things you shouldn’t do with your links as an affiliate of the company:

• You should not switch devices to buy from your own Amazon affiliate link
• You are not allowed to trick your family and friends for making them link your affiliate links and purchase items
• Use any unfair methods to self-benefit from Amazon’s associate program
• Break trust by misusing your affiliate links

Amazon takes its affiliate program very seriously! And when I say ‘seriously,’ I literally mean extremely seriously! If you don’t go hand in hand with their terms, the team will not think twice before taking your account down or suspending it.

What If Your AMZ Assocaite Account Is Suspended After Using Your Own Links?

Okay…now you know that it’s not fair to use the links for your own benefits but what if you’ve already made the mistake and your account got suspended?

How do you deal with that?

I just went through a lot of social media posts, forums, and discussions on the web and actually found out that a lot of people have been successfully able to restore their AMZ associate accounts by appealing Amazon’s decision.

But that frankly doesn’t work every time! You might not be very lucky in your situation and in this case, you will have to start a fresh account all over again!

Still, here are the things that can be done:

• Read The Suspension Email From Amazon
• Head Over To Amazon’s Assocaites Help Page
• Fill Out The Form
• Subit The Form & Wait
• Send A Follow-up Message After One Week
• Wait Patiently
• Finally Move On If No Response

1. Read The Susension Email From Amazon

Before you just go out there and start finding tricks or methods to restore your suspended Amazon affiliate account, you should read the suspension mail properly.

Try and figure out what is it that got your account suspended. Is it the self-use of affiliate links that you made or something else? Go through Amazon’s policies about its advertising fee program and then think about moving forward.

2. Navigate To Amazon Associates’ Contact Page

Once you have found out the reason why your account got suspended, you will now want to visit the page where you can submit an appeal to Amazon’s decision and reapply.

To be able to do this, you can either try copying and pasting this link to your browser – affiliate-program.amazon.com/home/contact, or click here to proceed easily.

3. Fill Out The Form

Next, you will have to make sure that you fill out all the details properly and give enough explanation to Amazon’s team members that they’ll reinstate your suspended account.

It has happened a lot of times with my friends that they’ve admitted the mistake they made and explained to Amazon that they won’t make any similar mistakes in the future…and Amazon restored their accounts.

You can also try being clear and honest here and might get your account back. Still, that will depend on how lucky you are.

4. Submit & Wait

Once you have written everything that you should have, go ahead and submit the web form and wait at least five to seven days for Amazon to get back to you/respond to your support request.

Don’t expect Amazon’s response within the first twenty-four hours. It’s going to take a little bit of time.

5. Send A Follow-up Message After One Week

If one week passes and you still don’t hear back from the team, it’s time to send a different (follow-up message).

See Amazon’s a big company and their Associate program management team also has to cope up with a lot of requests, it can happen that yours might get lost in the inbox and to stand out again, you can consider sending a different message!

6. Wait Patiently

Once you have sent your second message, give the team at least another full week for them to get back. In most cases, you will definitely hear back from them and then you will be able to conclude what needs to be done next.

7. Move On If No Response

If you sent the second message as well and still haven’t heard back, it’s time to realize that you made a mistake and you had to pay for it!

You can always create a different associate account and start a completely fresh journey as a partner of Amazon even if your account gets suspended! Just make sure that you don’t make the same mistake again.

In Conclusion

So, this was it, guys. I really hope that you don’t put yourself in trouble by purchasing items on Amazon from your own AMZ Associate links ever!

In case your account gets suspended, you can always try to reapply and get it back but you shouldn’t do anything that brings you to this point.

There is a lot of money that can be made by sharing your links in Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram groups then using them yourself. I hope you understood this.

If you have got any questions in mind, please use the comments section right below and I’ll see you in the next one.

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