Amazon dumped me
Last week Amazon sent me an email stating that they had deactivated my account. (No, my 180 days were not up). I had made my first sale the week before. So instead of paying me, they found some lame excuse to delete my account. So now half my website is useless. Many of my posts were linked to Amazon. Hours, even days of work... down the drain.
I feel pretty discouraged and quitting everything did cross my mind. But I can't quit because this is what I want to do. I want to be a successful affiliate marketer. I just have to do it without Amazon. But then I think, what's the point if the Advertisers are just going to remove my account instead of pay me? That shouldn't even be legal.
Has this happened to anyone else?
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Gosh, I feel your pain girl. This didn't happen to me but with all that work put in and not resulting much, I know that feeling. I'm glad you have a great attitude, I hope to get mine back soon.
Maybe change the focus a bit or mix Amazon with doing some drop shipping (see above)? What I also like about yur own products is the fact you have a LOT more control of the process (and you cannot be dumped!)...
Hi Briana, that's terrible what happened to you.
I have been using Amazon's affiliate program for over a year and after a few false starts where I made no sales at all within their probation period, I'm not making regular monthly sales with it.
An affiliate program suddenly deactivating my account has been a fear of mine ever since I started affiliate marketing. I've heard of it happened to some people, as well as Adsense suddenly cutting people off too.
If anyone knows why this happens, it would be really useful information to have.
Briana, don't give up! This is just one of many obstacles you are likely to encounter along your way to success. Just see it as a teachable moment and persevere through it.
Have you tried contacting Amazon to ask them why the deactivated you?
Jason
Thanks for the encouragement, Jason! It's definitely a time-consuming obstacle but hopefully I can find the time to fix it all up.
This is very common, but no one likes to talk about it. Amazon doesn't do site reviews at the time of application, they wait until the first sale, and then, almost invariably, find something 'wrong' with your site and disapprove your app. I know dozens of people that this has happened to. It's one reason I refuse to affiliate with Amazon. In all cases, however, there is at least one violation of their terms & conditions, which are so lenghthy it's difficult to abide by all of them if you don't thoroughly understand them.
Amazon is about the only company that I have heard "dump" affiliates like this. Very frustrating indeed! Did they give you a good excuse as to why?
I would consider updating your affiliate links to promote products/services outside of Amazon and you can definitely move on here. This is unfortunately, but a bump in the road as there are 10,000's of awesome affiliate programs outside of Amazon.
One of the most common reasons I'm aware of is that people are collecting email addresses and have a mailing list. Because Amazon's T&C prohibit 'offline' promotion of their goods, email lists fall into this as they can be read offline. This is the 'gotcha' that a lot of people lose their accounts over. Also, it happens because until your first sale, your site is never reviewed, so rather than denying people up front because of any potential violations, they let them promote stuff and make a sale first.
Thanks for the comment, Kyle. Yes it's frustrating! Really, really discouraging actually. I hope I can just bounce back and everything will be ok :)
The "reason" they gave was that I had multiple items with the prices listed. I have never ever listed a price on any of my posts. The only thing I can think of is that I had a couple (maybe 3) posts with those amazon ad things with the picture and the live price at the bottom of the post. I took them down immediately and emailed them back but no one answered it.
They really should have just said, Hey please remove those ad boxes or your account will be deleted. Instead, they just deleted it...
Well glad I came across this post. I also hate that at any time I can be dumped especially since now I'm making quite a bit of money on amazon. I've had an email list for awhile and my sites been up for 2 years now. Just to be safe I disabled the email opt in, it but it is disconcerting that I have to basically dodge land mines just to keep my site up.
I'm interested in drop shipping but still am kinda fuzzy on how it works. So I purchase the products from a third party and they sell them? Is there a good how to guide on how to get started? And could I drop ship from my current website?
Really? Doesn't seem to mention it here:
https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/tips/t4
or here: https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/tips/t4/a2
Edit. Found some clarification here: https://amylynnandrews.com/do-not-put-amazon-associates-links-in-emails/
However, I know of lots of big podcasts that advertise their links. Sounds like an offline promotion to me. Sounds like they pick and choose who to target to dump.
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Since you have done so much work here is what I would do...Instead of selling Amazon products for a commission, buy and sell your own products...
You can do drop shipping or actually order and send out whatever related niche products that go with your site, as you have been doing, and make a LOT more money...
Although this can be frustrating, no doubt, with a little more work to get this set up, Amazon may have done you a favor...AliExpress is a good place to start to look for products and companies where you can drop ship from...
There are tools out there that will tell you the best selling products in whatever niche (I use one), and more tools that help you source using AliExpress (I use one).
Lastly I have another SEO niche tool I use to find niches that are up and coming with less competition. That is a fun tool, you would not believe what all comes up...
Best of luck no matter which direction you choose to go, but definitely I would take all the work you have done to now and massage it just a bit and keep on tuckin'!
Cheers!
Dave : )