How Not To Get Your Amazon Associates Account Shut Down

bymhmcoaching

357 followers

8 years ago

There is a tendancy to leap right into affliate marketing.

There you are, dipping your toes into the warm water and then you suddenly find yourself diving head first with a big smile on your face! Nothing couldn't posssibly go wrong could it?

Oh yes, indeed it can.

Since starting this slow up hill climb in affiliate marketing, the highlights of my life have been receiving $5 worth of sales after working a 65 hour week, and playing detective in trying to figure out why affiliate accounts I thought were working well, were suddenly shut down for apparently no reason.

This, my friends, is the REAL world of affiliate marketing.

So, stop watching those videos on YouTube seemingly showing you 'how to make $2,000 in your sleep' and listen to some advice:

You CAN get your affiliate accounts shut down. Without a word, or even a hint of what you might have done wrong.

You might have recent my recent article on how I managed to spend almost $200 overnight on Bing Ads because I failed to get up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat to turn them off. These companies: Bing, Amazon Associates etc can see hungry, young, innocent affiliate marketers coming, ready to be screwed over.

Today, I get a nice little email from Amazon Associates telling me they've found a full stop out of place on my site (but they won't tell me where) and so therefore, they have shut down my account and taken all my earnings with them to date.

I immediately halt my Ads campaigns. After all, there is no point paying for ads if your affiliate links have been blocked.

I reach for my paperwork on 'How To Cash In My Lifetime Benefit Plan' because the mortgage needs paying and it's almost Christmas.

With my trench coat and deerstalker hat (thank you Sherlock) I think somewhere on my giant website, there is a misspelling of the word 'Amazon.' I tredge through each page with my magnifying glass but an unable to spot the criminal. So, I start again. This may well take me the rest of the week to find before I can amend and grovel to Amazon for a new account.

The lesson today is:

Keep your eyes open and your feet firmly on the ground.

AND

Under no circumstances take your affiliate accounts (no matter where they are) for granted. They can be shut down for the silliest reasons and it is often down to you to figure out what the heck went wrong. By which time, you have lost all your earnings and you have to start again at zero. That means all your hard work to date has been for nothing.

Watch your T&C's when you sign up to these vultures, I mean, affiliate programs. They watch you and your website and they won't stop and think for a second about you and your hard work. Amazon is one of the worst for this. They will shut you down (beware if you have more than one linked site on your account as you will lose your earnings from that too. Once the account is closed, you lose everything, even from the site that was working perfectly fine.)

Make absolutely sure you are adherding to their lengthy policies. Even down to spelling the word: Amazon correctly.

Don't do what I have done (again) and lost pretty much the last 5 weeks worth of work (not unless you are made of steel like me and can get over it with a few Scotches)

Have a good day and keep 'em peeled.