I have just started using Amazon affiliate services. I placed several orders that were sent out in 3 separate shipments. All have been shipped-- and on Friday-- all shipments showed up in my associates report-- along with the commissions. On Sunday the report was updated and now only two items are showing and the commissions reduced. Is this normal for Amazon associates reports? Q...
Erm...! You are not supposed to be ordering through your own links, if that's what you were doing! I am not surprised they were reversed, I expect the rest will be too!
I did not order through my own links. My amazon account is the same as my associates account. they showed up. Q...
Sorry if I misunderstood, you said you placed some orders, then they showed up in your Associates account. Were you expecting them to? Your Associates and regular Amazon account are not connected per se, your own purchases should not show up there, but if you have picked up your own affiliate cookie while tinkering (not hard to do), then any purchases you make may show up, but they will likely be reversed as you are not allowed to make commissions from your own purchases.
okay-- recently after becoming an Amazon associate-- I purchased several items. My associates account was setup under the existing account I had with Amazon to purchase items. I setup a purchase account with Amazon several years ago. Anyway-- about a week ago I searched items I wanted and ordered them- directly from the Amazon web site. I am a blogger. So while living life-- I talk of the things I do. I am also a software developer and have been looking at the Amazon API. To get a feel for things-- I decided to build links for the items I purchased and put them in a blog post. This-- after I had already ordered the items. I am a associated with so many affiliate programs-- I like understanding how each works. It is possible the commissions were from others who had clicked on my links. I did not know I could not make commissions off my own purchases-- so I did think those commissions were from my purchases. But they could have also been from others who wanted a fitness ball, headset for skype, batteries for a Palm treo or a data cable for a palm treo. Do you see where I am going? Anyway-- I had about a $1.00 in commissions and now it is only .12 cents. I wondered why. Q...
OK, that's clearer, gotcha. Even though you did not put the links up before you ordered those items for yourself, you were probably investigating the Associates panel and creating links etc. before then. One click on a link with your tag in is enough to pick up a cookie which will then credit you with any purchases you make after that, initially at least, I have done it at least once, purely by accident. That sounds most likely - it is quite unusual to put up some links and then have some blog visitors buy those exact items (especially such diverse products) the very next day. At least, I wish I knew the trick, then I would put up lots of links to big-ticket items!