Amazon smoke and mirrors money method
- Thread starter web_riches
- Start date
And who would be willing to pay double the price then? I wanted to buy a smartphone for $500, and now you tell me it is sold out, but I can buy it from the other link for $1,000. I won't.
If you'd be so stupid as to mention the increased price ( let alone say it's full rrp ) then you'd be lucky to ever pick up any sales.
Sorry but you got me wrong.
You post an advert for the phone and let's say the price you post is $500.
Now the "you can buy it from here" link is Amazon and there the price is $1,000.
You do not MENTION the increased price but they go to Amazon and see it is $1,000. Initially, he wanted to buy because he thought it is $500. Now how does this convert? You already sold the $500 phone so the only option would be to pay double the price on Amazon.
There are 2 options to look at this.
1) You send the link to Amazon but instead of direct to the actual phone, you send it to the phone deals page or a similar page. There's always going to be a small % of people who will end up buying something while on Amazon.
2) Remove Amazon out of the equation totally and send them to a CPA offer with a chance to win the latest xxx smartphone. So instead of the "you can buy it from here" link, you change it to something like " I got my phone here ".
Hope that makes more sense.
Nandhugp
Power Member
- Jan 24, 2013
- 578
- 286
Using a website as a middle man might not. How about combining this with a SEO momey site.
Last edited:
JamaicanMoose
Supreme Member
- Dec 10, 2015
- 1,444
- 1,072
You'll get banned from Amazon doing this. Instead, post a link to your blog with a review of the product. Even if it's a one page free wordpress.com site, it'll work.
br4sco
Regular Member
- Sep 29, 2017
- 448
- 251
See quote below - yes it will work. But dont post a price on FB - Amazon does not like that and prohibits this in the TOS.
Correct, this is actually what many blackhat methods do through various steps, at some point the link goes to Blog / Moneysite that has legit content and is fine with Amazon.
SocialManager
Elite Member
- Nov 26, 2018
- 3,155
- 3,678
There seems to be some misunderstandings about how Amazon Affiliate TOS works.
1) Yes, you can share the price. The guy who said you can't share the price is wrong. The price must be ACCURATE though. Amazon prices change almost every day, sometimes multiple times throughout a day, so when you post a price "$499.99" and the price changes to "$509.00" then your post is technically breaking the TOS. Odds of you getting caught? EXTREMELY LOW.
2) You are allowed to promote direct affiliate links on Social Media, BUT they must be shared on pages where you are the sole owner or admin. Well, the thing about Social Media (Twitter and Facebook) is that anyone can share your post once you make it public. Amazon knows this. So how do we comply with the TOS technically?
First, add your Facebook account to your Amazon affiliate account, this is very important. Your "real" Facebook account is preferred.
Second, post your link to your own Facebook page.
Third, when you make your post using an alternate account, you will have to do like an embed/share of the post from your own page to the buy/sell page.
So, if Amazon says you violated the TOS, you can tell them that you shared the post to Facebook and some other user shared your post and that's a technical issue from Facebook. It's specifically noted in Amazon's policies that they understand you can't prevent we can't stop others from sharing our links, the TOS is about us sharing the links ourselves.
I am not a Facebook expert, but I am an Amazon affiliate expert. I have been promoting my Amazon Affiliate links everywhere for years and never had a ban from Amazon. I got lucky, for sure, and for sure the ban is coming eventually when I get a full review, but so far it's been good and I have spent a long time reading their TOS trying to find loopholes.
Will you still get banned? Maybe. But it's the best thing I can think of and might give you some help in your own methods.
1) Yes, you can share the price. The guy who said you can't share the price is wrong. The price must be ACCURATE though. Amazon prices change almost every day, sometimes multiple times throughout a day, so when you post a price "$499.99" and the price changes to "$509.00" then your post is technically breaking the TOS. Odds of you getting caught? EXTREMELY LOW.
2) You are allowed to promote direct affiliate links on Social Media, BUT they must be shared on pages where you are the sole owner or admin. Well, the thing about Social Media (Twitter and Facebook) is that anyone can share your post once you make it public. Amazon knows this. So how do we comply with the TOS technically?
First, add your Facebook account to your Amazon affiliate account, this is very important. Your "real" Facebook account is preferred.
Second, post your link to your own Facebook page.
Third, when you make your post using an alternate account, you will have to do like an embed/share of the post from your own page to the buy/sell page.
So, if Amazon says you violated the TOS, you can tell them that you shared the post to Facebook and some other user shared your post and that's a technical issue from Facebook. It's specifically noted in Amazon's policies that they understand you can't prevent we can't stop others from sharing our links, the TOS is about us sharing the links ourselves.
I am not a Facebook expert, but I am an Amazon affiliate expert. I have been promoting my Amazon Affiliate links everywhere for years and never had a ban from Amazon. I got lucky, for sure, and for sure the ban is coming eventually when I get a full review, but so far it's been good and I have spent a long time reading their TOS trying to find loopholes.
Will you still get banned? Maybe. But it's the best thing I can think of and might give you some help in your own methods.
br4sco
Regular Member
- Sep 29, 2017
- 448
- 251
It was me mate - sorry you are wrong.
Quote from the TOS
Product prices and availability may vary from time to time. Because prices for and availability of Products that you have listed on your Site may change, your Site may only show prices and availability if: (a) we serve the link in which that price and availability data are displayed, or (b) you obtain Product pricing and availability data via PA API and you comply with the requirements regarding use of PA API in the License.
In addition, if you choose to display prices for any Product on your Site in any “comparison” format (including through the use of any price-comparison tool or engine) together with prices for the same or similar products offered through any web site or other means other than an Amazon Site, you must display both the lowest “new” price and, if we provide it to you, the lowest “used” price at which the Product is available on the Amazon Site.
Now do with that information what you want - i just wanted to warn anybody attempting this, that their accountmay be closed and earned comissions not paid.In addition, if you choose to display prices for any Product on your Site in any “comparison” format (including through the use of any price-comparison tool or engine) together with prices for the same or similar products offered through any web site or other means other than an Amazon Site, you must display both the lowest “new” price and, if we provide it to you, the lowest “used” price at which the Product is available on the Amazon Site.
hero76
Elite Member
- Oct 20, 2016
- 1,582
- 485
It was me mate - sorry you are wrong.
Quote from the TOS
Product prices and availability may vary from time to time. Because prices for and availability of Products that you have listed on your Site may change, your Site may only show prices and availability if: (a) we serve the link in which that price and availability data are displayed, or (b) you obtain Product pricing and availability data via PA API and you comply with the requirements regarding use of PA API in the License.Now do with that information what you want - i just wanted to warn anybody attempting this, that their accountmay be closed and earned comissions not paid.
In addition, if you choose to display prices for any Product on your Site in any “comparison” format (including through the use of any price-comparison tool or engine) together with prices for the same or similar products offered through any web site or other means other than an Amazon Site, you must display both the lowest “new” price and, if we provide it to you, the lowest “used” price at which the Product is available on the Amazon Site.
yes people who post this stuff don't realize it may work once and make you $20 but in the long run you will have a banned account and wasted all your time and efforts
steroidjoe
Regular Member
- Apr 26, 2015
- 264
- 113
Pretty sure this is like dropshipping on ebay, just that you earn pennies instead.
SocialManager
Elite Member
- Nov 26, 2018
- 3,155
- 3,678
Well, I am EXTREMELY confident that Amazon Affiliate program allows the prices despite what that statement says. It is open for interpretation.
What I can show as proof, is that Amazon's own social media sharing tools actually display the price when you share a lot of links.
Visit an Amazon product page while logged in to your affiliate account. Click on the Twitter share button, and you can see that it automatically shares the price for many products as part of the Tweet. This can be described as a technical flaw and they could claim they expect affiliates to edit the Tweet to remove the flaw, but I highly doubt it. They are more concerned about people sharing these on their permanent websites, not on Social Media.
The only way to have a price stay constantly updated, would be via the API or only displaying it via the link they serve. So, it's a catch 22 in that regard. Nobody can monitor the price manually and update it constantly manually and include all of the relevant statements Amazon needs to comply with every detail of their TOS, which virtually nobody is doing.
And most importantly for our purposes, we should be deleting the links regularly before any review takes place.
If Amazon is banning you and claiming it's because you showed a price, I am sure there is some other red flag that they are concerned with. I have literally 100,000+ links all over the internet, account has been active for over 5 years, been paid $30,000+. Never had any concerns from Amazon. The last thing I would be concerned about is showing the price, again, especially because their own tools automatically add the price when you want to use them.
SocialManager
Elite Member
- Nov 26, 2018
- 3,155
- 3,678
You can just make a new Amazon Associate account. Takes less than 1 hour.
My account has been active since 2012, I have received over 50 payments, my earnings are over $30,000 with Amazon Associates.
Amazon has a TON of associates and obviously can't manually check even a small portion of them. Amazon has a TON of fraud and is more concerned with fraud than minor violations.
One of the most successful Amazon Associates websites online is The Wirecutter.
https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-air-conditioner/
We can see when we look at their pages, they have prices which are not accurate/up to date, and they do not have any of the required wording that the Amazon policies state should be included if the price is updated via the API, and I don't even know that it is updated via the API.
If we look at this one though, you can see it has an update that says "*At the time of publishing, the price was $17." So I would guess this is some script they have that updates the prices at some frequency.
https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-nonstick-pan/
Their website likely earns hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly from the Amazon affiliate program, or, at least, in it's prime it did. Not sure if it's still going as strong but it is definitely still in the Amazon Affiliate program.
Another extremely successful website, not showing accurate prices, doesn't contain the required information if the price was updated via the Amazon API:
https://gearpatrol.com/2019/04/23/inflatable-kayaks-buying-guide/
Another example:
https://www.giftideageek.com/
So, guys, of course Amazon can always terminate your website for any reason, but the issue of the price is generally NOT something I would be concerned about even a little bit. Again, in my opinion, it's up for interpretation what they are really referring to based on 1) so many successful websites listing inaccurate pricing 2) their Twitter tool posts the price which of course will not remain accurate.
Dedicated Unicorn
Newbie
- Apr 21, 2019
- 9
- 1
Any updates on the method ? Anyone got this working ?