To ask what the deal is with affiliate links?

[Powergower]

My friend wad telling me that if you follow someone on Insta who has an affiliate link for Amazon and you click it, it leaves a cookie on your phone so if you then purchase something completely unrelated from Amazon within that month the influencer gets a fee. Even if they haven't recommended the product. These days most influencer have links for every single website which is frequently used - Amazon, top shop, hm, zara etc etc.

I don't mind them getting a fee if I purchase something they recommend but not if I buy something unrelated. Aibu in thinking this?

Would shopping in incognito mode prevent it?

Yes, if you had not yet added anything to your basket and logged in again as would using a different browser or device. But if you don't want the cookie just clear your cookies.

Amazon is actually one of the least generous when it comes to affiliate cookie duration, 30 days is much more common than 24 hours..

Not saying you are wrong, set one up a few years ago for a friend.

Sorry that came across wrong, I meant that in a more Today I learned aspect.

@Powergower Your friend is correct, it's any product on that site, as long as you clicked on their link and purchase within 30 days.

I work in digital marketing. This is how it works.

FYI its not just social media influencers, you know those "Best Black Friday Deals Roundups" you see on the DailyMail, Facebook groups, etc.... Yep, all affiliate links.

The only way around it if you really don't want to give the influencer a fee, is to clear your cookies. But this is a real pain if you have all your usernames, passwords etc saved to your computer. You'll have to log back in to every site you frequently use.

As PP said, it doesn't cost you any extra so I wouldn't worry about it personally.

It's just so frustrating. And there's zero transparency. I'm sure if influencers were more transparent about aff links and informed people that 'if you click this link it'll place a cookie on your phone for 30 days so when you do your Tesco shop every week I will get 5% ' more followers would not want want to click the link. Also, they are linking to every possible shop like some mad scramble to get the cookies in place on our phones.

If they can confirm the link stays for 24 hours and only on the product they link then that's fine. It's the fact that it installs a cookie on your phone and pays the influencer for anything you buy thereafter that annoys me.

Don't click the link then.

Or clear your cookies in the settings of your browser.

Also, only one cookie is valid at a time. If you click 50 Amazon affiliate links, only the last one you clicked gets the commission.

Consider clicking the link of somebody you like and helping them out.