One of the issues that always comes up on some of the affiliate marketing blogs and forums concerns buying from your own affiliate link. There are a couple schools of thought concerning this. The bottom line, however, is that there are times when it is appropriate to purchase a product using your own affiliate link and times when it is not. Here are some situations when it is not appropriate to buy a product using your own affiliate link:

Referred Through a PPC Search Engine

So you look up a product in a search engine and click on one of the ads. You like the product, go to purchase the product and realize you can buy the product through your own link and give yourself a discount. This is not appropriate. Why is this not appropriate? Because you have just cost that affiliate marketer money by clicking on their ad. Would you like another affiliate marketer increasing your advertising costs while getting the benefits of the sale? Also, if it was a landing page, they went through a lot of work to get you to want to purchase the product. They deserve credit for the referral.

Email from Subscribed Service

If you are like me, you've probably signed up for many affiliate marketing tips by email. Now, I do have to agree that most of the emails are really to get you to buy a product, but occasionally, one product comes along that you want. Again, the person who referred you should get the credit. They put work into their campaign and sold you on the product. Imagine yourself in this position.

These are not the only situations where it is inappropriate for an affiliate marketer to use their own affiliate link to purchase a product, but all of them are similar. Someone worked hard on their website, on their ad campaign, on their email campaign and so on, and you've stolen their income from their work by giving yourself a discount. This is an issue of ethics and what goes around will come around. So next time you're tempted to buy from your own affiliate link when you've been referred by someone else, think about how it would feel if you were the referrer.