topic Re: Benable Tips and Tricks and Questions in Share Your Tips & Tricks

Benable Tips and Tricks and Questions

PenguinPower — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 20:32:51 GMT

Seems like as a community we've 'discovered' Benable... As with any platform there's definitely going to be a learning curve with how to please the algorithm...

Two things I've noticed so far - a list I had that was not 'optimized' for a few days - it was my first and I needed to add more items has not earned an optimized badge, even after I updated it. I tried to avoid this with a very large list I was making by hiding it until it was all done and that list has also not earned an optimized badge. Neither of these lists are in the "Tune up" section of my dashboard, so I'm wondering if a list doesn't earn optimized right away, if it perhaps never will. If that is so, I'm going to have to be very organized and make sure I always have at least 15 items queued up and ready when I decide to make a list. The other possibility, I guess, is that my second list is too large - it contains 146 items, they are separated into sections.

And a question - has anyone earned a referral from Benable yet? I'm in the promoter2 program and of the two I'd rather get my promoter referral than the referral offered through the Benable site... but the links list look like my clean ones that I need. Should I switch the Benable "auto affiliate link" off on all of my Z items or is is possible to earn in both places..

Re: Benable Tips and Tricks and Questions

ColsCreations — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 21:34:14 GMT

This is a good idea to have one main thread for Benable as it seems like there are a billion separate ones for it now. 😮 Might be better suited for the Promoting forum, though, maybe a Mod will move it.

And a question - has anyone earned a referral from Benable yet? I'm in the promoter2 program and of the two I'd rather get my promoter referral than the referral offered through the Benable site... but the links list look like my clean ones that I need. Should I switch the Benable "auto affiliate link" off on all of my Z items or is is possible to earn in both places..

@MOM and I are in the process of real-world testing.

Can confirm so far that if you use your own regular link w/ RF#, not Benable's auto-affiliate link, it goes thru as a normal self-referred sale where you get the standard 15%. You just have to be sure to toggle-off the default "auto-affiliate" link and paste in your own instead.

I understand that to get the 35% PP referral, you need to use "clean" links with no RF#. If you just add a "clean" link to Benable and leave the auto-link on, it converts to a referral link for Benable which looks something like htt...benable.com/a/5qgsaxy. In that case Benable would be the 3rd-Party referrer getting 15% from Zazzle and in turn paying you out 6%. So again, need to make sure to toggle-off the auto link and paste in your own clean one instead.

You're not going to be able to double-dip. One's either going to get the 15/35 from Zazzle, or Benable's going to get the 15 and pay you out the 6.

Re: Benable Tips and Tricks and Questions

PenguinPower — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 22:20:35 GMT

Super - that's what I figured, but Benable was showing me my clean links, so I was kind of like well maaaaaybe... wishful thinking and all. I better go turn off all the auto-affiliate links. I'd much rather have my 35%...

Re: Benable Tips and Tricks and Questions

Mariholly — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 22:38:25 GMT

I achieved an optimization with fewer than 15 products, but when I added the next link, it disappeared. I suspect they prefer varied lists that don’t come from a single site. In other words, if I only include items from Zazzle, it won’t be considered optimized. This is just my assumption because I added varied links to my list. I haven’t had time to verify it yet.

Re: Benable Tips and Tricks and Questions

Windy — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 22:58:14 GMT

At the invitation of Benable, I made a list for local area. They wanted MY local area, but I used where I lived before. So that is one issue. Another issue is that I could not be bothered with all the sections.....so I put everything for this travel list in one section. No dining section, for example.
This list has 13 items and is not yet showing the optimized badge so this may be due to one of the above reasons.

On the other hand, my list with only 8 woodcuts, all from my own store in Zazzle IS optimized.

Re: Benable Tips and Tricks and Questions

PenguinPower — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 23:18:18 GMT

I don't think it's from having all Zazzle products... I only have one list that is non-Zazzle so far, which did optimize. but all of my fully Zazzle lists optimized fine too as soon as I hit 15 items, except for the two that I took multiple days to work on.
One of my non-optimized lists is getting viewed... though that may simply be because it's the first one I made and if someone looks at my profile, it's likely the first thing they see.

Re: Benable Tips and Tricks and Questions

wheresthekarma — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 00:59:25 GMT

Good to know. Thank you for explaining that Col!

Re: Benable Tips and Tricks and Questions

Thunes_Designs — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 06:40:04 GMT

5 lists, and I got my first sale after 3 days. I keep each list at 15-20 products, mixing my own products with other matching items. The sale wasn’t a Zazzle product, but still exciting! I created a manual pin for the list on Pinterest.

Re: Benable Tips and Tricks and Questions

NigelSutherland — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 09:32:20 GMT

This is really important, and I'm a little confused. The links I post from Zazzle are the ones that include my referral number at the end, so I receive a referral commission from Zazzle if a sale is made.

I wouldn't get that if I posted a "clean link", without the referral number, especially if it's another Zazzle member's product I'm posting.

I now realise that I need to go through all the items I've posted up to now and toggle-off the Benable auto-link.

Re: Benable Tips and Tricks and Questions

Mariholly — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 11:36:33 GMT

We will have to learn from our experiences how this works 🤷‍♀️

Re: Benable Tips and Tricks and Questions

Windy — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 14:25:09 GMT

What's the consensus for those of us NOT in the Promoter Program in the instance where we are posting one of the products from our own store?
Toggle OFF the Benable auto-link?
Toggle ON the Benable auto-link?

Re: Benable Tips and Tricks and Questions

JLynnW — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 16:22:22 GMT

Toggle OFF the Benable auto-link 8s my vote, though I haven't heard back from Benable on my inquiries yet.

Re: Benable Tips and Tricks and Questions

WHS_Designs — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 17:52:51 GMT

Glad to hear about your discovery of the Benable auto affiliate toggle and our Zazzle links! I was confused about that, too.

Many thanks!!

Re: Benable Tips and Tricks and Questions

PenguinPower — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 18:08:27 GMT

Seems like no matter which affiliate program you are in, it’s better to have it off - if it’s on, you’ll see a referred by 3rd party on your sale and get less of the sale through Benable - I think they only give 10% to you. Save the auto links for non Z items.. Makes sense, they want to make money too.

Re: Benable Tips and Tricks and Questions

ColsCreations — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 20:31:50 GMT

When you click the + to add a card/list item, the first thing you get is the prompt to enter a link.
After you paste in your link you can either hit your Enter key or click the purple link that appears below it.

On the next screen, you can see the auto-affiliate link toggle is in on by default.

If you check the text link shown at top, and mouse over the purple link icon at bottom, both show the link as you pasted it.

So you think everything is fine. You click Next, add your Note, and Confirm. Done.
But now open the posted card and mouse-over the link it shows you.

You can see in your browser what the link actually is. Benable's.

So even though it looks like your own RF link or own clean link - make sure that toggle is OFF. You can toggle it off even after originally posting. Which I did here and you can see it now shows my own RF link as intended.

They provide the very obvious toggle button for using their Auto-Affiliate link or not, but it's still a little deceptive/confusing as it still appears to be your own link until you check it after publishing. So check your links and make sure that toggle is off.

Re: Benable Tips and Tricks and Questions

Barbara — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 21:19:39 GMT

So, it appears we should make sure the auto-affliate link is off whenever we're adding something from Zazzle, be it our own or someone else's product.

Now, what if we have a mixed bag where some of the products are from Zazzle and, say, we have one or two from Amazon. Should the latter items have the auto-affiliate link left on? I suspect the answer is yes because, otherwise, we wouldn't make anything on a sale, right?

Colorwash's Home

Re: Benable Tips and Tricks and Questions

Windy — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 21:29:25 GMT

Ah! Thanks for the deep dive on this! Heading over now to turn all mine off. Good thing I am starting small!

Re: Benable Tips and Tricks and Questions

Windy — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 21:31:49 GMT

OH! I had not thought of it that way at all. The referral fee gets carved out of what I would get from Zazzle. I am sure you are right. Will turn mine off.

Re: Benable Tips and Tricks and Questions

ColsCreations — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 21:42:48 GMT

You can toggle the link choice for each and every card/list item you add, so absolutely choose whichever is best for the individual circumstance. With Zazzle, we all obviously will benefit more by having it off, using our own link for the possible 15/35% referral commission direct from Zazzle. Would be silly to use the AA link (what I am going to refer to the auto-affiliate link as for easier typing) where Benable gets the 15% from Z and you only get 6?% from Benable.

For people already enrolled independently in various affiliate programs/sites, again, going to be better to use your own link for the full commission instead of giving it to Benable and then only getting a % of that from them. For me, I am not in any such programs, so anything I might decide to post that is not Zazzle, I would use the AA link as then I would get whatever % from Benable. In this sense (cents? LOL) Benable is a very cool platform as you can potentially earn affiliate money, small as it might be, without having to jump through the hoops of enrolling to be an affiliate for this that or the other site.

Re: Benable Tips and Tricks and Questions

PenguinPower — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 21:45:48 GMT

You have to watch - and look at the rules…. For most of the companies that participate it looks like it’s enough to just leave the auto-affiliate link on, but at least Amazon requires an extra step- you have to set yourself up as an Amazon affiliate too if you want to be eligible for anything from them. There’s a link directly from Benable to do it. If the company isn’t on their participant list auto affiliate is greyed out on your post.