Is Zazzle taking our referrals by overriding our cookies

[OakAndPine]

I have been promoting other designer's products on Pinterest via pins and boards for years, but have not received a single cross referral sale till date. Am I just marketing another's product for free? Is it possible that in some way Zazzle is able to convert my referral sale and themselves become the third party? Am I wasting my time ? Am I being a fool by advertising and marketing for Zazzle and being cheated of all referrals, even though the customer may have come through my Pinterest link? How is it possible that all my marketing efforts never bring me a cross referral? I am confused on what to do. Any advice is appreciated.

[Mariholly]

If you haven’t read this post, you might find it interesting:

https://community.zazzle.com/t5/technical-issues/corrupted-quot-cookies-quot/m-p/197376

[OakAndPine]

What a lot of confusion going on. Feeling cheated! No response from Zazzle even after so many days!!

[OakAndPine]

Can you imagine the amount of money that Zazzle would have to pay out if all referrals links were working correctly? So instead, the plan is to half the designer's royalties and keep the majority of referral sales with them by attributing it as 3rd party. They are making so much more money now. Really sorry to speculate, but there is no clarity from Zazzle. No response and we  designers are loosing our hard earned money daily 😞

[Mariholly]

ALL my few sales in May, EVERY SINGLE ONE, is from third-party referrals!

[OakAndPine]

Mine are few and far between and all are 3rd party after April 1st, except for 2 sales

[Mariholly]

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but it feels like everything is about to blow up at any moment. Many designers or creators, or whatever they want to call us, are angry—really angry, in fact. You can even sense a bit of distrust when, at the beginning of the month, our royalty amounts took a while to show up. Not to mention all the unanswered comments and posts. I don't know...

[LMGildersleeve]

I think  you have to analyze and do what is best for your business / hobby and time spent. If you are not getting referrals via Pinterest there are two ways to look at this.

Firstly, are your promotion efforts worth changing up? Should you spend the time creating manual pins vs. the Share button on Z? Do you do the research of what is trending on Pinterest, or just pin willy nilly whatever floats your boat?

The second question you have to ask yourself, if you are not willing to put the extra time to up your Pinterest game, is it worth it to continue?

If you feel you've exhausted any extra efforts to promoting on Pinterest and it's not giving you $, it's up to YOU to decide whether to continue that avenue of promoting in the future. If it gives you anxiety to continue to do this kind of affiliate marketing you may just want the piece of mind and not doing it any longer.

There is no easy answer.

[OakAndPine]

Most of pins are manual pins. After April 1st was promoting more in the hopes of getting a few referral sales for myself, what with our royalties  halved, but nothing so far

[LMGildersleeve]

The one big lesson I have learned about pins are that the returns are slow in coming. Something pinned today may take months even years to generate money. Pinterest is a slow return on time investment. That's how it's always worked for me in any case.

The royalty question... that will be anyone's guess. 🙄

[Sea-Change]

I have wondered at time about the manual pins that I've created as well, some with videos. Some have had 100+ Saves, with 1,000+ clicks and 1K+ impressions. While I don't think Impressions have much meaning, I'm inferring that a Save suggests at least the potential for intent. For example, I would speculate/wish that 100+ saves per pin across 1000+ of my most active pins might result in a few more customers with actionable cookies buying products.

While customers have so many competing options for purchase, and cookies are complicated, I have hoped for more referrals than the handful I've earned over the past few years. What's weird is that some referrals have come in the same week, and they were much more frequent a few years ago. It's been enough each time to make me hope everything is functional again or pinning might be worth my time, but then it's radio silence for months afterward.

I don't know what is happening under the hood, beyond the potential for corrupted or competing cookies  (or maybe some A-B testing at times?}, but I will continue to evaluate if grinding away at promotion is worth it. I also realize these are not usual economic times, but I want to ensure I'm making the best time investment at all times.