Full disclosure: I often recommend products or services I particularly enjoy using. Sometimes the company selling the items or services will offer a small incentive for recommendations. This is called affiliate marketing. It has become a common form of advertising. Word of mouth is much more effective for a business than traditional advertising. The company benefits by getting its products to those who want them. The consumer benefits by being reasonably sure about the item or service they are purchasing. I have attached affiliate links to any products or services that offer such affiliate incentives, the most common being Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. You can rest assured that have personal experience with every product I recommend.
How affiliate marketing works: Companies create their unique guidelines for how they track and reward their affiliates. However, there are some common features. Basically a buyer goes to the recommended site via an affiliate link. (An affiliate link is a unique code the affiliate (the person recommending the product) embeds in the link.) If that visitor buys something that day, the affiliate gets a payment of a small percentage of the purchase price. There is no extra charge to the buyer. The company selling the product considers this an advertising fee. Again, to be clear, the buyer does not pay any part of the affiliate’s payment.
How Amazon affiliate marketing works: Amazon’s policy is basically the same, with some additions. If a visitor goes to Amazon’s site via an affiliate link, anything they buy during that session will be counted towards the affiliate’s account. If they put something into their cart, but do not buy it that session, it may still be counted toward the affiliate’s account. (There is a time limit on that.)
See a list of my recommendations here. Thank you for using my affiliate links to do your Amazon shopping!
Stephanie