Running Influencer Marketing With No Website of Your Own: Tracking for Marketplace-Only Sellers

Short answer

If you sell exclusively through a marketplace — Etsy, eBay, Amazon or a similar platform — with no website of your own, there is no domain you can place a tracking cookie or pixel on. The mechanism ordinary influencer tracking depends on simply assumes something you don't have. Three things could theoretically solve this: the marketplace's own native tracking tool (in practice this exists in only one confirmed place, and even there is rarely scoped to your specific shop), a unique discount code created inside your own seller account, and a UTM-tagged link to your listing. In practice, the discount code is the only one of the three that reliably shows whether the specific creator you're working with drove sales to your specific shop.

Why ordinary influencer tracking assumes something you don't have

As covered in how influencer tracking actually works, an ordinary tracking link depends on a click being briefly routed through the tracking system's own server before landing on your website — that's where the cookie is set or the click ID carried forward, and it's why a later sale can be matched back to the right creator. That entire mechanism assumes there's a page you control for the click to land on.

A listing page on Etsy, eBay or Amazon belongs to the marketplace's own domain — not yours. You cannot place a tracking script on a page you don't run, and you have no order confirmation of your own to match a click ID against, because the marketplace runs the entire checkout itself. That's the structural difference this article is about — not a minor technical detail, but a genuinely different starting position from the one the rest of the Academy's tracking articles assume.

The three things that could theoretically work

1. The marketplace's own native tracking tool — rare, and rarely scoped to your shop specifically

Of the marketplaces this Academy has already researched, only one offers a measurement tool scoped specifically to an individual seller's own shop: Amazon Attribution, which requires Brand Registry with brand representative status, a vendor account, or agency access. See Amazon Attribution for the full mechanism — it isn't repeated here.

Etsy and eBay each run their own creator/affiliate program — Etsy's Creator Collective and the eBay Partner Network respectively — but both are, as those articles already establish, marketplace-wide: an approved creator earns commission on sales to any shop on the platform, not specifically yours. That means even where a native program exists, it usually doesn't answer the question you're actually asking: did this specific creator drive sales to my specific shop? That's the central point of this article — a marketplace-wide affiliate program solves a different problem than shop-specific attribution, however well it otherwise works for the creator.

2. A unique discount code created inside your own seller account — the one tool that's actually yours

Because the code lives inside your own seller account and can only be redeemed against your own listings, it's structurally different from a marketplace-wide program: it's automatically scoped to your shop specifically, regardless of whether the marketplace offers any native tracking tool at all. All three major marketplaces let you create a code directly in your own seller dashboard:

• Etsy: Shop Manager → Marketing → Sales and Discounts → "Create a promo code", per Etsy's own help centre — the discount can be set between 5% and 75% off, on selected or all active listings.
• eBay: Seller Hub → Marketing → Discounts Manager → Coupons, per eBay's own help centre. Important caveat: per the same source, Discounts Manager is limited to business sellers with an eBay Shop subscription — it isn't automatically available to every ordinary eBay account.
• Amazon: Seller Central → Advertising → Manage Promotions, where you can create a percentage-off or buy-one-get-one promotion. Amazon's own Social Media Promo Codes — built specifically for influencer/creator sharing — additionally require Brand Registry, per several independent sources, and are, as already covered, only confirmed available in the US marketplace.

Technically, this is the same discount-code mechanism this Academy already covers generally in discount codes vs tracking links — but here it solves a different problem than simply supplementing a tracking link: it's the only mechanism that works at all when no tracking link can be set up in the first place.

3. UTM-tagged links to your listing — a weak, shop-level-only signal

Some marketplaces let you add UTM parameters to the link you share externally, and group that traffic in your own dashboard. Etsy Stats' "Direct & Other Traffic" bucket is the clearest example, per several independent sources — Etsy's own help pages blocked direct fetch during research for this article, the same limitation already documented in the Etsy Creator Collective article.

Even where it exists, this is a materially weaker signal than a discount code or a native tracking tool: it shows visits grouped by traffic source at the shop level — not whether a specific purchase can be attributed to a specific creator. There's no general mechanism tying a UTM parameter to an individual completed sale across marketplaces, unless the platform itself has a native attribution tool like Amazon's. Treat UTM tagging as a directional, supplementary layer — never as your only basis for deciding whether a creator actually drove sales.

Comparison: what you can actually see, marketplace by marketplace

Decision framework

IF you sell on Amazon and already have Brand Registry → use Amazon Attribution for the full funnel (clicks, add-to-cart, purchases), and optionally add a discount code if you also want to catch buyers who never click the tagged link.

IF you sell on Etsy or eBay and run no separate website → a unique discount code per creator, created inside your own seller account, is your primary and usually only reliable tool — don't wait for the marketplace's own creator program to solve this for you, because it isn't built to.

IF your marketplace doesn't offer discount codes in the seller dashboard at all → you genuinely have no reliable tracking mechanism; see the payment-model section below for what that means for how you should structure the creator deal instead.

IF you sell both through your own website and through a marketplace → use the full tracking toolkit (tracking link, discount code) on the website, and reserve this article's discount-code method specifically for the portion of sales that happen inside the marketplace.

What this means for how you pay the creator

Without a reliable per-creator attribution mechanism, a pure commission deal becomes hard to settle fairly — you can't pay for sales you can't prove the creator actually drove. If a discount code is the only mechanism you have, that's structurally the same situation already described in discount codes vs tracking links's FAQ on a purely code-based affiliate setup: the code becomes the entire mechanism, and you accept the same leakage risk and the same blind spots that apply to discount codes generally — with no tracking link as a backup.

In practice, that means a fixed fee or a hybrid model (a fixed base fee plus a discount-code-based bonus) is often more robust than a pure commission deal when you sell exclusively through a marketplace with no native attribution tool. See when is an upfront influencer fee worth paying for the broader trade-off between a fixed fee and commission.

Worked example

The figures below are hypothetical and for illustration only — not data from any of the marketplaces named, and not a real Make Influence customer case.

Assume a Danish brand sells handmade jewellery exclusively on Etsy, and agrees with a creator that she'll get a unique discount code, SANNE15 (15% off), as her only tracking mechanism, because Etsy has no shop-scoped attribution tool. Over a month, the code is used on 40 orders averaging DKK 220 each:

• Tracked revenue = 40 × DKK 220 = DKK 8,800
• Discount given to customers = DKK 8,800 × 15% = DKK 1,320
• Agreed commission to the creator, 10% of tracked revenue = DKK 8,800 × 10% = DKK 880
• The brand's total cost for this channel = DKK 1,320 (discount) + DKK 880 (commission) = DKK 2,200

That figure only covers the 40 orders where the customer actually used the code. Any customer who saw the content, remembered the brand, but forgot to enter the code at checkout is invisible in this calculation — exactly the kind of invisible sale that would be partly visible if a tracking link also existed as a fallback.

Common mistakes

• Assuming a marketplace-wide creator program (Etsy Creator Collective, eBay Partner Network) solves shop-specific attribution. It doesn't — it shows whether a creator drove sales to some shop on the platform, not specifically yours.
• Trying to build an ordinary tracking link to a marketplace listing. Without a native attribution tool (only Amazon has one), there's no domain you control for the click to land on and be tracked from.
• Promising a creator commission before confirming the marketplace even offers discount codes in the seller dashboard. Confirm it before the deal is agreed — not after the campaign has run.
• Using one shared discount code across several creators at once. Exactly the same problem as on an ordinary website — a shared code makes it impossible to tell who actually drove any individual sale.
• Assuming eBay's Discounts Manager is available by default. Per eBay's own help centre, the feature requires a Shop subscription as a business seller — check that before promising a creator a code.

Make Influence's perspective

Make Influence doesn't run any of the marketplaces or seller dashboards described in this article, and has no visibility into their internal systems beyond what's publicly documented. Our experience with brands that sell both through their own website and through a marketplace is that the structural absence of an owned domain often catches out brands used to treating a tracking link as the default tool — the discount code shifts from being a supplement to being the entire foundation. We recommend confirming the marketplace's actual discount-code capability before a campaign is planned, rather than assuming it exists.

FAQ

Does this apply if I have my own website and also sell on a marketplace?

Only to the portion of sales that happen inside the marketplace. If you have your own website, the ordinary tracking toolkit (tracking link, discount code, cookie) applies in full there — see how influencer tracking actually works.

Can I use a tracking link at all if I only sell on a marketplace?

Only if the marketplace itself offers a native attribution tool. In the research behind this article, Amazon Attribution is the only confirmed example — see that article for the requirements.

Is a marketplace-wide affiliate program the same as being able to track my creator's sales?

No, and that's this article's central point. A program like Etsy's Creator Collective or the eBay Partner Network credits a creator for sales to any shop on the platform — it doesn't tell you whether the creator specifically drove sales to your shop.

Does the discount code need to carry a real discount?

Not necessarily — the same principle already covered generally in discount codes vs tracking links's FAQ: some brands use a code with a 0% discount purely as a tracking mechanism. Check whether the marketplace's own code tool allows a 0% discount before promising it, though.

What about TikTok Shop — is that the same problem?

No, that's a different situation. TikTok Shop sales happen inside the app itself, with its own built-in affiliate dashboard tied more closely to the individual seller's own catalogue than Etsy's or eBay's marketplace-wide programs — but that sits outside this article's focus on general marketplace-only sellers with no native creator tool at all.

What if the marketplace doesn't offer discount codes at all?

Then you genuinely have no reliable per-creator attribution mechanism available. In that situation, a fixed fee is more robust than a commission deal you can't settle accurately — see the payment-model section above.