If you’re posting on social media, you can’t avoid the companies pitching you brand ambassador deals. Jewelry, sunglasses and pet accessories are just a few of the offers that show up in my inbox on a daily basis. Unfortunately, many of them are scams to trick you into purchasing their products and promoting their scam for free.

So, how do you recognize a real ambassador deal? Read on to find out.

What is a Brand Ambassador?

A brand ambassador is someone who represents a company and promotes them in exchange for some form of compensation like free products or money. Sometimes the money is an upfront payment, but often it’s an affiliate deal.

An affiliate deal is where you get a special promo code or link and make a percentage of the sale when someone uses your promo code.

For example, Rozie June recently contacted me with an offer to send free accessories and a promo code for my audience to save 10%, and I get 10% of the sales generated from using that code.

*As of 2025, Rozie June is no longer in business online.

Unfortunately, affiliate marketing often fails to generate income for the brand ambassador because many of these sites offer the same deal or better on their website. Usually, it’s a pop-up with a discount for joining their newsletter. So, if a person forgets your code or finds a better one, you aren’t making anything off that sale.

If someone does happen to use your code, you usually end up with a few dollars at most. Then most companies have a minimum payout of anywhere from $20-$100. This is the reason I don’t do a lot of affiliate marketing offers unless there’s a high-ticket item and a large commission involved. I have a lot of accounts just sitting there with a couple dollars I’ll probably never see.

So Why Be a Brand Ambassador?

After reading that, you may wonder why bother being a brand ambassador at all!

The answer is: Because you honestly like the company and enjoy the perks.

The perks come in the form of free or heavily discounted products, so it’s beneficial to you if it is something you’d be purchasing anyway. You might as well get a deal on it!

Example of different ambassador deals:

Rozie June sends quarterly gift boxes to ambassadors, so they have new products to promote, along with a 10% discount code and 10% commission. I signed up with them because I like to support small businesses and thought they were a good example of a real jewelry brand ambassador program.

Simply Earth essential oils recipe box sends a monthly free box, along with a code for a $40 gift card and commission from sales. Unfortunately, I’ve never sold one box after four months, but I love getting the box so it’s worth it to me to keep trying.

Curst Kosmetics has their Curst Mavens ambassador program, where you get 30% off your own purchases and a 10% discount code to share, and commission from sales. I’ve never sold one thing from Curst, and I usually don’t bother sharing my 10% off code because as soon as you go to their website there’s a pop-up offering a bigger 15% discount! They are crushing their own affiliate program.

Only join programs like the one from Curst if you really love their product and can benefit from the discount yourself. Curst was the first makeup company to reach out to me when I first started sharing makeup videos. They are a small business and make a good product, so I continue to support and tag them, I just don’t try and hustle sales because there’s no point.

How to Spot a Fake Ambassador Offer

So now that you know what a real offer is, how do you spot a fake one? There are some key similarities to most of them that make them easy to spot.

Urgency

We love you but this is urgent, there are only three spots left so sign up now! Why is it always three spots? I don’t know, but this is the offer I get all the time on Instagram. Whether it’s for jewelry or doggie bandanas, it’s always urgent that I need to sign up now. Most likely because that business is going to disappear or change names soon.

Over Inflated Prices and Shipping Fee

Check out their products. Most of the jewelry and sunglasses scams make their money by offering you 3-4 “free” items and then charge you an outrageous shipping fee. What really happens is you just paid for the jewelry and then some.

See the images below that show the jewelry offer at $12 on Alibaba, then for $92 on Luximina Jewels. But wow, I get it for free, right!? Nope, you’ll be charged about $37 for shipping a tiny pair of earrings.

At this point the company is not only going to make a profit off this “free” sale, but you may never even get your item. If you do get it, you will find out that the fancy jewelry is a cheap piece of junk.

You Can’t Find any Customer Photos

Check the main account and search their name in hashtags. Most of these companies promise to promote you to their audience and share your photos on their page. If these spots are so limited, why isn’t their page full of happy brand ambassador pics? And where are all the hashtagged and shared pics?

No Comments and Fake Likes

Take a close look at their account. Do they have 100k followers and barely any likes and comments? Then they purchased those followers. Do they have thousands of likes but no comments, or weird random comments? They purchased those likes.

Followers and likes are easy and cheap to buy. Comments are much more expensive and harder to make look real. Always check the comments and that is a big indicator of whether the company has really followers or not.

Bonafide, Luximina, Ghost Jewels, Carly Gems and More

The companies named above are just a few that have sent me similar offers in the past week. Please do your research before accepting any brand ambassador offer, and don’t end up paying over inflated prices for junk jewelry!

About the Author

Candy Keane is a digital content creator and long-time cosplayer, most well-known for being on the cover of the Star Wars documentary Jedi Junkies. After making costumes professionally for over a decade, she now writes about geek culture and mom life, and continues to cosplay for fun, while sharing her love of costumes on Instagram @SewGeekMama. Her first children’s book, I’m Going to My First Comic Convention, was published in 2020 and won a Story Monsters Approved award for Excellence in Literature.

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