21st Century Affiliate Marketing

What next?

The NYAffiliateVoice blog has an article about several companies terminating affiliates in Hawaii and Rhode Island.

Termination of Hawaii Affiliates Continue

I wonder how many hundreds of affiliate marketing businesses - both full-time and part-time - are being destroyed by these tax law changes.

(Sigh.)

Act on your dream!

JD

Yep. You read that right. Amazon.com has terminated the account for all of their affiliates who live in North Carolina.

Previously, they said they would do this if the NC General Assembly passed the tax law that is under consideration.

Now, however, even though the law has not been passed, Amazon terminated all their NC affiliates on the anticipation that it may be passed.

That’s a huge difference!

Here’s the email I received from Amazon.com this morning:

We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to notify you that your Associates account has been closed as of June 26, 2009. This is a direct result of the unconstitutional tax collection scheme expected to be passed any day now by the North Carolina state legislature (the General Assembly) and signed by the governor. As a result, we will no longer pay any referral fees for customers referred to Amazon.com or Endless.com after June 26. We were forced to take this unfortunate action in anticipation of actual enactment because of uncertainties surrounding the legislation’s effective date.

Please be assured that all qualifying referral fees earned prior to June 26, 2009 will be processed and paid in full in accordance with our regular referral fee schedule. Based on your account closure date of June 26, 2009, any final payments will be paid by September 1, 2009.

In the event that North Carolina repeals this tax collection scheme, we would certainly be happy to re-open our Associates program to North Carolina residents.

The North Carolina General Assembly’s website is http://www.ncleg.net/, and additional information may be obtained from the Performance Marketing Alliance at http://www.performancemarketingalliance.com/.

We have enjoyed working with you and other North Carolina-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program, and wish you all the best in your future.

Best Regards,

The Amazon Associates Team

Now, I’m pissed off

Before, when I first heard that this might happen, I was mainly disappointed in the NC General Assembly for considering passing a tax law that redefined how companies were considered to have a presence in the state.

North Carolina is in the midst of a budgetary crisis, and they’re looking for ways to increase their revenue. This is understandable. Since last September, or so, we’ve all been scrambling to cut expenses and increase revenue until we can weather this economic crisis.

I don’t think most of the legislators have a clue about how this proposed tax law may affect many of us who have been earning our living from affiliate marketing, and I’m not sure how many of them care. After all, when you compare all the businesses in the state, affiliate marketing businesses are at the very small end of the small potatoes bin.

The fact that some of us have been earning all our income from affiliate marketing for years doesn’t seem all that important to them, from what I’ve been able to learn.

Let me say, once again, that I’m no expert when it comes to legislation and tax laws, but neither are our elected representatives - and they’re the ones who are making these laws.

But, I’m not pissed off at them.

No.

I’m pissed off at Amazon.com and their entire Amazon Associates Team.

This time, they went too far.

I know they have the right to terminate any affiliate they want, but to terminate all affiliates in an entire state with no changes to the laws is just wrong.

They didn’t do it in response to new tax laws that would affect their business; they did it in anticipation that the law may be passed.

That’s a huge difference, and I find it to be unconscionable.

Then they try to make nice with us:

In the event that North Carolina repeals this tax collection scheme, we would certainly be happy to re-open our Associates program to North Carolina residents.

Well, Amazon, in the first place, the law has not been passed, nor has it gone into effect.

In the second place, no thank you.

I have been an Amazon.com affiliate since shortly after it was first introduced. Before any of us knew what we were doing, I created my Hyperdimensional Book Nook on my first domain at need-sleep.com.

(I let that domain lapse many years ago and I am not associated in any way with the current version of that domain.)

On a whim, I searched the Way Back Machine and actually found a copy of the site from January, 1997 showing pages I last updated in the fall of 1996. That means that I’ve been marketing for Amazon.com for almost 13 years.

(If you’re interested, here’s a glimpse of my very first website and you can see the obvious influences of Star Trek and A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Need-Sleep.com from January, 1997 and my HyperDimensional BookNook at the Edge of the Universe.)

It was mostly a learning exercise, but it was my first foray into affiliate marketing - and I earned a little money from it. Later, I built some real websites where I promoted a variety of products through Amazon.com.

Now, I have thousands of pages with links to Amazon.com and I have to find and remove them - as many as I can - when I’m very busy doing something more important to me.

Yes, I’ll remove them, and I’ll never put them back. I’m not sending any more visitors to Amazon.com, nor will I ever recommend them, again.

It’s over Amazon. No matter what happens in the future, don’t bother inviting me back to your party.

Act on your dream!

JD

PS. I should have mentioned that it will take weeks to find and delete all those links to Amazon, assuming I’m able to do so. In the meantime, there’s no telling how many visitors will go and purchase something and I won’t earn a penny from it.

This is another example of the affiliate taking all the risk and incurring all the expense of advertising and hoping we’ll earn something in the future.

Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t.

I have some friends who live in New York state and have had their affiliate marketing business disrupted when some merchants severed their relationship following a new law that was passed.

I don’t know all the details since I live in North Carolina, but I’m concerned that what one state does, others may copy.

If you’re an affiliate who lives in New York, you should go read what Linda Buquet has on her 5 Star Affiliate Programs blog.

Specifically, you should start with the two following posts.

The New York Tax Solution Complete with Documentation

New York Tax Law Session at Affiliate Summit East

Perhaps this will prove useful for my friends and readers who live in New York.

Act on your dream!

JD

• Do you earn money - regularly - from an affiliate program?
• Would you recommend it to your closest friends and family?
• Is it fair?

I regularly earn good commission checks from several top affiliate programs and I want to tell you about them.

I created a new page on this blog, Top Affiliate Programs, and I’ll be telling you about the dozen or so affiliate programs I value highly and enjoy promoting.

Now, before you go look at them, you have to remember my niche is earning money while working at home with your own affiliate marketing business.

So, if you’re looking for tools and services to help you in your affiliate marketing, I may have something of value to recommend to you.

Perhaps your niche is something totally different. In that case, my recommendations may not be very helpful.

Affiliate marketing is a wide niche with thousands of merchants and service providers.

But, let’s give this a try, anyway.

What is your top affiliate program?

Please feel free to comment on this post and tell us about your marketing niche, the merchant or service you promote, and why.

Feel free to link back to your own website or blog, but don’t post any affiliate links. Any comments that contain affiliate links will be deleted. Promote your business offerings on your own site, not mine.

But, again, feel free to link back to your site or blog to a page that has more about your top ranked affiliate program.

I think that’s fair. Do you?

Without a doubt, my top affiliate program is SiteSell’s 5 Pillar Affiliates and the primary service is Site Build It!

You can learn more about it on my Top Affiliate Programs page on this site.

So, what’s your opinion?

What’s your top affiliate program. Please limit your comments to one program.

Act on your dream!

JD

I earn, you earn, WeAllEarn.com ™.

(Update August 2009: Affiliate link removed, as I no longer promote SFI Marketing Group.)

The EyeEarn co-op is active and already producing new affiliates. So far, I’ve had 9 new sign-ups through EyeEarn.

You can tell they come through EyeEarn by selecting the Key Codes format of your genealogy report. They will have a code of 1100 (which was also the code of the discontinued Eagle Co-Op).

I received my start up kit a couple of days ago and everything in it looks first class.

Now, I need to put the sticker on my car and upload a photo when the photo uploading link goes active today, or soon.

To remain a member of EyeEarn, we’ll need to requalify during the last five days of each month, so I just put a new recurring event in my iCal program to remind me.

I have a feeling EyeEarn will be a great recruiting tool for SFI.

After brainstorming for a bit, I registered WeAllEarn.com and redirect it to my affiliate link for EyeEarn. It will make it easier for advertising both online and offline.

Now, let’s promote EyeEarn and make it very successful.

I earn, you earn, WeAllEarn.com ™.

Act on your dream!

JD