Pitfalls of Affiliate Marketing

I'd switch them to a big ol "This Vendor Has Announced That They NO LONGER Want Your Business" page. Phrased carefully to only state the indisputable facts: They discontinued taking orders from affiliates and therefore, since you (the reader) are the customer of an affiliate, they no longer want your business.

And then track clicks / traffic.

And then email the vendor a summary each month of how many times your "eff you, you effin customer" message was displayed on their behalf, and how much money they could have made but didn't.

And then track down (whois) everyone else with affiliate links to the same program, email them, and offer them the free use of your landing page and inclusion in your monthly report to the vendor.

Alexa: Fair enough.

Just to elaborate on my point of view:

If, hypothetically, I already spend *enough* time and energy making money, such that I make enough money and making money need not be my sole driver in life... then I believe that my hard earned surplus time and energy should be directed towards other things that I either enjoy, or that I personally believe in.

In this case, one could reasonably argue that the vendor has "stolen" the efforts of the affiliates. The vendor used the time and effort of affiliates to build a market, then, when the vendor decided it no longer needed them, it cut them off. Is it a legal theft? Nope. The contracts surely allowed them to do it.

Was ethically eft up? *IF* the circumstances are as described, then absolutely.

Do I care? Well serving up a nice big dish of eff you to the vendor in question might serve many noble purposes, and not just be petty vengeance:

First, it might get the attention of the vendor, and cause them to rethink their decision... thus restoring the value of the investment made in the affiliate marketing, not just for "me", but potentially for lots of other affiliates too.

Second, it might get picked up by the tech bloggers and turn into a viral David v. Goliath internet meme.... in which case it could serve as an example to OTHER vendors about what not to do.

All of those things are _potentially_ worthwhile ways to spend one's time.... provided the money is already taken care of and provided one's personal values and beliefs are that such acts serve a noble and necessary civic purpose.

After all, one could argue that if a citizen doesn't take a stand when a thief steals from someone else, then he has no right to complain when one steals from him.

One thing you can do in this situation is to be redirecting to your affiliate links from a domain you own using a simple redirect code/script.

Then, if you links spread over lots of sites it's just one place you need to change the links.

Now, that's not always going to work in every situation if there's only one affiliate program that's relevant to the content but it can save you a lot time in other situations.

I've had merchants close their affiliate program (I'm sure many of us have). Moreover, products are discontinued as well. It's part of the deal.

For every lost opportunity as an affiliate, there are tons of other opportunities. When an affiliate program closes, switch to a competitor's product. When a product model is discontinued, say so and add something such as, "sorry, but this product is discontinued; however, check out the replacement/updated model here."

Yes, it's never fun having to go back and tweak work, but it's par for the course. Think of all the benefits of being an affiliate - no refunds, customer service, tech support, inventory, shipping, etc. It's one of the best hassle-free business models going.

That's a smart thing you were doing by tracking your affiliate links……I bet you're grateful now! Stuff like this, unfortunately, DOES happen when you're in affiliate marketing long enough, it's just part of the game. As you say, just change the links and move on making money. As long as the ROI on your time is still positive, then you haven't really lost anything in my opinion. Plus, who knows (I certainly don't), maybe promoting Amazon Start Trek stuff will do better anyways.