The ups and downs of affiliate marketing

This is just me popping on the blog during the coronavirus pandemic to do a little venting about the drop in affiliate rates by a giant in the industry this week. I’m not going to name names, but I think it’s named after a big river in South America.

I’ve been doing affiliate marketing on my blog here for years, and with this particular organization practically from the beginning. I sold a couple thousand dollars worth of merchandise last year, although my take of that was in the low hundreds. And that’s fine, I guess. I’ll probably still link to them because something is better than nothing and because I enjoy curating items and sharing them with my readers. But gee whiz, in the middle of a pandemic when their particular sales are soaring, what’s the point of cutting out loyal affiliates – uh, except for higher profits.

This isn’t the first time this has happened to me either. I had a Catholic online school (the one with the pre-recorded classes that you pay one fee and have access to all the courses) that I was very successful with until they ditched their program and failed to pay me the $400 I had earned in affiliate referrals. My post promoting their organization was very popular with thousands of hits a year until I finally took it down. Then there was another homeschool writing program that I used and endorsed for years. I guess they felt that paying affiliates wasn’t worth it anymore. We had gotten the word out, so what was the point of paying us?

In fact, I guess I could be a barometer for how successful a particular business might be because when I start making some bank with a certain organization, they usually start phasing affiliates out.

All of this is to say, the big drop in affiliate pay for the big organization that is working hard to get your essentials to the door during this pandemic, is coming in five days, April 21. According to my affiliate agreement, I’m not supposed to tell you to shop with them through my links in the sidebar or in posts, so I won’t. I wouldn’t want them to drop me from the program and lose my $50 bucks a year.