Clickbank has announced their recurring billing system.

Thousands of internet marketers are dancing in the streets…

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Well, at least the death of their online affiliate program…

Those of you playing around with the Wal-Mart affiliate program, take heed:

Until today, Wal-mart’s affiliate program was one of the best affiliate programs around - they paid 6% on electronics (vs Amazon’s 4%), 8% on home, optical, photo, sports, toys and books (you have to have a ton of volume each month to get 8% from Amazon), 12% on apparel, jewelry and gifts, and 5% on everything else.

In fact, I had been planning a blog post in the next few days urging those of you currently using Amazon to split-test in Wal-mart links as well.

Unfortunately, I received an email from Wal-mart’s affiliate program manager tonight, informing me that their affiliate program was about to change.

The new Wal-mart affiliate program pays a pathetic 1% on electronics, video games, books, music, movies, and photo, and a meager 4% on everything else.

So, yesterday I was making $28.17 for each Garmin Nuvi 360 I sold through Wal-mart. Tomorrow, I’ll be making $4.61. A quick look at my stats shows me that I spend about $12.00 in PPC for each one of those I sell, so I guess I’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow, updating my Wal-mart affiliate links to Amazon affiliate links… at 4% I’ll make $17.54 on them.

Still a profit, although not as nice…

So, what’s the moral of the story? Always have a plan B. Remember, when you’re in the affiliate marketing game, your income is controlled by other entities. One stroke of the pen could devastate your income, so always have a backup plan, and pay attention for changes such as this.

I’d hate to guess how many affiliates are going to lose their shirts because they didn’t pay attention to Wal-mart’s email, and continue spending $12.00 to make $4.61.

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I’ve received this comment from Candice at CI Host:

C I Host attempts to collect overdue accounts and unpaid balances from current and cancelled customers. After exhausting all in-house collection resources, C I Host has retained a third-party collection firm, Fidelity Management. If you receive correspondence from Fidelity and you feel that this is in error, please first contact Fidelity Management at (818) 991-4220, P.O. Box 6024, Agoura Hills, CA 91376. After you have contacted Fidelity, and the issue has not been resolved to your satisfaction, you may contact C I Host at billing@cihost.com.

C I Host

Thanks for commenting, Candice. However, it would be helpful if you would read the substance of the complaints, instead of using a generic response in all cases.

You see, what everyone is complaining about is that you guys had our phone numbers, credit card numbers, addresses, and all other required information for 4, 5, or even (in my case) 6 YEARS, and your company never attempted to collect on any alleged debts.

Now, years later, your company sells its “bad debt” to Fidelity for probably 10 cents on the dollar, and Fidelity gets to try and bully your former customers.

You say that “After exhausting all in-house collection resources…” you’ve retained the services of Fidelity. Sorry, sweetie - everyone who’s pissed off at CI Host never heard ANYTHING from ya’ll until this fiasco.

I appreciate that your company is trying to do damage control after an insanely terrible business decision, but this just isn’t going to cut it.

Believe me, the readers of my blog and I will be thorns in Fidelity’s side, leveraging the full protections provided by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. It’s unfortunate that your company decided to do this to its former customers, because you’re the ones taking the heat for this fiasco.

I welcome any further comments from both Fidelity and CI Host on this issue - just try to avoid boilerplate responses, ‘k?

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Keith Baxter and I have been getting together once a month at Bayou City Seafood and Pasta to enjoy some excellent gumbo, and discuss internet marketing strategies.

We enjoy sharing our latest test results and talking about the state of our industry… and the television show Lost.

Well, on Friday I drove up to Kingwood and we hung out at his house all day, talking marketing and thinking up new products. Our original intent was to create an audio product together, but it exploded into so much more…

When you’re able to get together regularly with someone you know and trust who’s also into internet marketing, it’s like magic. You’re able to play off of each other, expand on each other’s ideas, and over the course of a few hours, you end up with so many new profitable ideas that you’re brain is about to explode.

Let me put it like this - what we came up with will most likely put hundreds of thousands of dollars in our pockets over the next year, and lots more after that. Just one little idea and a like-minded person can work wonders in a short amount of time.

I’m sure you hang out at a bunch of internet marketing and business forums - why not check to see if anyone else there lives near you? Get together for some coffee, or lunch, and talk shop. It’s fun, and can yield some impressive results.

And if you’re in the Houston area, leave me a comment or drop me an email - maybe we can get together and pick each others’ brains

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I’ve got a few more days before I either need to pay Fidelity Credit Management, or dispute the debt. In the meantime, I’ve learned that the State of Texas has a 4 year Statute of Limitations on most types of debt.

Let’s see… I allegedly became indebted in September 2001… it’s now June 2007… I think that’s more than 4 years.

I’ve written a very professional letter disputing the debt and requesting proof that I’m liable for the debt, proof that they are entitled to charge interest, and proof that the debt has not exceeded the State of Texas’ statute of limitations…

Let’s see what their response is…

For anyone else in this situation, check out http://www.fair-debt-collection.com/SOL-by-State.html for some info on statutes of limitations for debt.

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