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.