What I Learned From Not Making the Shoemoney Extreme Payout Threshold

Shoemoney owes me $97.50!

Well, not really.  Back in mid 2009 during the height of the Flog (Fake Blog) craze for promoting get rich quick schemes, I was getting a nice spike in traffic by drafting off the massive affiliate media buys for the Google Income Kits.  I would target organic search traffic warning people how the “free trial” isn’t quite so free.  I got tons of subscribers and readers.  Many of then asked for advice on beginner sites for learning to earn online.

I’ve been reading Shoemoney.com since I jumped into the Affiliate Marketing bandwagon back in late 2008.  I ran into the famous $132,997 check on a forum and quickly devoured all the information on Shoemoney.com like a starving dog.  I learned some great tips and tricks that I put into practice and increased my earnings.

When I found the  Shoemoney Extreme free online course, I jumped on it to help my readers looking for a beginner course.  The affiliate payout was pretty low, at only $0.25 per referral, but it wasn’t about the money.  My readers were looking for advice and here was a free course from a reputable source showing them exactly how to get started.   Don’t forget rule #1:  Provide your readers compelling content and your traffic will increase.

So I added Shoemoney Extreme affiliate links at the end of two of my posts and started getting ~10 referrals a day.  In a few months I could get a check from Shoemoney, and take a spoof picture like his Google check.

But alas, it was not to be.  I had hit a whopping $97.50 in earnings when they pulled the plug on the payout per referral and changed to a 50% payout for the Shoemoney Tools offering which comes after the free course.  I never hit the $100 threshold and was out of luck on pay per referral.  I wasn’t upset, in business you win some and you lose some and this was small potatoes.

I always hoped Shoemoney would appear wielding a giant check for me. No, I didn't bother to Photoshop in a shadow for the check either.

What I Learned From the Whole Thing

1. You can never go wrong giving your readers compelling content from other sources, even if you don’t make a dime on it.  Many of the referrals I tracked came from logged in visitors who had commented, subscribed and returned time and again to this site.
2. Always have many sources of income in your business.  Any one stream can dry up at a moments notice.  Losing one or two sources shouldn’t put you out of business.
3. Single company affiliate programs can put harsher terms on their programs than with a larger network.
4. Get over it, move on.  Business is business.   Don’t roll over though.  If someone screws you out of a large affiliate payout, be ready to retain lawyers.