This has caused some big time ripples as it is the latest in a string of moves by eBay that increasingly makes their affiliate program more and more hostile towards its own affiliates.

Along this line, HQ announced their new eBay policy today for lensmasters.

In a nutshell, no more adding your personal ebay links to squidoo lenses.

What does this mean for your options? I see a few:

Use Squidoo’s ebay modules – Easy, fast, and they have proven to convert over time. However, Squidoo keeps half the income (which is pretty fair imho).

Stop using eBay – Over the past few months I’ve begun transferring a lot of my sites and content away from using eBay as a prime revenue generation source. For such a large company, their policies have been remarkably inconsistent and prone to change.  When compared with the other affiliate behemoth, Amazon, I’m constantly surprised at how well Amazon executes its program and eBay flubs theirs. If the products you are reviewing or reccomending on your lens can’t be found on Amazon, I would strongly encourage you to take a look at some of the other networks like Commission Junction, Pepperjam, Linkshare, and the like. Often you can find great programs that promote very cool specialty items and give you a better commission on top!

All in all, look at this change as an opportunity to diversify your income streams, not as a death knell on your online efforts.

What thoughts do you folks have?

1. Every Month your lens earns money from Adsense and SquidOffers. This money is distributed on a three-tiered system to all of the lensmasters.
2. When you put a ‘money maker’ module on your lenses and someone buys something from it, you earn a commission. This is the basic concept of being an affiliate for a product you support. You promote the product, if it sells, you get a part of the proceeds.

However, what do you do when the modules aren’t enough?

Often times when I make a lens, I like to change the look and appearance as much as possible. Additionally, I create a lot of finance related lenses as a result of my blog The Grumpstump. There are virtually zero financial products to be found on eBay, Amazon, or the Superstore outside of books. While promoting books are good, when I discuss Stock Trading or Budgeting I like to recommend a product that I use.

This is where Affiliate Programs come in.

There are several affiliate programs out there – some are very good and some are very bad.

I personally use Commission Junction (Squidoo affiliate sales from modules all run through Commission Junction as well) and have had excellent results the past few months.

Many people use Clickbank. Clickbank’s products are mostly software tools and e-books. I have not used them but some Lensmasters swear by it.

Linkshare is a third network and is similar to Commission Junction (CJ) in type of products offered. It is a smaller network than CJ� but has a different mix of advertisers. I haven’t actively promoted Linkshare to date either.

If you take a look and don’t like any of them, you can always head over to the Digital Point Forums and see all the other ones out there.

What do you Do with these?

For now, just take a look around and sign up for an affiliate program that suits you. Personal Affiliates are an overall part of The Captain’s Strategy along with the affiliates offered through Squidoo. In the future when CJ or Commission Junction is referenced in regards to lens design, now you know that this means ‘affiliate program’.

-The Captain