Back Up Your Online Future!

by John Delavera

People appreciate life when they become ill. Users
appreciate computer data when their computer is infected
by a virus and they can't even reboot. Merchants appreciate
their products that really sell when people stop buying
them for mysterious reasons. All the above scenarios seem
logical and excusable; they're NOT.

If the purpose in life is to become wise, then you cannot
accept problems as inevitable situations that can't be
avoided. In most cases - with the exception of health
cases - a problem arises when a mistake has been made
repeatedly. If you keep eating meat and do not include
vegetables and fish in your diet, then chances are that
you'll have a health problem by the age of 50. If you do
not keep back ups of your data, chances are that you'll
cry when you lose everything in a computer crash or
infection. If you do not care about your customers or have
not established a mechanism for confronting a crisis in
your business, chances are your business will collapse and
you will vanish from the market when a crisis happens.
Since this newsletter isn't about health, I am going to
analyze the 3rd scenario further.

Online merchants will always remember September 2003.
Clickbank(R) decided to change their famous 'hop-links'
system and that decision generated an online havoc.
September 2003 will be memorable for many online merchants
who trusted ClickBank as their payment system for both
their orders and their affiliate program.

The change of the hop-links' system is not a light-hearted
decision. It affects the pocket of some 1000s of online
marketers.

It's like changing a currency. What would happen if someone
told you that the NEW currency in the US is the ..."Sollar"
and you'd forget the Dollar, and that all US dollars have
no value; burn them because you do not need them... Do you
understand me?

Online ClickBank merchants trusted that system and created
their online businesses, getting orders by using ClickBank
links and getting commissions by using ClickBank
'hop-links.' In September 2003, ClickBank said: Forget
your 'hop-links'; burn them because you don't need them.
That means:

- 1000s of links inside web pages, ebooks, and other places
would stop working.

- You'd forget all those years of work of creating your
affiliate marketing strategy based upon 'hop-links'; that
means forget the commissions...

- You'd update all the scripts and software that work with
'hop-links' on your website. For example, all scripts that
are used as affiliate programs (like EasyClickMate and
ClickBank Manager) must change. If you use these scripts,
you'd contact the creator of the scripts, get the new code,
update the code in your system, and inform your affiliates
about the changes...

- Who cares if your viral ebooks, that have been downloaded
by some 1000s of readers, now include useless old-style
'hop-links' that do not work... Disaster...

Online marketers reacted. Somehow, ClickBank understood
they made a mistake by making a wrong decision... And they
decided to keep the old style of 'hop-links,' while at the
same time, introducing a new style, this one:
http://AFFILIATE.hop.kount.com/VENDOR/

By the date of this article (September 27, 2003),
everything seems to be so temporal. You can be updated for
all of ClickBank's changes through these websites:

- Harvey Segal's http://clickbankguide.com
- ClickBank's site at http://www.clickbank.com/kount.html
- http://KountSucks.com
- And also through the online forums - Warriors' Forum
is my favorite one - http://turboreferer.com/r/warriors

So... what's the lesson here? If you are an online
merchant, you must not depend on 1 payment solution and
you must be able to activate an escape-plan whenever
disaster approaches you; chances are that there is always a
disaster coming in the future. Back up your future, then...

"How?" I heard you ask... I suggest you adopt the
following 2 solutions:

- Either get a merchant account. - Or use a shopping
basket system.

Both solutions will allow you to use ANY and MANY
alternative payment gateway/s and you will also be able to
run your affiliate program and pay your affiliates either
by checks, through PayPal.com, or through StormPay.com. By
using one of the 2 suggested solutions, you won't have to
depend on 1 third-party payment processor. That means
"good health" for your online life.

For getting a merchant account: Visit Authorize.Net, or
your local bank, and ask them how you can accept credit
card orders online - they'll tell you what to do.
Alternatively, you can also check this solution:
http://www.marketingtips.com/creditcards/t.x/26025

For running a shopping basket system that will allow you to
use alternative payment gateways: I personally recommend to
you Make Buying Easy at http://turboreferer.com/r/mbeasy as
the most affordable and reliable solution.

As for me, I think I am going to use both my merchant
account and a shopping cart system. I have to back up my
future or forget it...

Yours, John Delavera

p.s. Feel free to use my article and include your affiliate
links both inside the text and also in the Resource Box.

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Copyright(C)2003 by John Delavera
Developer of Viral Marketing Software and Ebooks
YOUR AFFILIATE LINK HERE
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You can become my affiliate here:
http://affiliatescenter.com