I have been, or can be if you click on a link and make a purchase, compensated via a cash payment, gift, or something else of value for writing this post. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.
I received a call from Mozy’s affiliate manager that they will be shutting down the Mozy affiliate program. This seems to be in direct opposition of what everyone else is doing (starting or promoting their programs) and a big advantage to the other cloud backup programs in the industry.
This is kind of a big deal to me, as I started my path as a fulltime affiliate with the Mozy affiliate program back in 2008. In fact, it was August 28, 2008 that I earned my first commission from them (and have gone on to generate over $500,000 in commissions since then; I even went to visit Mozy back in 2010). My site, Cloud Backup Reviews, was a product of Jeremy Palmer‘s “Black Ink Project ” (and has been extremely neglected the past couple years). It opened me up to lots of opportunities for which I’m extremely grateful.
Back in 2008, 2009 and even 2010 online backup was huge, but the land rush is over and volume is fading. Mozy shutting down their affiliate program is just another hurdle thrown at this affiliate niche.
Carbonite, despite providing a service and never needing to charge sales tax, kicked out New York State affiliates (including myself) a couple years ago. CrashPlan only recently relaunched their program on ShareASale after the GAN program shut down last year.
Every time a revenue source is taken away, affiliates must get creative and figure out how to monetize the traffic they have. I’ve backfilled with paid placements (since gone) and AdSense along with internal “rewards” programs (which gave me quite the Amazon.com gift card balance in 2012 / 2013).
We online cloud backup affiliates have also seen a Google penalty for domains which were named “online backup,” causing us to all switch to “cloud backup” names back in 2012. These hurdles caused me to start a Google+ Community just for cloud backup affiliates.
Since it’s shutting down, I’d like to share one of my favorite stories about the Mozy affiliate program:
Thanks to James for the years of service, and Nate prior to him. Guess I’ll focus on CrashPlan’s affiliate program for now, while I decide what I’m going to do with this site.
Comments
Vinny O'Hare
It does suck when an affiliate program you do well with shuts down. Luckily you are a very smart affiliate and will adapt.
Mike
Did they say why?
Eric Nagel
From their email, “Mozy has become more enterprise focused.”
Which I find amusing, as most of my referrals these days have been for business backup, and not the home user.
Jeremy Palmer
It’s too bad they’re shutting it down. It makes you wonder if they feel like they’ve exhausted the channel, or just don’t want any new customers? At least you’re in a niche with plenty of other options. It’s much worse when you’re working in a category with no good back ups.
Eric Nagel
“with no good back ups”
Pun intended? 🙂
Affiliman
have you receive your last commission before the program closed from them?
Eric Nagel
No, not yet – thanks for the reminder. Email sent
Jhonny
Any news about the last commission payout?
Eric Nagel
I received my last commission wire from them last week