I’ve been watching Tweets come in this afternoon from a lot of mom bloggers and savings/deal bloggers promoting the download of various toolbars. When I check out their blogs, I notice that a lot of them have affiliate links on their sites.

I’m concerned that many affiliates do not even understand that the toolbars that they are promoting are essentially ensuring that they will no longer make any money off of the links in their blogs. Do you know which toolbars are responsible for overwriting affiliate cookies? Even if the toolbar seems like a great idea (i.e. you get cash back shopping or donations to charity), it doesn’t mean that the toolbar is not stealing from you.

One of my affiliate managers actually blogged about one particular plugin this morning (see Geno Prussakov’s post entitled Toolbars, pop-ups and parasites in Affiliate Marketing). However, there are hundreds more out there that no one is even talking about. Actually, people ARE talking about them…they are PROMOTING them!

If you are an affiliate who wants to make any kind of money off of your site or blog, it’s imperative that you check out more closely what you are promoting. You need to understand the affiliate marketing industry and what lies behind those toolbars and plugins. Otherwise, you are not only losing money yourself, but you are helping people take money out of the rest of our pockets as well.

Once upon a time when I was in the corporate world, I loved reading “Who Moved My Cheese?” with my teams. I loved when things changed because I saw opportunities. But I didn’t think that the book applied to me now that I am an affiliate and own my own business. I couldn’t have been more wrong!

As it turns out, the cheese gets moved more in affiliate marketing than when I worked for Lexis. I have to remember that every move means a new challenge that can take me down a different path. Look around. Isn’t the new Shareasale toolbar policy really just someone moving my cheese? It means not only evaluating my own company’s non-use (or use) of toolbars but to what extent we need to educate our visitors better about them. It means looking at where we are in industry and where we want to be.

But toolbars aren’t the only thing. I was reading Scott Jangro’s post about affiliate links in Twitter. Extending it out to other conversations now going on is the use of affiliate links on Facebook. These are new opportunities for us. We can choose to follow the path of monetizing our Twitter and Facebook accounts or continue along the road of viewing them only as pure social networking.

Each twist and turn in affiliate marketing can be scary because it’s my livelihood. On the flip side, it keeps my business fresh because I always have to be on the lookout for the next big thing. So go ahead and move my cheese. I’m up to the challenge and, in fact, looking forward to it!

Before I got into affiliate marketing, I have to admit that I really like toolbars. I liked being reminded where to shop and get deals. But after I became an affiliate and started getting educated, I realized that those toolbars were a convenience for me at the expense of people who worked really hard on their websites.

Naturally when I started a cash back site, I didn’t even contemplate a toolbar. I knew from a few different sources that the rewards sites with toolbars were looked at as “evil” and parasitic. It became the “good guys” versus the “bad guys.” But has that all changed?

Shareasale (one of my favorite networks) is having a series of discussions regarding changing its terms of service regarding toolbars. A number of merchants and affiliates (who I consider to be clean and ethical) have stepped up to say that they think the time is right to evaluate new technologies. Others are EXTREMELY opposed to the mere suggestion.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, and I hope to have a seat in the front row because it will impact my business heavily. If you would like to read more information straight from the source, check out the ShareASale Blog.