This week has seen the closure of a number of credit card affiliate programs. In essence it’s really one as they (Accucard, Scottish Widows, Lloyds TSB and others) all come under the “Create Card Services” name. For our finance site Apply for Credit this wasn’t a major problem. The site has struggled to become established and where sales have occurred it’s not been with any of the programs now closing.

Finance affiliates have had a lot of upheaval in recent months with FSA laws coming in to effect, merchants closing and zero notice changes to commission levels. It just goes to show that in a few months a thriving online business can easily be damaged by overnight changes.

For affiliates this adds further concern. Do we concentrate on single areas (e.g. credit cards, insurance, loans, broadband) or cover a wide number of areas and merchants. It is a very difficult balancing act between concentrated niche sales vs “jack of all trades”. Who said affiliate marketing was easy?

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