One of my passions in life is to travel, which luckily I get to do on a regular basis, so before I even dreamed of becoming a web Entrepreneur, I would wish that my local currency (the Australian Dollar) would be worth more against the United States Dollar. Now the tables have turned and the Australian Dollar is has risen significanly against the USD in the last year, but what should have been a dream (Cheaper holidays overseas and cheap ebay purchases) has turned into a nightmare, the majority of affiliate and advertising programs I deal with calculate and pay in USD.

The chart below show the rise of the US Dollar in the last three years, starting about the time I first started making money websites and blogs. Now I can only imagine what I would have earned and would be earning had the AU US Exchange rate stayed steady.

The rise and rise of the Aussie Dollar against the US Dollor over the last 3 years.

Take this fictitious senairo early 2006 if I earnt around US$20,000 a month that would have equateed to around AU$27,000, today that figure at todays exchange rate drops to around AU$21,000 thats a fall of AU$6,000 per month.

I guess next time I need think before wishing for something, anyway it’s not all doom and gloom, there are steps that can be taken as an internet publisher to reduce the impact of falling revenue due to currency exchange rates:

·         Dropping advertising programs that pay out in USD, and take on ones that pay out in Aussie Dollars, or Euros.

·         Arranging advertising spaces on my sites directly with advertisers, with payment in currencies other than USD.

·         Buy more items overseas (eBay, Amazon, etc), and spend more money when overseas on holidays.

The above points apart from the last one have some real merit, considering finance and currency experts are now expecting the AU <-> US exchange rate to achieve parity sometime soon. What I do need to watch out for is if/when the Aussie Dollar does fall, thats why it pays to be flexable with the affilite & advertising programs you deal with so you can make a change should the maket change.