Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hello all Nationeers!

I am working to develop a website that will represent my vision of a business program that I have created. I have just launced a small pilot of this program.

I woud like to offer affiliate (reciprocal links) and commission structures for purchases made through either business. The problem is I have NO idea where to start!

How do you structure a pay per click- or pay per purchase?  What percentages are recommended? How do you keep track of it all? How could you affilaite with a "mall" and then allow businesses within that mall to opt-in? How do you preserve the profits sought by the mall?  These are just a few of he 2am questions I have. HELP!

I am working with a merchant account services company to tweak some of their tracking systems to meet my requirements, but when it comes to websites there is NO help there!

I am eternally grateful for any and all advice that the SUN community can offer!

Many thanks!

 

Wow! You need to get a webmaster, and tell him or her what you are trying to do. It has a lot to do with programming, and it could cost you some bucks. Unless you find a Webmaster who would work for sweat equity for small piece of your company.

Hi there,

I am not a techie, but I am presently working on launching my e-commerce site. I don`t know if that could be of any help, but www.volusion.com seems to have an integrated affiliate progarm. I recently tried their free version, and the affliate program was already set up/integrated to the website, all you had to do is ask those who want to join the affliate program to "sign up" et voila! I don`t know if this is EVEN close to what you are looking for but any ways hope this helps. Good luck. cheers. Magda

you could always try something like myaffiliateprogram.com and just implement that.

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He who gets greedy like a pig, gets slaughtered like a hog!

Thank you Magda & Todd for those helpful links!

Raisecapital, thank you for your advice. I am working with an advanced web design firm on the logistics for this affiliate program, as well as the complicated requirements for the site itself.

Sweat equity....urban legend?

Will let you know how its coming along!

Many thanks to you all for your help!

There are two ways to do affiliate programs: work with a solution provider such as ShareASale or Commission Junction, or run your own script. If you use a service, you will have pretty high fixed costs. You generally pay to get into the program, pay some kind of monthly minimum, and then pay them an override percentage on each sale on top of what you pay the affiliate. If you run your own script, you avoid some of those systematic costs, but will need to do yourself some of the things the services do for you. Personally, I think the better solution in the long run is to run your own script and tailor the program to your needs, but it all depends on your free time, energy, and ability to get up the curve on affiliate issues.

There are a number of commercially available scripts you can buy that track the sales and do the basic accounting for the program. If you run your own program, try to go with a script where the link on the product goes direct to your website - that way you get (at least with some search engines) some of the link juice from the affiliate links.

You definitely don`t want to run an affiliate program on pay per click. The cheaters will rob you blind if you do that. You probably want to pay on a percentage of the sale. If your product is something that doesn`t convert right away - like life insurance or mortgage leads - you might need to pay based on having applications filled out. The payment level really depends on the margins you get on your products - for computers, it might be one percent given the razor thin margins, for music equipment it might be a still thin five percent, for herbal teas it might be thirty percent. It`s also typical to scale it so that folks generating a high level of sales get bigger percentages - as much as double what the guy doing one sale a month gets.

If you have an affiliate program, most of your sales will come from a few "super affiliates." These are either sites dead on content wise with what you do, or folks that make their living driving traffic to affiliate links via search, pay per click, or email. You will need to publicize the existence of your program to potential super affiliates, which may mean contacting as many of them directly as you can find and asking them to give your program a whirl.

Super affiliates will educate you about what you need to do to make them happy, but it`s going to include a relatively long cookie life (i.e., putting a tracking code on folk`s sites so that the affiliate gets credit for sales that close sixty or ninety days after the first visit), prompt payment via a variety of payment methods (twice monthly via paypal, bank transfer or check would be affiliate friendly), and not terminating affiliates for no particularly good reason. At the same time, you need to maintain some discipline over them, so that they don`t go sending out spam emails or doing stuff that damages your brand image.

Most big ecommerce sites end up with one or more employees whose job it is to manage the affiliate program. There are also consultants who will walk you through the process of setting up your own home rolled program and who will manage the affiliates for you on an outsourced basis.

WebmasterRadio.fm has a couple of good podcasts that deal a lot with affiliate matters - NetIncome and Shoemoney. There is also a guy called Fraser from the UK with an affiliate marketing podcast that covers it from both the affiliate and the program level.

There are a lot of forums for affiliates out there such as associateprograms.com and abestweb.com where people can be more specific in the help they provide. The big webmaster sites like WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint also have forum areas for affiliate issues as well.

 It sounds like you want to drive users to your site for purchases. There are many ways to do this. Not sure I would go the affiliate route...you will have to tell me how that goes for you.

 Search engines downgrade sites with reciprocal links, because they usually are "spammy".

Webmaster can code things, but you need a strategy to reach your target audience on the web and target the sites they go to.

Keep us in the loop on your progress.

Hello there!

I am Ramon Arellano from the Philippines. We have established a pool of the best webmasters here and we`ll be glad to help you. Also, our hiring rates here are much lower than yours in the U.S.

If you`re interested in our services, kindly reply ASAP.

Regards.

Ramon Arellano

What kind of business program?  Who is your target market?  How much does your service cost?  Is there residual income? 

These questions need to be answered before one can advise. 

I have used commission junction in the past.  They provide a great service but again a lot will depend upon what your working budget is. 

One of the advantages to using an existing service vs coding your own affiliate system is that they have a built it clientele that is seeking affiliate marketing opportunities.  Coding your own system would require that you then find interested webmasters to add your affiliate links to their site.  This can be a daunting task and require as much effort as simply finding clients for your product. 

Best of luck

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Pokerman It`s not about what you can do... it`s about what you will do! Amateur Poker League Software - Drive Traffic - Add 100,000 Songs to your website - Music Catalog

Here`s an affiliate management SW module that`s easy to install.  It`s $200 but that`s cheap compared to paying an affiliate service $50+ each month.

It`s worked like a charm for me and it`s been released and supported for years. 

http://www.groundbreak.com/cgi-bin/clickthru.cgi?id=meilingw

You can configure the payment terms in all kinds of ways.  I just offer a flat percentage of the purchase price.

Hope that helps

 

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Warmest regards,

Michelle Waldorf -- eSeller Street -- eBay Market Research