There is one really cool affiliate program that I get the majority of my commissions from. It has plenty of features unique to it that make it stand out from the rest. There are also some really crappy things about it but the good definitely outweigh the bad. I'll explain them all in this post.
First of all, with this program you are selling digital goods, much like ClickBank, and the commissions are high. I think some are up to 85%. They are all software packages and most have free trials. When someone downloads the software using a link from your site, your affiliate ID is embedded into the software. If they decide to purchase anytime down the road, you get a commission!
Selling software has distinct advantages. You can sell it to anyone that speaks English (some are in Spanish). That opens you up to a wider market than just the US, Canada or UK that we typically sell to.
One thing I love is that every time a sale is made you receive an email telling you how much you just earned! Instant notification! Me and my gf (wife-to-be) high five every time one comes in. Ya, cheesy, I know! :)
And the return rate (in my case at least) is extremely low. I've had only 2 returns from several thousand purchases.
You can decide on the prices of the software too. Seriously. You can offer discounts via coupons, etc. The downfall is that deductions come from your commission but so what, you have a lot to play with. It is a very flexible coupon system, you can limit the amount of uses, automatically stop it at a certain date, stuff like that. They keep stats of how many times the coupon was used. For some reason, the email alert you get still shows the higher amount of commission without the deduction. Very strange. An oversight I guess.
Tracking is possible but not always accurate. It sucks because I like to track to see which keywords are converting but the only way to do that is if they buy the software immediately because your tracking ID won't get stored in the free trial download. That's problem 1. Problem 2 is that the tracking system most often ignores your tracking ID anyway! And the perl script used to generate the report is slow as molasses.
Sorry this is kind of all over the place..the good the bad, the good the bad...I'm just thinking as I type and I have 1000 other things on my mind. Anyway, there is an email that goes to the buyer after a purchase. You have the option to include a link in the email to any relating product you wish at a discount. As soon as I figured out I could do that and implemented it my sales jumped by about 20%!
There is a referral program but it isn't that great. You only get 2nd tier commissions (I forget how much) for the 1st 90 days your referral is an affiliate. A lot of people might sign up but not take action right away. Once they do, it takes a couple days to start generating cash if using PPC and then there isn't much time left in the 90 days in most cases.
A great application for this is to create a review site reviewing 3 similar products. It's easy to find related products in their system. I think it's best to offer the free trial downloads of the products to your customers. Not being able to track keywords aside, it gives you better conversion (in my experience). I have no idea what keywords are generating sales but I'm getting sales everyday so I'm happy :)
Oh yeah...they claim to pay very quickly. Although that may be true if you are in the US. Not so much for Canada. For example...I got an email saying a check was sent on the 8th. I got the check finally yesterday. They are working on switching to PayPal soon for payments according to the payments department.
Another thing I don't like...they automatically add a product to your customer's shopping cart. I think it's like insurance and gives the customer an extended period of time to download the product if it gets deleted or something. It's very effective because they sell 75% of the time. They tell you in your stats how many were purchased but as an affiliate you get nothing for it. Another product they try to upsell is a CD with the software on it. Again, you get ZERO commission if it sells.
But all in all, it is a fantastic program. If you take advantage of everything offered you can really get a sweet software business going. It is by far my best money maker to date. I think that's going to change with BANS but it's too soon to tell.
I guess if you stayed with me this far you want to know the affiliate program I'm talking about (unless you took a sneak peek using the image above). It's called RegNow. Here's my link. If you sign up and need some assistance let me know. I'll do what I can.
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June 13th, 2008 at 8:55 am
This affiliate program sounds interesting.
How do you use it ?
Do you setup a blog/site for each product or do you have something such a “software review blog/site” or … ?
Would love to hear about it.
Thanks in advance Keith James
ciao
alexander
June 13th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Hey Big Blogger,
I mostly use Wordpress as a review site and review 3 similar products.
I’m trying new things right now to see how they go…
June 13th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
I love WP too. I’ve never done PPC, only Adsense, that’s because I’m so interested in your posts: you share what you do and I’ve a lot to learn. I just signed up thru your affiliate link.
Do you usually write 3 different posts whith each one software review or do you post only one review and talk about 3 products ?
ciao
alexander
Big Bloggers last blog post..Win Over $1900 in Prizes!
June 13th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Hi Alexander…
Usually 3 reviews, 3 products…the same page (or post).
I might write a longer article on a separate page for each but on the 3 product page, the reviews are short and to the point…and not really a review, more like a list of features
June 14th, 2008 at 12:13 am
thanks for the clarification.
Big Bloggers last blog post..Win Over $1900 in Prizes!
June 14th, 2008 at 2:31 am
Not a problem…
If you decide to build a site and you have questions along the way, you know where to find me.