Re: Affiliate Software

From: Trevor Johnson <bpfsa_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Thu 03 Jul 2003 11:48:44 -0500

"Bill Flitter" <bill_at_fastlaneventures.com> wrote:

>Can you recommend a hosted affiliate
>software program? I reviewed a few
>like myreferer.com and DirectTrack.com.
>Any other programs I should take a
>look at? I'm interested in managing
>the program internally vs. going to a
>Linkshare type system.


Bill, without specifically answering your question,
I'd like to raise an important matter for you (and
others) to consider when contemplating either internal
or 3rd party affiliate management solutions.

Think about the needs of your affiliates. Remember
that 95% of the world's population (ok - that probably
renders to "only" 60% of the world's ONLINE
population) are NOT in the U.S. This poses issues that
precious few U.S. based affiliate managers have
properly considered, to their own detriment.

Potentially 60% of your future affiliates do NOT live
in the USA. Even if the product you are selling is
only available for delivery to customers in North
America, your AFFILIATES may be reaching your
customer-market from anywhere else in the world.

Do you realise the disincentive it is for many non-USA
affiliates to join most affiliate programs? A cheque
in $US drawn on a US Bank is extremely expensive to
deposit into a bank offshore. Here in Australia, for
example, it is common for the bank fee to be larger
than the value of the affiliate commission cheque
itself. It can cost up to $A80 (approx. $US55) to
deposit a single offshore cheque, not to mention six
weeks for clearance. (And Australia is not unique in
that regard. Similar fees apply with banks around the
world.)

Remember - potentially 60% of your affiliates suffer
this impost, and without a feasible solution they will
not join your affiliate program.

There are a number of options affiliate managers
should consider to benefit both themselve and their
affiliates:

a) John a 3rd party provider who aggregates
commissions from many affiliate managers, and pays
affiliates a single cheque covering their commission
entitlements from multiple affiliate programs.
(Commission Junction www.cj.com does this - and even
pays cheques in the currency of the affiliate's choice
- and includes direct bank deposits of cheques.
Wonderful stuff.... Almost as good, though only
suitable for affiliate managers selling digitally
downloadable products, is Clickbank www.clickbank.com.
Again, they pay aggregated commissions from many
merchants, though only by cheque and only in one
currency. Still, for the affiliate it means one LARGE
cheque with only one bank fee each month, rather than
maybe 20 small cheques with 20 times the banking fees
involved.)

If you *must* run your affilaite program in-house,
then:

b) Allow affiliates to nominate a threshold above
which they wish to receive their commission cheque. As
nice as low thresholds are for US residents banking
$US cheques, an offshore affiliate may prefer to
nominate raising their minimum payout size from (say)
your standard $25 up to $500 or $1,000 or some such.
They may have to wait longer (their choice) to earn
that higher threshold, but it makes the banking fee a
proportionately lower burden on them.

c) Give all affiliates (even US affiliates) the
*OPTION* of receiving their commissions from you via a
direct deposit into their PayPal accounts.
Effectively, this enables the affiliate to "aggregate"
their commissions from various affiliate programs into
their PayPal accounts and drawn down from that at a
time and size of their own choice. (It is also MUCH
cheaper for the affiliate manager to pay a 30 cent fee
for the service to PayPal, rather than the costs
involved of cutting, preparing and snail-mailing
cheques to affiliates.) Of course, some affiliates
will not want this - but please make it available as
an OPTION an affiliate may choose to receive their
affiliate commissions.

Now, more specifically in relation to your question
about affiliate management software, there are
nineteen (19) PayPal compatable offerings listed at:
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/pdn/3p-solutions-aff-software-outside
(That long URL may need to be cut-&-pasted into your
browser in two parts if your email breaks it with a
line wrap.)

Yours sincerely,
Trevor Johnson
http://www.bonuswords.com




Received on Thu Jul 03 2003 - 11:48:44 CDT