Creating An Affiliate Program

[Anomaly1974]

I am opening up a new enterprise online for helping people to promote their websites or just about anything else really. However, the vast majority of all of the work is custom tailored to meet the client's individual needs. Fortunately, that means that each client can get exactly what they want and need without having to obtain a lot of irrelevant fluff and filler. Unfortunately, it means that I cannot just slap up a buy now button to make everything easier.

Still, I would like to make this an affiliate program with a commission for others who promoted it. However, since I cannot simply put up by now buttons, I am having a difficult time figuring out how to track everything. Commissions would be recurring for long-term promotional services and one-time for single purchases. However, there is some great potential for affiliates, clients and the company to all come out winners with this proposition if I can figure some way to do it other than manual tracking and having the client let me know who referred them.

Any ideas how I could set up an affiliate program so that I can track who refers the client without having to limit the offerings or do away with custom packages for the clients?

With thanks,

EclecticWard

[avenuegirl]

Can you break it into different membership levels?

IE package a is 20 bucks a month

package b is 40 bucks a month etc

That you can set up with different payment buttons.

[Anomaly1974]

Some of it I can and have actually. As for the writing services and article marketing management that was quite easy. Mind you, there are certain restrictions as it does take substantially more skill and research to write about the particulars of quantum physics than it does to write about how to set up a word press blog with cPanel.

However, with the things like video productions, voice-overs and other things, there are just far too many variables to be able to accurately set up any real "package" deals that will cover everything without overcharging some clients and perhaps undercharging others. If I am doing an eight-minute you-tube video in my studio, it will cost substantially less than going to Mayon Volcano and filming there. Still, I can head over to the resorts at Pasacau and film there for less than I can at the volcano. Then throw in the number of models they want, the type of models they want, the costume requirements and it is impossible to set anything more than an absolute base price for a shoot. If I were to set up base prices and only pay commissions on that, I would be "cheating" the affiliate out of a large portion of their commissions.

Still open to ideas though.

Thanks,

Ward

[lisag]

Maybe what you need to do is just set up a commission program that tracks the project the client referred to you and then decide the commission when you complete the project and you have your expenses and profit it front of you.

You explain to your affiliates that they will receive a commission ranging from x to y% depending upon the profitability of the project.

Or maybe they get a flat X for referring the project (if the client accepts) and then a commission on the back end when the project is done. That way they get some immediate gratification and a backend reward.

You could set the flat rate to actually be a variable rate depending upon project type.

Just a thought...

[Anomaly1974]

That is actually what I am working on accomplishing. However, without any means to track who sent me the potential client or what referred them to my site (as in advertising, videos, audio articles, etc) I am having to set everything up and track it manually depending on whether or not the customer even tells me who or what sent them to my site.

For example, if you send someone to my site and they end up purchasing a video promotion, you would likely receive a ten percent fee ... but the trouble is at present (and I am not actually opening up my office until the first of November) I have to rely on the customer saying ... "oh, by the way, Lisa G sent me here because she said you do great work!" Even if I put in such an option, you know as well as I do that people are not always going to fill it in and thus, affiliates will not always get paid. What I need is the tracking for something like this ... or if there is some means to track it other than just trusting the customer to tell me ... Cookies will not work since many visitors will be referred by the models and the VPAs themselves (As they are eligible for additional in-house bonuses) so ultimately, it may have to rely on the customer filling in a check or writing a name in a drop box. Still, if I could find some way to track it automatically, that would seem to be a bit easier. Once the contracts are signed and the commissions set up, recurring payments or even single payments are not an issue and will be paid out on a monthly basis. I am just trying to assuage any fears or concerns potential affiliates may have about not receiving proper credit and thus, finding it less ideal to promote the business as a whole.

Did that make any sense?

As for the commissions and commission structures, you are spot-on there and there will be different rates depending on what type(s) of services the clients need. Some will be recurring (such as hiring a Managed Virtual Private Assistant) where I get a monthly payment, the referring affiliate will receive a monthly commission. Obviously I am not going to pay monthly commissions on single purchases but I do think the actual dollar amount would be more and make it a profitable venture for people to promote. All of the commissions will be paid monthly and that system is already in place.

[lisag]

Will you know who your affiliates are in advance? Do they have to sign up to be an affiliate?

[Anomaly1974]

Well I was actually hoping to open it up to anybody and everybody ... and that is where I am running into difficulties. A drop down box with a couple of hundred names in it would likely be more conducive to refusing to let me know who sent them than a simple text box allowing them to write a name in.

Another thought I had was allowing people to sign up with an email address and then having the clients enter the email address of the person that referred them but again, I do not know how many potential clients would fill in this information either.

Quite the quandary as having affiliates promote the business would certainly increase the chances of success. However, being uncertain about whether they would get paid or not may make it seem less worthy of promoting for professional affiliate marketers. Throw in the fact that I have already confirmed over two hundred models as well as selected a number of my employees ... and now have the chamber of commerce and the department of tourism supporting the business (The Dept of Tourism has even granted me access to their editing studios so this could be interesting) the amount of content alone will generate a substantial amount of traffic and some business.

The idea grew up a little faster than I had planned though it certainly shows great promise and potential. Maybe I could just include the referrer information on the job-sheet with an email address?

I have a few ideas ... some of which even still sound good after I wake up but all of it seems dependent on the customer letting me know who referred them. Perhaps a better question would be; would you promote an affiliate program that relied on your customers telling the business owner that you referred them? That is my ultimate concern.

Thanks again,

EclecticWard

[lisag]

I absolutely would not promote an affiliate program that depended upon the buyer remembering to mention me. No how; no way. Period. I doubt many other people would either.

So, that leaves you with the need to develop an affiliate front-end that captures referral information. There are ways to do that that are manageable and will provide a better chance of the affiliate getting credit for the referral.

One way, off the top of my head, is to have a subdomain set up strictly for affiliates to use to promote your site. That subdomain sets the referral cookie and then redirfects to your main domain.

lisag.subdomain.com sets the cookie and then automatically redirects to maindomain.com which reads the cookie and then stores the affiliate info. You have to create the cookie properly in order to be able to shar eit.

15 Seconds : Sharing Cookies Across Domains

[Anomaly1974]

I absolutely would not promote an affiliate program that depended upon the buyer remembering to mention me. No how; no way. Period. I doubt many other people would either.

Actually, I think a lot of people would promote it ... I just do not believe that many viable marketers would promote it and that stands to make a world of difference.

You are looking at what I am though and I do greatly appreciate that. The sub-domain is certainly something that I will be looking into and seeing whether or not I can manage it with the tools I have.

THANK YOU!

If you can think of any other solutions or if you know anyone else who may have them, I am always open to new ideas as well.

I seriously and truly do appreciate your recommendations and will be reading up on it shortly.

With thanks,

EclecticWard

[Bev Clement]

Have you considered using nanacast, not sure if it will do everything you want, but it will do most I believe. The other solution is have your own systems developed from the ground up

[lisag]

Good luck! Let me know if I can help you in any way.

[Anomaly1974]

Hmmmmm

Just an "I Wonder" moment ...

I have to research it and see if it is possible or not but what if I set up a "Quotes" page as a product. Use the affiliate manager I decide on to gather the link to the quote page and register that as a sale ... whether the client purchases anything or not.

If the client does purchase anything, I will have a separate invoice and be able to add that either as a bonus to the "zero cost sale" based on a set percentage or even manually.

However, I am still very interested in any ideas.

Thanks
EclecticWard

[lisag]

You might get a bit of referral fraud in there. And I wonder if you can find an affiliate solutions provider that can accommodate that out of the box.

You might have better luck either acquiring a self-hosted affiliate script and having it modified to suit your requirements or having one built for you in PHP, or Ruby or whatever language your hosting server supports.

[dbarnum]

Originally Posted by Anomaly1974

I am opening up a new enterprise online for helping people to promote their websites or just about anything else really. However, the vast majority of all of the work is custom tailored to meet the client's individual needs. Fortunately, that means that each client can get exactly what they want and need without having to obtain a lot of irrelevant fluff and filler. Unfortunately, it means that I cannot just slap up a buy now button to make everything easier.

Still, I would like to make this an affiliate program with a commission for others who promoted it. However, since I cannot simply put up by now buttons, I am having a difficult time figuring out how to track everything. Commissions would be recurring for long-term promotional services and one-time for single purchases. However, there is some great potential for affiliates, clients and the company to all come out winners with this proposition if I can figure some way to do it other than manual tracking and having the client let me know who referred them.

Any ideas how I could set up an affiliate program so that I can track who refers the client without having to limit the offerings or do away with custom packages for the clients?

With thanks,

EclecticWard

You could set up a basic package and upgrade packages, and use PayDotCom.com for the program. We've been using them for awhile and they offer a lot there like the ability to set up a private affiliate program so that only one person can sell one type of package.

[Anomaly1974]

You might have better luck either acquiring a self-hosted affiliate script and having it modified to suit your requirements or having one built for you in PHP, or Ruby or whatever language your hosting server supports.

This is actually what I was looking at ... though it may require some customization which is what I am currently looking at. Please explain what you mean by the referral fraud however in case I am missing something here.

Thanks


As for paydotcom, as I mentioned earlier, a substantial portion of the sales are not suitable for packages of any kind as they will be custom set-ups and services. Additionally, a large number of the target audience will not be Internet Marketers and with the people I am working with offline in addition to the online work, that would make it even less viable. While that may work for part of the solution it would require the implementation of at least two programs and if it comes to that, it would be easier to avoid the affiliate program altogether. Fortunately, I do think there is a viable and comprehensive solution but now I have to find it. Still, thank you for the thoughts and I will be looking at other suggestions in case you do have any.

Thanks,

EclecticWard

[5starAffiliatePrograms]

You are on the right track and you should be able to get an affordable off the shelf package that requires no customization. Take a look at iDevAffiliate.

Set this up as a lead based affiliate program. (Pay per lead) with $0 commission for a lead. (there should be no lead fraud that way.)

Then you need to manually credit the affiliate after the sale is made and you know how much it will be.

You may get some resistance to affiliates having to wait for the quote/acceptance process and then trusting you to manually credit the sale, but that's really the only way I see to do it. If you illustrate the commission ranges people can make for various services and if it's attractive enough you should get some affiliates.