What's The Best Way To Deliver A Digital Product?

[James Liberty]

I have heard of some great product delivery services such as DLguard and Amember, among others. What's the best service that you know of to deliver each of the following:

1) Ebooks
2) Audio MP3's
3) Video files
4) Software

Please keep ease of transaction and product security in mind when answering.

[John Hillage]

I like Clickbank and paypal. I don't personally waste time and energy on people looking to steal - as there will alway be a few and I'd rather spend time on gaining more traffic etc.

[Click Cutter]

Dlguard and amember are membership type scripts and they just help you to organize your downloads. But my guess besides that you need a payment proccesor. Then it comes to clickbank,paypal and others.
You need to combine both to get transaction and security.

[Kerry Finch]

Originally Posted by James Legacy

I have heard of some great product delivery services such as DLguard and Amember, among others. What's the best service that you know of to deliver each of the following:

1) Ebooks
2) Audio MP3's
3) Video files
4) Software

Please keep ease of transaction and product security in mind when answering.

James, I'm weighing up the pros and cons of the various services as well, and will be following the thread with interested. Thanks!
Kerry

[BIG Mike]

Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200. Go Straight to DLGuard. Period.

[Keith Boisvert]

Although I have wanted to use DLGuard, which I hear cannot be beat, I have been using e-junkie. I have yet to have a single issue.

But, when I signed up for e-junkie it was only going to be a temporary thing, but now, 6 months later, the money I paid e-junkie could have pretty much bought my copy of DLGuard.

Yes, I am a dumbass. I need to put DLGuard on my to-do list, thanks for the reminder.

keith

[samstephens]

Hi James,

Great question!

A little known feature of DLGuard comes into it's own when you're selling software:

DLGuard has a Query feature, designed for use by whoever is writing your software for you. Basically it allows your software to "validate".

When your customer first logs in, your software asks for your customer's name and email address, saves it in it's own database, and then sends this info to DLGuard's Query feature.

DLGuard will tell you whether that customer is a registered customer and hasn't been refunded.

Your software can then deside whether to allow the customer access or not.


Ease of transaction:

DLGuard will offer you the most smooth transaction out of any delivery system I've seen in action.

Most require the user to enter extra information about themselves (names, emails), or after the sale they're required to login to members area just to download a file.

Not with DLGuard: DLGuard is built to offer as smooth a transaction as possible, and basically be invisible.

The customer uses a DLGuard sales link to buy, they're sent to the payment processor to pay, they're sent straight back to a page that displays their secure download links.

No extra steps, no hoops to jump through.



Another thing worth mentioning: DLGuard uses full HTML templates for you to customise your download pages. This means you can make the pages look however you wish.

Most (all, that I know of) download management systems only allow you to customise the header and footer of the page.


DLGuard is built for ease of use AND for flexability.


Let me know if you'd like me to clarify anything - I'm happy to help!

cheers
Sam

[TheDailyBanana]

I don't personally waste time and energy on people looking to steal - as there will alway be a few and I'd rather spend time on gaining more traffic etc.

Amen! That makes a lot of sense.

Speaking from personal experience, sometimes it's easy to dwell on losing sales to crooks who either (1) pass your products around on forums and on torrent system or who (2) figure out how to get your product from a stray search engine entry. It makes sense to do what you can to keep the casual thief honest (and DLGuard or whatever else is a way to do that), but it's a losing battle to try and stop the committed crooks. They usually always find a way.

[dreamtab]

I think IM's should not waste time on this.
I suggest keep changing download link once in a month is a good idea.

let me know your thought on this...

[samstephens]

A common mis-conception is that protecting your products takes MORE time than NOT protecting them.

I guess it isn't completely a mis-conception, as it's true with some solutions.

But take DLGuard for example - it's much FASTER to launch a secure product, than it is to launch an unsecure product.

Need to make changes to an existing product? It takes only seconds.


So even if you're not interested in security at all, then you're still better off using a good quality download management system.

A good download management system will SAVE you time - not take more of it up.


So if you'd rather ignore product theft and spend your time on promoting your business (and a number of people have pointed out), why not implement DLGuard and have EVEN MORE time to promote your business?

Download management isn't just about security - it's also about streamlining your day to day activities.

It frees up time, it doesn't take it away.

cheers
Sam

[James Liberty]

Originally Posted by John Hillage

I like Clickbank and paypal.

Does Clickbank handle digital product security and delivery? Or is it just a payment processor?

Also, for those who have recommended DLguard, which types of products would you use it with? (Ebooks? Videos? Audios? Software? Membership sites? All of the above?)

[samstephens]

Originally Posted by dreamtab

I think IM's should not waste time on this.
I suggest keep changing download link once in a month is a good idea.

let me know your thought on this...

To get any kind of security you'd going to need to change your download link once a day.

If your product is popular, you'll have the new download link pasted on warez forums within hours (a client once came to be with this problem...then he invested in DLGuard ).

And always having to change your download links is more work than implementing an automated download management system.

If you're looking to save time and cut down your workload, you can't go past a good quality download management system.

cheers
Sam

[samstephens]

Does Clickbank handle digital product security and delivery? Or is it just a payment processor?

Clickbank is just a payment processor - pretty much every payment system will require you to set up your own delivery system.

Also, for those who have recommended DLguard, which types of products would you use it with? (Ebooks? Videos? Audios? Software? Membership sites? All of the above?)

I have clients offering all of these.

Myself, I use DLGuard to deliver ebooks, software, customer registration, and membership areas.

A lot of people use DLGuard for audio and video as well (especially musicians).

cheers
Sam

[Chuck Evans]

I have to say that since we've been using DLGuard, I think it's been almost 3 years now Sam, that we have NOT had a single problem with security for the electronic downloads!

We used some "other" services before but they ALL fell short of DLGuard!

Like Big Mike, do pass go, do not SPEND $200, just get DLGuard...NOW!!!

chuck

[Jim M]

There' s no if's but's or maybes here - why would you want to go to the trouble of marketing a product and then leave it lying out in the open - for anyone to take for free?

Why would you want the hassle of changing passwords or folder names all the time?

If you want to bury you head in the sand and think it won't happen to you - then go ahead - if you want to rest knowing your downloads are secure - get DLGuard... not the cheapest - but the easiest to use and the best support you could ever want in a product.

[tschlotter]

I was just going to start a thread asking others whether they thought e-junkie was a good service to use when selling 'pay to paypal' type products.

I just set up a page with a paypal 'buy now' button on it to sell an ebook download and bought from myself to make sure it worked.

IT DIDN'T - The payment confirmation email I got from Paypal didn't mention the download link and I wasn't redirected to the download page after payment. I had specified that in the button setup instructions, but it didn't work. I tried to edit the button to generate new code for the page on Paypal, but there was nothing to edit - I made the correct choices based on what I want the page to do. So I have an email into them to see what the heck is going on and I've taken the page down so no one gets screwed over. Even the website name and contact email was wrong on my receipt - it was from a site I was playing around with a few years ago and I couldn't even find a place to change that in my account.

Okay - now that I've vented - I just bought the WSO 'Cash In with CPA Offers Now' and it was delivered to me seamlessly through ejunkie.

Has anyone had any problems with ejunkie as far as delivery, etc., or is there a better alternative out there?

Any suggestions would be appreciated - I'm having a 'bad tech day', even have to reinstall my Adobe because of some crazy error before I can read my new WSO and make a billion dollars this afternoon!!

[Ben Roy]

If you want to offer your product for affiliates to sell, you have to look at a whole different set of systems. At least, I don't think DLGuard (which seems to be what the whole thread is about now) will let you run an affiliate program.

If you're sure you will be the only one selling your product then that's not a concern, but otherwise you need to dig a bit deeper before making a decision.

[John-K.]

Originally Posted by BIG Mike

Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200. Go Straight to DLGuard. Period.

Great advice. DLGuard is awesome and Sam, the creator of DLGuard, goes above and beyond with support!

[Jmn187]

DLgaurd and E-junkie. Hands down. Totally secure.

[webpagesrus]

Originally Posted by samstephens

A little known feature of DLGuard comes into it's own when you're selling software:

DLGuard has a Query feature, designed for use by whoever is writing your software for you. Basically it allows your software to "validate".

When your customer first logs in, your software asks for your customer's name and email address, saves it in it's own database, and then sends this info to DLGuard's Query feature.

DLGuard will tell you whether that customer is a registered customer and hasn't been refunded.

Your software can then deside whether to allow the customer access or not.

Sam, that is a powerful feature that I have not heard about......I have been using another program to protect mine but it falls short of alot of DLGuard features......As a HopGuard user, I can tell everyone that Sam's service and software is excellent!

Sorry to get off topic, but the DLGuard feature Sam spoke of could help me with my own business.....time to give DLGuard another look

[tschlotter]

Originally Posted by Ben Roy

If you want to offer your product for affiliates to sell, you have to look at a whole different set of systems. At least, I don't think DLGuard (which seems to be what the whole thread is about now) will let you run an affiliate program.

If you're sure you will be the only one selling your product then that's not a concern, but otherwise you need to dig a bit deeper before making a decision.

This particular product I wouldn't want to set up for affiliates to resell, but you're right about digging deeper if and when I do decide to do that.

I think I'd probably go with Rapid Action Profits, from what I've read about it and from other websites I've seen and promoted that use it - and from things I've read in this forum from it's creator. It just seems to be easy to manage for both the webmaster and affiliate.

For the time being I think I'm going to check out ejunkie and dlguard tonight and see which one will work best for me.

I appreciate the advice,

Tina

[SiteSeller52]

If you have the money DLguard is the way to go, you could also use payloadz,
not alot of people talking about this, but It works for me.

[Christophe Young]

I just signed up with e-junkie so I could have an affiliate program. I'm using them to sell and deliver my ebook and I use secure ebook software for my book rather than a PDF file. I'm starting to wonder if it's worth it to use this secure software. It's a pain having to store unique username and password codes for my ebook in e-junkie. But, there's basically no way anyone can steal my ebook, unless they are really tech savy.

E-junkie has worked well so far, although they don't have as big a marketplace as Clickbank. I'm looking to get my book listed on CB as well.

[Janet Sawyer]

I think I need to say this, no matter what you use to protect your download links, Dlguard - great product, digital dispatch - great prodict, white knight protector, great product, affpaypro great product
BUT............

Once your customer has that download - You have no control over what they do with it afterwards unless you have used other encryption methods like Ioncube or Zend for a script or other licencing methods for other types of products.

People steal - case closed.

Make your products viral and it won't matter if someone has a free copy, others will buy from the theif and put coffers into your pocket.

[webpagesrus]

Originally Posted by Janet Sawyer

People steal - case closed.

Sad, but so very true.....

[Mike Hill]

Definitely 100% go with DL Guard... It's the easiest to setup new secure product downloads and you can use it for as many products as you want.

I have DLGurad on a URL of it's own and host all my products there. Its extremely easy to use once you get the hang of it.

Mike Hill

[Nathan Hangen]

The problem with E-Junkie is that they are not a good solution for video and audio as they beginner plan only lets you store 50MB on their server, but you also can't use remote URL's unless you pay 18+ per month.

[radhika]

Originally Posted by James Legacy

I have heard of some great product delivery services such as DLguard and Amember, among others. What's the best service that you know of to deliver each of the following:

1) Ebooks
2) Audio MP3's
3) Video files
4) Software

Please keep ease of transaction and product security in mind when answering.

Whatever scripts you buy ONLY PROTECTS your download links or stop password sharing.

Once the product is out to your buyer means, you are not in control of how he passes it.

You need seperate integrated system into your audio and video files (like license key and management) to stop them being passed to others.

.

[viralmania]

IS DLGuard easy to set up? or would u need coding expertise?

Thanks.

[Tracy Yates]

Guess I'm doing things the 'hard way', but I use JVManager1 and PayPal. Seems to be working pretty good. Had a few issues with JVM1, but it is a bit less costly than DLguard.

I can sell single products, packages, do membership sites, offer coupons, etc. with JVM1, so I'm pretty happy with it. And yes, all products are protected downloads.

You wouldn't believe me if I told you, but after installing and beginning to use JVM1, I have seen an increase in membership and product sales. Before, I was doing the whole 'change the log in info and download links monthly' by hand, and I honestly believe that was costing me sales as ppl were, most likely, gaining access to my products/membership for free.

Having said that, DLguard can function with more payment processors than JVM1 can. And, DLguard is less costly than JVM2 (Fantasos) also. Something to ponder I suppose

I think any way you slice it, you must protect your download links anyway you can. Preferably with a script such as DLguard or JVM1/2. You'll definitely see the difference once you do.


Tracy

[pmg2712]

I like Clickbank and paypal, but i ont stick to one.

[jamesburchill]

I bought DLG yesterday. Been meaning to for a while. Glad I did. Installed easily enough although GoDaddy made me jump through a few extra hoops to get there. Read the manuals and woot ... simple enough. *Disclaimer* I do understand technology so I had the advantage of knowing what I was attempting. But still, this tool rocks - and from what I can see it has more than enough features to not only integrate with the payment processors of choice, but the autoresponders of choice AND the various delivery mechanisms out there. Finally I was impressed with the fact it comes with 2 licenses - you can install the app on 2 separate websites... so it's like getting it for half price! I'm a fan...

[Mangozoom]

I am with John Hillage

Why worry unless you have a massive influx of people accessing your download page.
This once happened too me when some scum bag listed the download page for one of my old PLR sites on a forum.

So I did a redirect on the download url through an affiliate link to PLR site ... I actually made a couple of sales.

John

[timer]

Clickbank,paydotcom and paypal are good enough I reckon. Seem to work OK

[Steve Diamond]

Originally Posted by timer

Clickbank,paydotcom and paypal are good enough I reckon. Seem to work OK

Except that these are not delivery systems, as was already mentioned earlier in this thread. These are merely payment processors.

You still need to set up a delivery system, whichever payment processor(s) you're using.

Your delivery system can be a simple, unprotected download page with links to your products. That's fine as long as you don't mind making it easy for your products to be stolen.

It can be a secure third-party service like E-junkie.

Or it can be a secure script like DLGuard.

E-junkie and DLGuard both integrate with multiple payment processors. But let's not confuse the delivery system with the payment processor. They're two entirely different things, and you need both.

I know from experience that it can be hard to wrap your head around this issue. I come from a tech background and an internet background, and when I first tried to set up sites that sold and delivered digital products, I was surprised to find how complex it actually is. I thought (like many folks here) that I could simply use a business PayPal account (payment processor) and a download page (delivery system). You can, but it's not secure. Not recommended.

Steve

[Paul Becky]

Pretty well explained Steve! I love that! thanks a lot

Paul

[Steve Diamond]

Thanks for the kind words, Paul.

For those who really want to dig deep, the situation is actually more complex than I stated in my previous post.

Without considering an affiliate program, you really have these three elements:

1. Order taking system
2. Payment processing system
3. Product delivery system

One reason people get confused is that some products and services do more than one of these things, in different combinations.

For example, say you have a shopping cart on your site, like osCommerce. It's an order taking system and a product delivery system, but not a payment processor. Or take ClickBank. It's an order taking and payment processing system, but not a product delivery system. E-junkie and DLGuard are order taking and product delivery systems, but not payment processors. The list goes on.

Then if you add affiliate management to the mix, it really gets complicated. With an affiliate systems you break it down like this:

1. Affiliate order & commission tracking
2. Affiliate commission payment processing

For example, ClickBank does both. E-junkie and PayDotCom do tracking but not commission payments. DLGuard does neither. Scripts like JAM and iDevAffiliate do tracking only, and they must be integrated with your order taking system.

It's really no wonder that people get confused.

Steve