Build your own Sales Force Army With an Associate Program
What’s the quickest way to increase your website sales and
extend your reach on the Internet all at the same time? If you
said with your own associate program, you would be correct.
An
associate (or affiliate program as they are some- times called)
allows others to to sell your products/ services and receive a
commission on each and every sale or click. Just think of having
a sales force that can grow as big as you’d like… and you only
pay them when and if they bring you a paying customer. Make no
mistake, affiliate programs are powerful tools that can rapidly
improve your online sales.
Associate programs can be set up in a variety of ways ranging
inexpensive to pricey, depending on the route you wish to take.
The important thing is to pick the one that suits your needs and
your budget.
First things first: What are your options for setting up your
own program? Glad you asked….some people “pay per click,”
crediting their associates a certain amount every time someone
clicks through on their affiliate banners or links. But I prefer
“pay per sale,” which means that you only pay out when someone
clicks through and actually makes a purchase. In this way you’re
not just paying for traffic but for actual results, which is the
sale.
You basically have two options for setting up your own program:
Purchase software or use a third party service. The nice thing
about a third party service is they manage all the accounting
issues, including click-tracking and sending your associates
their commission checks, too. This takes a large load off of you
so you can spend your time doing more productive tasks… but
this luxury doesn’t come cheap. Let’s examine some of your
options:
3rd Party Associate Services:
1) Clicktrade.com: http://www.ClickTrade.com
Outsource your affiliate program to ClickTrade and they’ll take
care of everything from tracking to paying your affiliates. Your
program can be set up on a pay per lead or pay per sales basis,
they do charge 30% for all of their hard work and a $500.00
initial deposit.
2) Clickbank.com: http://www.ClickBank.com
Anyone who sells information products online can easily set up
an affiliate program with Clickbank. Each of your affiliates
will need to have a Clickbank account (which is free) so they
can be set up with a special link for tracking their sales. They
accept the payment for you by credit card and you’ll be charged
a percentage of each sale. Simple and easy. Clickbank accounts
cost 49.95 for you to accept credit cards through them then 1.00
plus 7.5% of each sale made.
3) Affiliate Shop: http://www.AffiliateShop.com
No software to be installed; just cut and paste a few lines of
HTML code on your site to get your program up and running. Some
of the features include pay per click, pay per sale, accept or
reject affiliates who wish to join and much more. Flat charge
for set up of 395.00 then you’ll have to pay a monthly fee of
45.00.
Software Options:
You’ll want to make sure whatever you buy offers the ability to
track real time stats. If you’ll be integrating it with your
existing shopping cart, make sure they are compatible.
1) Affiliate Tracking: http://www.AffiliateTracking.com
You can buy or lease their software which runs on their server.
Choose the basic package or add on their check paying and
promotion modules. Basic set up fee of 75.00 plus 34.95 per
month. Simple templates are available to get you up and running
quickly.
2) Affiliate Software: http://www.AffiliateSoftware.net
Pro-Track is inexpensive and easy to set up. Presently it only
runs on UNIX servers. Pricing starts at 695.00 for set up on a
single domain. Very powerful with many options.
3) My Affiliate Program:
http://www.hypertracker.com/go/msmerle/article/
You design the look and feel of your program and how much you
want to pay out. Simple seamless integration with your website.
Easy to pay your affiliates with simple Quickbooks integration.
You pay a set price for the software plus a small application
hosting fee. Pricing starts at only 499.00 plus 50.00 monthly
hosting fee.
4) Ground Break: http://www.GroundBreak.com
If you’re at all good at configuring CGI scripts you may want to
look at downloading this script and doing it yourself. If you
need help with CGI, contact DavidBlack@thewavecave.com — his
work and rates are excellent.
Ground Break can be set up to work on your server quickly.
Presently only works on Unix platform and cost 200.00. Can
easily be integrated with most Perl based shopping carts. Your
program can be set up to pay either per lead or per sales.
As you can see, the options for setting up your own associate
program are numerous. It will cost you some time and money, but
in the end it’ll give you a powerful sales force which will
extend your reach on the Net.
Whatever program you choose, make sure it’s easy to setup and
user friendly so you won’t lose people before they even get
started. In part II of this article we’ll examine some ways of
promoting your newfound affiliate program.
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