Creating an affiliate program

[tnash]

I'm currently running several small sites in several niches and am now looking to expand a couple of them, being the lazy type I thought I would get others to do the hard work.

I have been looking to run an affiliate scheme for some time but have never found any software that make life easier, can anybody recommend a good one, ideally something that handles payments etc as well as recording affiliate codes (found plenty of those). While free is probably to much to hope for cheap would be a nice feature

 

[Jon]

I'm currently running several small sites in several niches and am now looking to expand a couple of them, being the lazy type I thought I would get others to do the hard work.

I have been looking to run an affiliate scheme for some time but have never found any software that make life easier, can anybody recommend a good one, ideally something that handles payments etc as well as recording affiliate codes (found plenty of those). While free is probably to much to hope for cheap would be a nice feature

If you're going to be a cheap fuck about the tracking/payment software required to run an affiliate program/network then you should NOT be getting into this, because the stats system is the backbone for every affiliate program and network, and when the system is fucked, you're going to get fucked.

Oh... and don't use DirectTrack either, because their system is SO fucked. Either buy some standalone app or get a developer/programmer to make a custom solution, or just use something that has a very reliable system.

 

[tnash]

thanks Jon we all want things cheap
however a solution that works is more important then cost however both is always nice wouldn't you agree?

I've been looking for product comparison but affiliate scheme owners are bit to clubby and if it works they ain't tell you fuck about it. Cheers for the warning on DirectTrack though looking at idevaffiliate which I found in a different thread looks almost perfect, alarm bells ringing already!

 

[reaper]

The absolute cheapest way (i.e. free) to set up an affiliate program I can think of right now, that also handles payments is probably to use CCBill (CCBill Credit Card, Check, Phone Processing and E-Ticketing for online merchants)

I think you can signup for free, but be aware, if you don't want to handle all the admin work, you're going to pay a higher commission per sale to whichever affiliate/processing company you use.

For instance, Clickbank is 7.5% + $1 and CCBill is something like 14.5%.

If you decide to do the admin and used PayPal (for example) and an affiliate script, like iDevAffiliate, I believe you'd only be paying the 2-3% normal payment fees.

It all boils down are you prepared to lose that extra $$$ to keep being as lazy as you want.

Oh and don't run a 2-tiered affiliate program with PayPal - they'll cut ya nuts off and freeze your account as it's against their ToS.

 

[john3232]

There's a list of some of the most used affiliate software here. Don't know if this will help or not. If you don't want to put as much work into having to monitor each affiliates actions yourself, then maybe an affiliate network would be the best alternative for you, but then that would be much more costly.

An affiliate program is not something you can just set up and forget about, it is a long commitment that needs a lot of work and time spent on it.

 

[micker]

why the hell would you ever want to run an affiliate program? Do you have any idea what a horrible pain in the ass affiliates are?

 

[john3232]

If you have a few people that can handle your affiliate program when it grows bigger, then an affiliate program, if successful can turn a $40,000 per year profit business into a million per year profit business and if not, even better than that.

 

[tnash]

sorry for the delay in replying, I'm fully aware of the nightmare of affiliates and running affiliate schemes perhaps my post was to flippant. The sites area very small niche (nicely profitable) and I'm looking only to take on a very small handful of affiliates from the few sites that cater to the niche.

I'm not planning on being the next CJ or similar just looking for a way to completely cover the niche that's all.

Thanks for the software list and the suggestions of where to avoid.I did in the end go with idevaffiliate so I will let you know how it goes