Will affiliates promote product with free offer

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incentivesoft

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Our software product sells on subscription basis with 30 day free trial..The cancellation rate is pretty low but when we offer to affiliates we are not sure what kind of customers we will get so want to give commission to affiliates only if the sign up continue with paid subscription after their free trial expires ..i.e. on 31st day of the sign up..

Will affiliates be willing for such arrangement ..

Also as an alternative what about 30 day money back guarantee arrangement to customers..where if customers ask money back then we don't give affiliate commission otherwise give the commission (again on 31st day)

Any input/feedback will be greatly appreciated..
 


I have never promoted software, however, I would not be too hip on something like this. I'll explain, if I did my job of getting a customer to sign up for your product, my job is done. Then its your job to prove that your software is worth it for the customer to keep after the free trial. If its lame ass software, I have no control over that. So not paying me until the customer completes the sign up after the 30 day trial sounds whack. There are a million other things to promote where you get paid on a signup for a free trial, I would rather keep doing that. Just my thoughts...

incentivesoft said:
Our software product sells on subscription basis with 30 day free trial..The cancellation rate is pretty low but when we offer to affiliates we are not sure what kind of customers we will get so want to give commission to affiliates only if the sign up continue with paid subscription after their free trial expires ..i.e. on 31st day of the sign up..

Will affiliates be willing for such arrangement ..

Also as an alternative what about 30 day money back guarantee arrangement to customers..where if customers ask money back then we don't give affiliate commission otherwise give the commission (again on 31st day)

Any input/feedback will be greatly appreciated..
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What you would need to do is run the promo with maybe 1-2 INDIVIDUAL affiliate marketers (Not the networks ) and determine what your subscription rate is , after that , figure out how much you can offer AMs per lead they send you , from that point you can continue to refine the rates. Many companies start LOW , and as the rates get more defined, you could increase the payout as you get your ratios defined.
 
I promote quite a bit of software, if you're looking for a network to handle this I would recommend RevenueWire.com
 
incentivesoft said:
Our software product sells on subscription basis with 30 day free trial..The cancellation rate is pretty low but when we offer to affiliates we are not sure what kind of customers we will get so want to give commission to affiliates only if the sign up continue with paid subscription after their free trial expires ..i.e. on 31st day of the sign up..

Will affiliates be willing for such arrangement ..

Also as an alternative what about 30 day money back guarantee arrangement to customers..where if customers ask money back then we don't give affiliate commission otherwise give the commission (again on 31st day)

Any input/feedback will be greatly appreciated..
Click to expand...
I personally would not promote that kind of thing. At least not by PPC.
Keep in mind how tightly most affiliates track their keywords and whatnot to see what's converting out.
The difference between those who sign up and those who actually order can be HUGE, and I really can't go 31 days before knowing if even SOME of the traffic actually converted into a sale.
Shortening the trial period may be a good bet. If not, offering a reduced payout for the trial sign up, then not paying out for the first month to make sure you didn't get fraud traffic may be a good bet. You can always offer the larger payout on the actual SALE conversion as an alternative.

The other thing, in all honesty, is that I have a real problem with my income being based off the quality of the product(as bizarre as that sounds). I see it as being my job to get them in the door. Everything that happens after that point(converting them into a paid sale) is not my problem and more than that is outside of my control.
 
Thanks for some great input. Just one follow up, since our software is adopted on subscription basis, if we are offering recurring commission for as long as customer is active against one time fee..how does that get received? Is it fair to assume as an affiliate the focus is going to be on immediate yield and not so much on future payments (assuming the client stays subscribed)..or folks like the idea of passive income in future?
 
incentivesoft said:
Thanks for some great input. Just one follow up, since our software is adopted on subscription basis, if we are offering recurring commission for as long as customer is active against one time fee..how does that get received? Is it fair to assume as an affiliate the focus is going to be on immediate yield and not so much on future payments (assuming the client stays subscribed)..or folks like the idea of passive income in future?
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Obviously I can only answer for me here.
The recurring would be a big help, but would still restrict to SEO traffic in my book (lower risk of loss if it doesnt work out)

Don't look at the affiliate's need as being for 'immediate yield', but rather as a need for our keyword data and whatnot. Without that there's not much we can do.
Another payout structure I recall seeing somewhere(I think for a dating site?) was a tiny initial payout on the lead (a couple bucks in this case) with a larger payout after the person converts. That's a good idea as a compromise as well, because it gives us something to help cover overhead. Beyond the keyword/conversion data, the big worry with the 30 day trial and payout after that is the worry of losing money. That altered structure may help, since it'd at least be possible to make sure that the worst case scenario was breaking even.

In the end though, I think you're going to have to take on some risk, sorry. We take on an absolute assload of risk when we promote for something, and it's quite frankly unfair to expect us to take on more to keep yours at a consistant zero-risk.

I'm not a big software promoter though, so perhaps they have a different outlook on it.
 
Thanks a lot and btw, great points about google's data power on SlightlyShadySEO site..I guess we will go ahead and have 2 options one small fee if people want to just get money for sign ups and other option wait for subscription fee to kick in and get 20% recurring.. and instead of using affiliate networks do it inhouse so that we and affiliates have flexibility..then the question will be how to recruit them but I guess there will be no easy answer for that so pause it here..
 
yeah do the traditional casino model. Offer a straight up cpa offer like $1 for every confirmed download for those who want to do that, and then a $5 for a paid user signup plus xx% recurring for those who would prefer that. You will need to monitor each affiliates traffic to see who is sending quality leads on each model.
 
greatcontent said:
You will need to monitor each affiliates traffic to see who is sending quality leads on each model.
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Agreed. The problem with the pay per download model(though obviously I advocate it here) is that it's sooo easy to fraud. One thing I'd say is perhaps have a minimum conversion threshold? Not sure how to get around it honestly. It'd help if you had some in-house conversion numbers to use as a standard and to let affiliates know what to expect.
 
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