affiliate marketing for resellers?

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Posted by ivaluehosting, 07-08-2004, 06:09 PM
I am opening up a hosting reseller account and I was wondering if any of you guys use affiliates to market your hosting packages and any hints, tips, or information you could provide on the subject. My reseller account is expandable (I can upgrade the account as I grow.) I have done a search here but did not really see any information that deals with resellers and marketing using affiliates to sell the packages. Any help, suggestions, or info would be great thanks.
Posted by BF-Gary, 07-08-2004, 06:17 PM
It's not that hard to set one up. There are some scripts at www.hotscripts.com or you can spend some money and have someone like www.cj.com get affiliates for you. I think companies like Ipowerweb grow so big because of the affiliate marketing they do.
Posted by ldcdc, 07-08-2004, 08:02 PM
Or more exact because of the high commissions they're willing to pay.
Posted by NexDog, 07-08-2004, 08:45 PM
I've yet to find an affiliate plan that wasn't a nightmare to administrate and didn't have holes in it.
Posted by ldcdc, 07-08-2004, 09:09 PM
Can you elaborate a bit Laurence? I find this rather interesting (it's easy to guess why).
Posted by BF-Gary, 07-09-2004, 01:20 AM
Laurence, I agree we tested over 75+ scripts before deciding to build our own. There is just to many holes where people will scam you or the tool just doesn't does work with your current checkout methods.
Posted by NexDog, 07-09-2004, 03:59 AM
Dan, exactly as Gary says. If I could find an affiliate program where I could press a button at the end of each month and pay all affiliates without having to check each case, I would buy it in a heartbeat.
Posted by Plexi_Hosting, 07-09-2004, 09:53 AM
with the high number of fraudulent affiliates out there, it would be in your best interest to check what you can and get a (or get in a) program with frequently updated anti-fraud technology AND human measures to beat fraud. This also helps please your honest affiliates by showing a 'human touch' instead of just a machine/script working.
Posted by ldcdc, 07-09-2004, 07:14 PM
Thank you guys for the explanation.
Posted by shaokhee, 07-09-2004, 09:07 PM
can anyone give me more detail information? how affiliate work/ normally cost or risk...and some important note. thanks.
Posted by Plexi_Hosting, 07-10-2004, 03:35 PM
shaokhee: that is a pretty broad question. Affiliate marketing is great on the surface because you only pay when they provide a sale for you. So you know what the breakdown is there, either a percentage or flat payment. However, what you need to take into account is that you will have to spend at least some time running your affiliate program (it won't sell itself, people will need your assistance and guidance to 'pre-sell' folks on your product before they get to your site). You must also take into account fraud, and that is where planning comes in. You must have safeguards against fraud and these should be both technology-based and business-based (TOS stating what you can/can't/will/won't do, etc).
Posted by ClubHouse Hosting, 07-10-2004, 09:54 PM
I use WHM Autopilot which has a built in affiliate program, does anybody have any experience with using it? Is it any good?
Posted by shaokhee, 07-10-2004, 11:19 PM
buscemi, Thanks for your information. I am using H-Sphere right now, which has built in affiliate progrm. Do you have any experience with it. If I want to start an affiliate program, what should I do? Can you please give some guide/steps to me or any recommend? Thanks.
Posted by Shaw Networks, 07-11-2004, 12:04 AM
I believe there is an affiliate script out there along the name of Ultimate Affiliate or something close to that. It's considered the best affiliate script available, but it won't come cheap Try a Google search for it, I'm sure it'll show up right at the top.
Posted by Plexi_Hosting, 07-11-2004, 01:51 PM
shaokhee: I have never used WHM's affiliate program functionality. I myself would find a script as IncognitoNet has suggested. You could always go with one of the heavy hitters in affiliate marketing (also mentioned somewhere in this thread), but I don't know the scope of your business - those are probably expensive. try this url for more affiliate program information. It is from the affiliate perspective and might give you some ideas into how they think: http://www.abestweb.com
Posted by Plexi_Hosting, 07-12-2004, 08:37 AM
Just thought of this too: If you want to try to grow your affiliate program, you might want to start out with a private (maybe even beta) launch. You can set up a script or get in a program and hand-pick affiliates to help you get the program up and running. They will benefit from some very personal attention and you will benefit from their input (and business!)
Posted by shaokhee, 07-12-2004, 11:32 AM
Thanks for your link. I am just a beginner, scripting maybe too advance for me but I will look into it.
Posted by Plexi_Hosting, 07-12-2004, 11:35 AM
do you email your hosting clients often? Why not offer a low-budget referral program to them? Doesn't have to be scripted but you need to figure out a way to make sure you know who referred a new customer. Maybe make a special signup page with a field for 'referred by' that simply fires off an email to you. That could get the process going, given the incentive is good.
Posted by SkylarGivens, 07-13-2004, 02:17 AM
I really like having an affiliate program for my host because it doesn't cost much and I get TONS more customers.
Posted by Plexi_Hosting, 07-13-2004, 02:19 AM
what do you use, Skylar?
Posted by senaia, 07-13-2004, 09:25 AM
Yes, you can get tons of clients but you would need tons of affiliates to do so. Keep in mind that not every affiliate is a sale maker. You seriosly need to be carefull with account fraud as it will happen. Even Commission Junction can't protect them selfs from fraud. Ex. Stolen credit cards online. Ipowerweb and the others are well known not because they only have an affiliate program with cj, but because they pay us very high commissions to make them sales and they OVERSELL. I get ipowerweb a client that pays them $90 for a hosting account. They pay me $80 commission for the sale and pay around $5 for commission junction and they only make $5. BUT when the next year comes and the client pays again to renew his account....they get all the $90. (If the client renew his account ) Its a risky business what ipowerweb and the other big companies are doing but its non of my business, I just get them clients I would say go for it and work on growing your affiliates number so that you get high sales rate. But keep in mind that that it will take time but its worth it. (Its like Multi Level Marketing) Last Tip: always take a look at the affiliate web site before accepting his application, you don't want your site to be listed with porno pictures or something like that... Thanx For Reading
Posted by MonkeyC, 10-07-2005, 12:18 PM
I'm been an affiliate with Commission Junction for a few months now and have made only one commission from hundreds of links. In their reports I see numbers of clicks that far exceed the number of impressions for the same ad. One ad I removed from my site and the next day it had hundreds of clicks, even though their own report showed there were no impressions. Their reporting seems inaccurate to me, so I was wondering if anybody actually makes any money by being an affiliate with them. I contacted them about this problem and it took more than a week to get a response. Their reponse was basically a sales pitch saying they process billions of transactions a month. They never answered my question with regard to how you can get clicks on an ad that had no impressions according to their own statistics.
Posted by Plexi_Hosting, 10-07-2005, 12:28 PM
You'll most likely also end up getting a stock question about whether any links were altered, yadda yadda, as it is very common for affiliates to remove the impression-tracking portion of the link (usually a 1x1 pixel). However, it is also common for these to be blocked anyway (which is a truly legitimate reason for some of those mismatches). However, these are stock answers/questions that they'll give and don't apply in every case. So, unfortunately they are commonly easy front-line responses for them to give.
Posted by MonkeyC, 10-07-2005, 12:49 PM
Well, I followed all their instructions and placed the links as they instructed so there's no link altering on my part. After reading many other posts on this board, however, I'm seeing that many others, both merchants and publishers, have had plenty of problems with CJ and other programs.