Subscription and product affiliate management

[Jennifer Hunt]

I've been thinking about how to set up my affiliate program... right now I have subscription affiliates set up in amember. I'm searching for the right product affiliate manager for ebooks and such (unfortunately I have been using paydotcom).

Question -
Is there a smooth way to have a product affiliate move into being a subscription affiliate?

For example, if I were to run a promotion on a single product (ebook) and had JV's promote it -- then, if the people they promote not only buy the product but sign up for a subscription (or vice versa), how would I track that?

Thanks!
Jenni Hunt

[Sam Heyer]

Hi Jennifer,

You'd need to have a central affiliate program. Many affiliate program scripts allow for this...

I'm Nitro Marketing's affiliate manager and we have it set so when you refer someone your affiliate ID is tracked to them for life ... so no matter what products we sell, you will get commission for everything they buy...

With most affiliate programs it's a simple click of a button to do this.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Talk soon,
Sam

[Mike Merz]

Nice follow up, Sam.

Hi, Jennifer .. ;)

Sam ... in your experiences, what would you name as quality software and services to get the job done for Jennifer?

iDev? Post Affilite Pro? JV Manager? Ultimate Affiliate?

... or should she go with an all in one like 1shoppingcart or Goldbar1?

I have my own opinions ... and will follow up after I get a little group feedback.

Best,

Mike

[Elizabeth Landers]

Morning all. I have experience with iDev and although I don't like to be negative...unless you're a programmer and can fix the scripts bugs yourself - be careful. It took me about 3 weeks to get a response (i had to call many times and sent several emails) and the general attitude was arrogant and downright rude. Once the problem was fixed (idev bug not my config) it seems to be working fine. I guess i just lost confidence in the product given the total lack of support.

I'm also interested in everyone's opinion on a quality script that comes with a bit of support if needed!

Have a great Sunday,

Elizabeth

[Jennifer Hunt]

How does a central affiliate program manage subscription commissions? My subscriptions/newsletters are set up through amember - I'm playing with a shopping cart system right now that has a nice affiliate program... and it manages affiliates so that the affiliate ID is tracked for life with the customer. But, I still can't figure out how to manage the affiliates for the subscriptions outside of amember. I would love to find a program that makes it so my affiliates can send a customer to any page/product I have and their ID will be tracked through ALL of my products - including subscriptions.

[Sam Heyer]

Thanks Mike!

To answer your question about different services I'll make a few quick notes about some and give my recommendation...

iDev - Elizabeth is right about the tedious fixes that need to take place with it ... it's not a bad affiliate program for starting up, but isn't very versatile when you get going. I've lost hours and hours of sleep over it and it's delayed a few of my launches (so that's not my top recommendation LOL)...

Ultimate Affiliate is one that I have set up with my company and have used once with no complaints. The only reason it's not my main solution right now is because it is very basic and very outdated... but it definitely gets the job done and makes it easier from an affiliate managers standpoint than some :-)

JV Manager - I love some of the stuff John Delavera comes out with and haven't heard many complaints about JV Manager... I haven't used it yet so I'm going to let you talk about this one Mike, but I don't have complaints about it...

Now my current system (because it was easiest for me at the time) is 1shoppingcart... the main problem I have with it is chargebacks with affiliate commissions ... I've had issues when an affiliate gets a sale and then that person refunds (sometimes my affiliates still get their commission)... other than that it's fairly simple and a great friend of mine who all of you know uses it with his affiliate program of 30,000 people -- so it's robust enough to handle a lot of growth...

Another downside of 1shoppingcart is their email client is horrible ... so you need to export your lists to send emails (but you should do this with most programs anyways)...

That's my two cents ... I'd love to hear your opinion on this Mike!

Talk soon,
Sam

[Mike Merz]

Hi, everyone.

Jennifer, it appears that what you're looking for could be accompilshed with Sunny Script's 'Your Affiliate' ... http://www.sunnyscript.com/item1.htm

True ... iDev and UA have support issues ... UA hasen't been updated in years, and support is almost non existant (it's a shame, too ... I can remember when EVERYONE used it).

JV Manager is good ... but you might as well wait till September and pick up JVM2.

As far as remote services, 1shoppingcart no doubt has email issues ... and unless they find a way to satisfy that downside, I'll have do go with Marc Goldman's Goldbar1 as an all in one ... or Affiliate Tracking Network - http://www.affiliatetracking.com/.

I'll be back with more ideas, tomorrow ... I'm beat! LOL

Mike

[Mike Merz]

Jennifer,

I got an answer for you from a guy that knows a lot more about affiliate software than I do ...


JVManager uses javascript to cope with this problem
and allow affiliates to direct users to any page on any server.
The admin of the affiliate program needs to insert a piece of
code in EACH page that participates to the affiliate program
and ALSO parse all links that lead from one page to another
through this js code.


Additionally, a certain way is used for adding the ID of the
affiliates inside aweber, so once a user subscribes with
the newsletter/course, ezine or anything, THROUGH an
affiliate then his/her ID is included to all follow up messages
for any product the admin mentions inside those messages
given that -as said- all pages are tied together.


You can see how this works, by visiting http://turbomegaevent.com
You can see the form there and you subscribe through your
ID then you will get my message with your ID in it.
Then you can see that Turbo Membership is promoted
through the thank you page. If you follow that link and click
the order link in the TM then you can see your ID in the link too.


This is how it works with JVManager.
JVM2 will be even more flexible.


John Delavera

Best,

Mike

[Sam Heyer]

That's awesome! I did not know that Mike...

Delavera's a smart guy :-)

Sam

[Peter Koning]

Hi Jennifer - this is probably too late a reply for you but feel free to stop by my site and compare some of the more popular packages out there. I look forward to adding JVM or JVM2 to it eventually.

We recently gave Post Affiliate Pro an award for their script.

Regards,
Peter