How to create a lifetime commissions affiliate program
| Category: Affiliate Marketing | Date: 2003-06-11 |
Affiliate programs are a great way of marketing online. You pay only for the results you get - if someone referred to your site makes a purchase.
But if you want to make a really strong affiliate program, with adoring-sales-machines for affiliates, it must be VERY attractive to affiliates.
The best way to do that is to offer lifetime commissions. That means you pay commissions on EVERY purchase a referred customer makes, not just on the first purchase.
If you pay commissions for every purchase that your referred customers make, you offer your affiliates the chance to earn a lot more money than they otherwise would.
That will strongly motivate your smarter affiliates to work harder and be creative, and that is EXACTLY what you want them to do.
There are lots of things that make an affiliate program great, but one of the most important is reliable tracking.
==============================
The magic ingredient: Tracking
==============================
If an affiliate sends you a customer, the affiliate must earn a commission when that customer makes a purchase.
You would not have that customer if the affiliate had not referred them, so the affiliate deserves to be rewarded.
To achieve this you must track all referrals reliably, both online and off.
You should use cookies to store the referring affiliates ID number. You should set them with no expiry date, but they will inevitably be lost well within a few months, if not weeks, after they are set.
Browsers have a limit to the number of cookies they can store. A lot of web sites now use cookies. This means that your cookies will often be overwritten by those from other web sites.
You must make sure that your cookies work with Internet Explorer 6, which will discard cookies not compliant with P3P standards.
Details:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpriv/html/ie6privacyfeature.asp
Tracking by IP address is not an accurate method of long-term tracking, however it is an effective way to track visitors during their FIRST visit to your site.
It is a good idea to use IP tracking to catch any people who have cookies disabled.
Every time your affiliates send someone to their affiliate URL, your server should send them to either a dynamically generated or pre-generated page with their affiliate ID embedded in it. The affiliates ID should also be stored in the URL, so that if the customer bookmarks and returns, the affiliate is still credited with the sale.
In your database of customer profiles, you should store the ID of the affiliate who referred each customer. Whenever a customer "profile" makes a purchase (online or off) you should credit the appropriate affiliate(s) for the sale.
Storing the affiliates ID in the customers profile is the best, most reliable way to track in the long term, both offline and on.
Some systems also allow you to track offline by supplying the user with a fake phone extension. This extension is actually the referring affiliates ID. You can also ask people faxing you to quote an order number - which includes the affiliates ID.
To catch any who "slip though the cracks", your order processing software should scan your order history for any orders going to the same name, e-mail address or phone number of a customer, and pay the referring affiliate their due commission.
========================================
Where to get affiliate tracking software
========================================
You have two options: build or buy.
--------------------------------------------------
Buying affiliate software
--------------------------------------------------
Buying affiliate tracking software is the way to go. It is so much cheaper than developing it yourself, and quality is guaranteed.
There is only one merchant offering a system that can handle true lifetime commissions: My Affiliate Program, with its LifeTime Commissions module add-on.
This is the only system custom-built for lifetime commissions, and its fresh off the production line (December 2001).
There is one other good near-lifetime system - Ultimate Affiliate.
It is not specifically designed for lifetime commissions, but it can handle residual commissions with ease.
------------------------------------
My Affiliate Program
------------------------------------
This is a great affiliate tracking software suite, recently made even better by the addition of the LifeTime Commissions module.
It is run by Kowabunga Technologies, and was honored with the "Editors Choice" Award by Dr. Ralph Wilson of Wilson Internet, who called it "the Cadillac of its category."
Wilson Web:
http://wilsonweb.com
It is hosted on Kowabungas secure servers, though a version hosted on your own domain is possible. Over 500 Merchants use MYAP.
It tracks primarily by a cookie for the first purchase. CGI/ASP tracking is also available, and it can even track sales made over the phone.
Affiliate management is also simple, with automated sign-up and a clear interface.
You can even reward your top earning affiliates with bonuses that can be easily and securely awarded.
The LifeTime Commissions module itself works by generating a "LifeTime identifier" when your customers make a purchase.
This field can be anything you want, like the customers surname plus the last 5 digits of their credit card, their name and phone number, or any other combination you can think of.
When a sale is made this field is compared with a table that contains a list of these fields and the affiliate that referred them. If it finds a match, it awards the due commission.
If it doesnt find a match, it then looks for an affiliate ID in the cookie and makes a new entry to the lifetime identifier database.
A simple, yet highly effective system. Database tracking is the most reliable way to track in the long term.
I highly recommend MYAP with the LifeTime Commissions module for lifetime tracking.
My Affiliate Program Software:
http://www.myaffiliateprogram.com
------------------------------------
Ultimate Affiliate
------------------------------------
Ultimate Affiliate is a good PERL software suite for UNIX servers. Ultimate Affiliate tracks by cookie, IP address, and can produce dynamic or static web pages that have the ID of the referring affiliate embedded in all internal URLs. All your affiliates details are stored in a MySQL database.
With a knowledge of PERL and HTML you can customize virtually any page created by the software.
This software can easily handle recurring commissions, and has graphical stats for both you and your affiliates. It can handle up to twelve tiers of commissions.
I recommend you do not pay out on more than two tiers. More than two tiers is multi-level marketing, which generally has a bad image on the Internet because it attracts spammers. MLM products also tend to be over-priced to pay for the many tiers of commissions
Ultimate Affiliate:
http://www.groundbreak.com
================================================
Give your affiliates the right tools for the job
================================================
One thing that really makes some programs stand head-and-shoulders above the rest is real-time tracking that shows affiliates the conversion rates for their various links.
That means affiliates can see which of their various links are performing and get an idea why, and what links arent and how they could be improved.
Affiliates should be able to see the number of click-throughs to each of their different links, the number of sales that each link has made, and the conversion rate for each link should be calculated for them.
This enables them to figure out how to improve their links, and thus make more money for themselves, and for you.
They should also be able to set the landing page for these links, so that they can link to specific products.
Affiliates who link to and promote specific products are a lot more successful than those who simply promote your site in general.
The shorter and less your links look like referral URLs the better. Some people recognize affiliate URLs, and are suspicious of them.
Consider the following (imaginary) URLs:
http://www.pottery-store.com?more-info
http://www.pottery-store.com/cgi-bin/affiliate-referral.cgi?affiliate12341
The first one (where "more-info" is the affiliates username) is much more likely to lure a click-through.
A big advantage of short referral URLs is they are easier to put into newsletters, which are a highly effective way to advertise online.
=============================
Help your affiliates help you
=============================
Ninety percent of affiliates wont make a lot of money for you. They need encouragement, motivation, and help.
Consider giving performance bonuses to the top earners. Run a monthly newsletter and praise your top affiliates in it.
Tell your other affiliates how the top earners did it, and about the performance bonus you gave them. Give your affiliates ideas on how to promote your products best.
Your top earners will appreciate the ego massage, and your other affiliates will find out whats possible if they put their mind to it.
For more details see:
How to make your affiliates enthusiastically loyal http://www.associateprograms.com/search/affiliate-loyalty.shtml
Remember, when you help your affiliates get sales, you help yourself get sales.
==============
The end result
==============
Starting a lifetime affiliate program is not easy, but the rewards are worth it.
To make your affiliate program successful, you need to make it attractive to affiliates, and the best way to do that is offer good rewards.
If you pay lifetime commissions you offer affiliates the opportunity to earn more money than they normally would. They will work harder for the better commissions and in the end, it will pay off with a better, more effective affiliate program, that is more profitable for you.
About the Author
Christopher Pearce runs LifetimeCommissions.com, which reviews lifetime and residual commission affiliate programs. Keep up-to-date with the latest lifetime programs. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter - Send a blank e-mail to: lifetimecommissions-subscribe@topica.com
Webmaster@LifetimeCommissions.com
http://LifetimeCommissions.com
But if you want to make a really strong affiliate program, with adoring-sales-machines for affiliates, it must be VERY attractive to affiliates.
The best way to do that is to offer lifetime commissions. That means you pay commissions on EVERY purchase a referred customer makes, not just on the first purchase.
If you pay commissions for every purchase that your referred customers make, you offer your affiliates the chance to earn a lot more money than they otherwise would.
That will strongly motivate your smarter affiliates to work harder and be creative, and that is EXACTLY what you want them to do.
There are lots of things that make an affiliate program great, but one of the most important is reliable tracking.
==============================
The magic ingredient: Tracking
==============================
If an affiliate sends you a customer, the affiliate must earn a commission when that customer makes a purchase.
You would not have that customer if the affiliate had not referred them, so the affiliate deserves to be rewarded.
To achieve this you must track all referrals reliably, both online and off.
You should use cookies to store the referring affiliates ID number. You should set them with no expiry date, but they will inevitably be lost well within a few months, if not weeks, after they are set.
Browsers have a limit to the number of cookies they can store. A lot of web sites now use cookies. This means that your cookies will often be overwritten by those from other web sites.
You must make sure that your cookies work with Internet Explorer 6, which will discard cookies not compliant with P3P standards.
Details:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpriv/html/ie6privacyfeature.asp
Tracking by IP address is not an accurate method of long-term tracking, however it is an effective way to track visitors during their FIRST visit to your site.
It is a good idea to use IP tracking to catch any people who have cookies disabled.
Every time your affiliates send someone to their affiliate URL, your server should send them to either a dynamically generated or pre-generated page with their affiliate ID embedded in it. The affiliates ID should also be stored in the URL, so that if the customer bookmarks and returns, the affiliate is still credited with the sale.
In your database of customer profiles, you should store the ID of the affiliate who referred each customer. Whenever a customer "profile" makes a purchase (online or off) you should credit the appropriate affiliate(s) for the sale.
Storing the affiliates ID in the customers profile is the best, most reliable way to track in the long term, both offline and on.
Some systems also allow you to track offline by supplying the user with a fake phone extension. This extension is actually the referring affiliates ID. You can also ask people faxing you to quote an order number - which includes the affiliates ID.
To catch any who "slip though the cracks", your order processing software should scan your order history for any orders going to the same name, e-mail address or phone number of a customer, and pay the referring affiliate their due commission.
========================================
Where to get affiliate tracking software
========================================
You have two options: build or buy.
--------------------------------------------------
Buying affiliate software
--------------------------------------------------
Buying affiliate tracking software is the way to go. It is so much cheaper than developing it yourself, and quality is guaranteed.
There is only one merchant offering a system that can handle true lifetime commissions: My Affiliate Program, with its LifeTime Commissions module add-on.
This is the only system custom-built for lifetime commissions, and its fresh off the production line (December 2001).
There is one other good near-lifetime system - Ultimate Affiliate.
It is not specifically designed for lifetime commissions, but it can handle residual commissions with ease.
------------------------------------
My Affiliate Program
------------------------------------
This is a great affiliate tracking software suite, recently made even better by the addition of the LifeTime Commissions module.
It is run by Kowabunga Technologies, and was honored with the "Editors Choice" Award by Dr. Ralph Wilson of Wilson Internet, who called it "the Cadillac of its category."
Wilson Web:
http://wilsonweb.com
It is hosted on Kowabungas secure servers, though a version hosted on your own domain is possible. Over 500 Merchants use MYAP.
It tracks primarily by a cookie for the first purchase. CGI/ASP tracking is also available, and it can even track sales made over the phone.
Affiliate management is also simple, with automated sign-up and a clear interface.
You can even reward your top earning affiliates with bonuses that can be easily and securely awarded.
The LifeTime Commissions module itself works by generating a "LifeTime identifier" when your customers make a purchase.
This field can be anything you want, like the customers surname plus the last 5 digits of their credit card, their name and phone number, or any other combination you can think of.
When a sale is made this field is compared with a table that contains a list of these fields and the affiliate that referred them. If it finds a match, it awards the due commission.
If it doesnt find a match, it then looks for an affiliate ID in the cookie and makes a new entry to the lifetime identifier database.
A simple, yet highly effective system. Database tracking is the most reliable way to track in the long term.
I highly recommend MYAP with the LifeTime Commissions module for lifetime tracking.
My Affiliate Program Software:
http://www.myaffiliateprogram.com
------------------------------------
Ultimate Affiliate
------------------------------------
Ultimate Affiliate is a good PERL software suite for UNIX servers. Ultimate Affiliate tracks by cookie, IP address, and can produce dynamic or static web pages that have the ID of the referring affiliate embedded in all internal URLs. All your affiliates details are stored in a MySQL database.
With a knowledge of PERL and HTML you can customize virtually any page created by the software.
This software can easily handle recurring commissions, and has graphical stats for both you and your affiliates. It can handle up to twelve tiers of commissions.
I recommend you do not pay out on more than two tiers. More than two tiers is multi-level marketing, which generally has a bad image on the Internet because it attracts spammers. MLM products also tend to be over-priced to pay for the many tiers of commissions
Ultimate Affiliate:
http://www.groundbreak.com
================================================
Give your affiliates the right tools for the job
================================================
One thing that really makes some programs stand head-and-shoulders above the rest is real-time tracking that shows affiliates the conversion rates for their various links.
That means affiliates can see which of their various links are performing and get an idea why, and what links arent and how they could be improved.
Affiliates should be able to see the number of click-throughs to each of their different links, the number of sales that each link has made, and the conversion rate for each link should be calculated for them.
This enables them to figure out how to improve their links, and thus make more money for themselves, and for you.
They should also be able to set the landing page for these links, so that they can link to specific products.
Affiliates who link to and promote specific products are a lot more successful than those who simply promote your site in general.
The shorter and less your links look like referral URLs the better. Some people recognize affiliate URLs, and are suspicious of them.
Consider the following (imaginary) URLs:
http://www.pottery-store.com?more-info
http://www.pottery-store.com/cgi-bin/affiliate-referral.cgi?affiliate12341
The first one (where "more-info" is the affiliates username) is much more likely to lure a click-through.
A big advantage of short referral URLs is they are easier to put into newsletters, which are a highly effective way to advertise online.
=============================
Help your affiliates help you
=============================
Ninety percent of affiliates wont make a lot of money for you. They need encouragement, motivation, and help.
Consider giving performance bonuses to the top earners. Run a monthly newsletter and praise your top affiliates in it.
Tell your other affiliates how the top earners did it, and about the performance bonus you gave them. Give your affiliates ideas on how to promote your products best.
Your top earners will appreciate the ego massage, and your other affiliates will find out whats possible if they put their mind to it.
For more details see:
How to make your affiliates enthusiastically loyal http://www.associateprograms.com/search/affiliate-loyalty.shtml
Remember, when you help your affiliates get sales, you help yourself get sales.
==============
The end result
==============
Starting a lifetime affiliate program is not easy, but the rewards are worth it.
To make your affiliate program successful, you need to make it attractive to affiliates, and the best way to do that is offer good rewards.
If you pay lifetime commissions you offer affiliates the opportunity to earn more money than they normally would. They will work harder for the better commissions and in the end, it will pay off with a better, more effective affiliate program, that is more profitable for you.
About the Author
Christopher Pearce runs LifetimeCommissions.com, which reviews lifetime and residual commission affiliate programs. Keep up-to-date with the latest lifetime programs. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter - Send a blank e-mail to: lifetimecommissions-subscribe@topica.com
Webmaster@LifetimeCommissions.com
http://LifetimeCommissions.com
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