Can you help me get my program started?

Hi! This is my first post in this part of the forums and I would really appreciate some help and ideas from you more experienced guys.

First of all, the background: My site (www.japanese-name-translation.com) launched Jan 6th and has done well on some fortunate publicity to now be averaging 1,200 to 1,500 visitors per day without any Google or MSN yet. So, I have reached my first target of launching the site and getting a bunch of highly-targetted / fairly targetted visitors.

My next target is to improve the conversion rate and to do that there are several things I am working on right now to achieve that.

What I have noticed, though, is that I am making OK sales of my lower-priced items (kanji name images and special order translations) but I am finding it a lot more difficult to shift my more expensive (and more profitable) items - the Japanese calligraphy. This is where I think an affiliate program could make a good impact.

So, now you know the background, here are the questions:

1) What would be a sensible commission to pay? I am thinking of 15% per sale. If my affiliates are focussed on the high-value items (which I would be if I were them), they could see returns of about $22.50 per sale on average at this rate.

2) I need to do this in a cost-effective way: Most affiliate software is way way out of my league. Sure I may be able to afford $1000s when I am rich and famous, but the point is that I am not there yet. I also need something that is going to be fairly simple to set up. One program that has caught my eye (thanks to a competitor - lol!) is yourcom from http://www.yoursoft-tm.com/yourcom.htm. I like the price, simplicity and PR-passing potential, as well as the good ratings on hotscripts.com. Does anyone here use this themselves or work with a program that uses this? I would love to hear experiences from both sides of the fence.

3) Apart from a place to sign up, link text and banners, what else should I provide for my potential affiliates?

Wow! A lot of questions already! I'm going to shut up and listen now....

 

Hi!

I was also recently looking for affordable affiliate software and started this thread... http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=10218

Several people recommended www.idevdirect.com.

I haven't tried it yet, I was actually hunting down recommendations for a couple clients. Seems very affordable and full featured though.

Be sure to announce your program here on the DP boards once you get it up and running. I have a site that I think would be great to showcase your stuff!!!

 

Thanks Dreamshop!

I will look into that software. And I will make sure I announce the program when it is up and running. I'm sure a lot of people involved in selling gifts will realize that this is a unique product that makes a great personalized gift for a bunch of different occasions. 15% commission should also make it really worthwhile for whoever takes part in the affiliate program.

 

I've looked at Yoursoft and was not too impressed. There are over 20 other options for you that may be better value. IdevAffiliate looks good - you can get it hosted or installed on your server.

 

Wow, this old thread has been resurrected!

Thanks for the tip, asr_guy. Actually, since I started this thread I have looked at a number of options and finally settled with IDevAffiliate.

I just had Jim set it up for me last week, and I must say the testimonials on his site really are true: I know that RackSpace has trademarked "Fanatical Support", but I think it really belongs to this guy. He was answering my emails within minutes and had it set up only an hour or two after I had paid. And this was despite the fact that he had never integrated for my cart or payment provider before. He even added extra tracking which looks at data from my cart (such as customer email address and ID number) so that even if a user deletes the cookies from their PC and is using a different IP, they can still have the sale attributed to the right affiliate.

Right now I am still setting everything up in the management screen, and I have found it logical and intuitive to use, although I can see how it may be a little intimidating for a completely novice user. I am on vacation for a couple of weeks from tomorrow, so the program won't really get going until after that, but with the way things are going I imagine the software side at least is going to run smoothly and successfully.

So thank you to Dreamshop for the original recommendation!

 

Good job, crew!

 

Old threads still get viewed by new people - I think it's good to get the followup so new readers aren't left hanging wondering what ever happened.

I review these products and have a tool to let merchants compare them side-by-side for free.

Good luck with your programme!

Cheers.