Affiliate stuff is all new to me and reading through the posts here has prompted me to talk to my business partner about Affiliate outlets to help promote and sell our new product/business. On looking through them a few months ago when I first started to think about this I was put off by the large initial fees (we are a new company without a marketing budget as such) everything is our own funds of course like many new company's. I appreciate the reason for payments to set a company up in a scheme, after all, you are then reliant on good affiliates hopefully making a lot of effort in return for a good commission. Its simply that initial setup cost that we would struggle with initially. And of course we are just starting to market, so its all money money money. Do you have any suggestions for a thrid party affiliate scheme that will charge the merchant as you go or perhaps not a large initail setup fee - one with a good track record. The product is ecommerce and the agreed commission would be excellent at 50% (£25) per successful lead which is only able to be certain after the initial money back period - would that prove a problem? Just wondered if anything came to mind where you could point me in the right direction please? - Any advice would help - please excuse me if I'm being a bit stupid - I really know nothing and have a lot to learn about this subject. We do have a kind of temporary affiliate situation that is in-house but its more a kind of recommend a friend situation really. Many thanks in advance, Faye GoCommerced.
Are you selling only in the UK? If not, check out shareasale. The upfront fee is around $700, I believe and the ongoing cost is 20% of affiliate commission (check their website to make sure). However, you also have to promote your own affiliate program to get some good affiliates, which will take effort!
Hi, Thanks - just had a look at Sharesale and will go back and have a good read through everything. No - we're not restricted to the UK at all, but we are based here and as such expect our initial market is probably here. Branching out to any country using $ / Euro / £ will be our first markets (or English speaking countries). So may need to see if Sharesale are able to disginuish allowing UK market use only, for a short while at least. I think our best solution would be to look at our own affiliate programme, but developing this on top of everything else at the moment means that we won't get this up and running for some time. I'm wondering if there are affiliate software programmes we could consider. Gosh - its quite a mine field. One thing for sure, we are a generous company and because once we have a customer the income is ongoing we have no problem with a generous commission, taking perhaps 50% of the setup fee which will range between £50 ($75) and £299 ($450) - which I think site owners would jump at. Thank you for your help - it's very much appreciated. Faye GoCommerced
Whoa thats good advice I did'nt realise it was that cheap to get started as $700 is not too bad considering the affiliates who you will have access too. Good advice