I don't think CJ or clickbank will work for me; so, I think I need to put something together on my own. I'd love to get input from folks on the forum and, hopefully, will get some of you as affiliates when I'm set up. First, my business is personal insurance (auto, home, boat, motorcycle, etc.). You can click on my profile to view my web site. The e-commerce quoting engine is powered by my sponsoring insurance company; so, I have limited control over it. I can pass it tracking url's and get the data back. I was thinking of paying affiliates a certain amount of dollars for each person that they refer who completes a rate quote (no purchase necessary) for insurance through my site. Mechanically, I would screen/enroll affiliates and program my site to track the HTTP-referrer of each session and use that to track everything (might be good for linkbacks, too?). Would there be interest in something like this? What changes would you suggest in the general layout I described above? Or, do I have to go through a 3rd party for credibility/trust reasons? Thanks!
Take a look at this business model as they have grown tremendously over the last two years: http://www.hometownquotes.com/ You are better off using PPC to drive leads. If you are contemplating paying affiliates for completed applications you better count on $100 a finished app. It takes 10 times the leads to convert to a finished app.
Thanks - I'm familiar with them and have used other online lead providers with limited success. I also have PPC running and used to manage PPC when I was at one of the largest auto insurance companies in the US. The problem is that companies are paying way more per click than they'll ever recover over the life of the policies they sell (up to $40 per click for auto insurance!). When I think of submitted app, I think of a sold policy - and I would expect to pay at least several hundred dollars for that. I'd like to back it up one step in the process so that affiliates could get more frequent payouts. I would pay an affiliate if their referral completes enough information to get a quote or (or declination I guess).