I want to offer an affiliate program where those who refer businesses to sign up with us will earn commission. What I know people will ask is, how can they track sales. So what can I offer for them to track sales? Please, please dont mention PHP - I'm crap at it.
If you are not willing to use php then you will maybe need to sign up with somebody like commission junction and they will manage the scheme for you (for a fee). How do you sell your products at the moment? Is there a backend you could add the scheme to?
C.J. is too expensive at the mo. We sell direct - standard form registration plus Paypal payments. OK, so maybe we'll give php a try - any ideas?
If you use a simple php script to set a cookie when the user visits yoursite.com/affiliatescript.php?aff=34 and then 301 redirect to yoursite.com (important). Then you use the value of the cookie to insert the affiliate id (in this case it would be affiliate 34) into a hidden form field in the order form. Each page on the site would need a script included at the top to check for the cookie.
Most affiliate tracking systems provide stats for your affiliates. The networks all do this too. Don't get lured into thinking it's just a few lines of code - maybe the actual tracking cookie bit is easy but there's more to affiliate management than that You can buy scripts for around $99 to do most of what you need. The vendors cover the market well. You get what you pay for. Regards, Peter
It depends on your needs. I have reviewed over 40 of them as of date - they're all on my site and you can compare them side-by-side. Regards, Peter