Hello all. Wondering where to begin. I am part owner in a semi succesful software company and want to start an affiliate program whereby we pay the refferer $200.00 per conversion. Where do I begin? Should I just contact linkshare or CJ? Do I need to do a lot of work to the shopping cart to recognise affiliate codes? (using agora cart) Any help is appreciated. -Henny
Well acctually, you should be looking at affiliate management scripts. There are really countless numbers of them and many have the ability to do different type of affiliate programs all in one. This includes PPC, Per Sale, even impressions. Take a look at http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Scripts_and_Programs/Affiliate_Programs/ for some ideas. Plenty scripts make it easy to set up with any cart, there isn't anything complex but adding tracker codes and such. Using CJ & Linkshare is having your affiliate program being managed by them and its kind of different. You are to decide if you think it would benifit you. However, I am not sure how they accept merchants or how the whole proccess is with applying to CJ ect. Best of luck. edit: Just to note, http://www.idevdirect.com/ looks great, take a look at it. However, you should check out hotscripts for other options and see whats right for you.
Henny, Before you look at technical solutions you should invest in planning your affiliate strategy and set some objectives. Once you've done that and you know which of the over 200 features and type of affiliate management solution is best for you, then start researching the various vendors and other practical considerations. Cheers, Peter