Advice wanted on affiliate program

[Theexcelclub]

Hi all,

I am launching a membership based website in March and I initally wanted a full affiliate program, however costs will not allow this. I have come up with a possible solution and would like your advice.

I have outsourced the construction of my site, found them on Guru.com. What I am now thinking of offering instead of a full affiliate program is as follows (but Im not sure it will work)

To be an affiliate you must be a member of the site
the commission is 20%
When a new member signs up, they will be asked if they were reffered and will be asked for the email address of the person who refered them
every 2 weeks I will make payment by paypal.


I will not be able to give banners or linkes that my system can identify so this is more a referral program than an affiliate.

Would love your advice and comments

Thanks
Paula

[Yuliya Mironova]

Originally Posted by Theexcelclub

To be an affiliate you must be a member of the site the commission is 20%
When a new member signs up, they will be asked if they were reffered and will be asked for the email address of the person who refered them
every 2 weeks I will make payment by paypal.

I wish you well with it, Paula, but my guess is that it will be difficult to attract affiliates on that basis: these days people expect an automated, cookie-based system with which they'll be credited their commissions without the people they refer having to volunteer their referrer's email address without having any particular incentive to do so.

[MikeF0421]

An experienced affiliate marketer is going to look at that and see too many things that can go wrong...

The person might mistype the email address.
The person might just be lazy and skip the step all together.
The person might sign up three weeks later and not remember who it was that referred them in the first place.

Some also won't like the idea of having to be a member to promote it. You should at least offer some kind of incentive, such as if they refer X number of people, they get free membership themselves.

[Gayla]

Have you tried contacting the affiliate site to see what they may suggest? Perhaps they can help you set up something that may work to ensure you get credit for all your referrals.

I've found that contacting the affiliate manager is a good idea, they're usually very happy to work on a solution to my problem.

Good luck
Gayla

[websitemarketing]

I have to agree and want to add that unfortunately some people also have a natural aversion to giving credit to someone when they have no relational ties so if there is an option to do so, which you would obviously have to offer, they may skip the step all together and most affiliates would not be pleased with that possibility. I can't stake my life on it but I would there is some kind of tracking system that you could work with it just may take a lot more research.

[Lacie8]

to be brutally honest you are going to have a tough time with this type of affiliate program.

you really need to have specific affiliate links for your affiliates.

referral programs like this have a really tough time succeeding because no one bothers putting who referred them.

there are a lot of shopping carts that have built in affiliate tracking features that you could use at a very low cost.

for example one of my websites i run my affiliate program directly through my shopping cart and i use ultracart for the shopping cart. but there are lots of options out there. i pay about 55-60 a month for the shopping cart but for all the features it provides i think it's worth it, especially to get additional sales and traffic from affiliates and keep them happy with accurate reports and tracking

[wahmommy]

I just ran across this post ... I realize it's an old one but I was wondering how things went. I have to agree w/ pretty much everything above. More than likely you're going to have a very hard time attracting affiliates with a set up like this.

May I ask what financial restraints are holding you back? Are you aware that there is affiliate programs available that is free - or at least more like its free until you make a sale. The program automatically takes their "commission" from each sale.

The two that come to mind quickly are PayDotCom.com & E-junkie.com. I'm sure there are others but those are ones off the top of my head and two of the more popular.

I of course am not exactly sure what the financial restraints but maybe this is a help?

Take care,
Anita DeFrank

[msanofsky]

Most people that get involved with affiliate marketing do so because they have no prior experience online or within the industry. Although i think your idea is good i just think that people are looking for more of an automated system that can walk them along the pathway to success.

[johnben1444]

You can find a lot of tools to help you. You might don't have to lean onto your own understanding, find experience marketer who are willing to partner with you.

I think you will find it easier.

[jjaysonn42]

I have to agree and want to add that unfortunately some people also have a natural aversion to giving credit to someone when they have no relational ties so if there is an option to do so, I think you will find it.
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