I try to find ways to maximize sales for a web hosting company
My question is :

Can affiliate networks (outsource affiliate) produce sales from their existing affiliate database ?

I had an experience before some years with bcentral.com but didn¢t produce a single sale even the amount was good for a period of 3 months. So I left.

Also had a contact with Commission Junction (again before some years) but these people are rood and only if you say you¢re representative of ebay.com or amazon.com may talk to you. Also they are VERY expensive and I¢m not sure they will return with sales the money they get.

Now I saw clixgalore.com which looks promising but I don¢t know if it will be effective.
There are two additional sites for UK and Australia but two guys in the reviews of alexa.com say :

Communication is Key, 4/24/03
Reviewer: Lexie Harrell
I've been an affiliate of this network for some time now . Though I seem to be earning money and reached payment minimum nearly 2 months ago , I am still waiting to receive my payment ,yet the funds have been debited from my account . I have contacted them with no reply . FYI , *ADVERISERS* you mght have paid , but SOME affiliates aren't getting those funds .

This service sucks bigtime, 11/20/02
Reviewer: Jeremy D
Don't listen to the other reviews, these guys run the site so of course they will give a good review. I waste $1000 dollars on this service, they promised me 400 targeted visitors per day and they delivered about 50 visitors a day, my website did not get one sale from this service and they would not respond to my emails. Avoid them like the plague unless you want to throw away your money

Shareasale.com looks like bcentral.com as I read some reviews (no real sale for long time)




I want to suggest an amount of 40$ at a total yearly web hosting payment of 115$ (75$ will go to the web hosting company and 40$ to the affiliate)

Did anyone work with an affiliate network and produce good results so that he can have an increase of 30% or more ?


What do you suggest ?

There are no webhostingtalk members used affiliate networks before ?

What is your affiliate network you used ?

Tell me your experience, opinions, suggestions about.

Thanks

Hmmm... Maybe you've hit an avenue no one here has tried.

Aaron

My suggestion is never to use outsourced affilates without a proper business contract with guranteed number of sales (or quota shall we say). Sure the comission rate would be much higher, but it will definitely produce a sale.

Look for local companies who'd be willing to do this since you'd have a much better chance of not being scammed by various 'guaranteed visitors' type of things.

You'd also know a few faces in their company, so you can always chase after them with a sledgehammer of some sort if it doesn't work out :D

We have just set up our own internal affiliate program. Once its been running for a while I will try and remember to come back here and update you guys.

A question on this subject.

If you are using an outsourced affiliate program then most of the affilaites will not be your customers. That means they will be advertising a hosting company while using a different one. Most people brwosing the site will probably not know that the affiliate does not know you are not using the advertised hosts services. But the affiliate could run into two problems.

1)Will their host allow them to advertise another hosting company. (Would the host be allowed to stop them, I am not sure)

2)If they are using a different host and the browsers know they are will the add be taken seriously. (Thinking about it I doubt this is a big problem at all. Many people advertise services they have never used before)

Kind Regards

I don't think a host has the right to not allow any sort of advertising (including other hosting companies ads). What they can do is trowing in their own affiliate program though.

It may be a good idea to let your customers know that you have a affiliate program. That way they are live running excamples themself, which of course is more trustfull than advertising an other host than you use yourself :D

The good thing about outsourcing your affiliate program apart from piece of mind with the affiliate management is that they offer you the opportunity to take more members from their affiliate database. (according to the original idea of course)

However i'm not sure if this turns to real sales or not.

As i said with the old bcentral.com none bought a hosting plan even they joined few sites

I¢m thinking shareasale.com as a positive network for this purpose
I send them an email but still didn¢t reply

i used shareasale and this was one of my worst mistakes in my life .. no sales at all ... or fraud sales and the worse is 100s of affiliates with very poor designs and content .. i think if a potinital customer saw my banner in one of such sites he will never trust paying for us

2Mhost : Did you ask for refund (or do they offer a refund at all) ?
When did you use them (year-month) and when did you stop ?

The reason for outsourcing the affiliate program is not only for management or paying the affiliates but display our site to their potential affiliate members database

I hear bad thinks about most of the affiliate networks i see around.
The only good enough seems to be CJ (even as I said they are VERY impudent people) but is very expensive and to be honest if i was sure that they will return the "investment" i would seriously think to join but i'm 99% that it will be time and money waste

I managed to find a valuable list of affiliate network but i can't say it helped me a lot
http://www.affiliate-review.com/reviews/reviews_list.php?id=1
all the reviews look good, the links to these networks are affiliate links and the reviews to their forum are from 2002


Do you have any suggestions ?

If you don't want to put up with the bad quality of sites and/or small amount of sales being generated through affiliate networks, and don't have CJ money, your best bet probably would be to approach webhosting directories and small to medium-sized advertising networks in order to generate sales.

Although these outlets would not be as easy-going on working on a CPA basis compared to affiliate networks, they are likely to help you realize your selling potential quite well.

Other things you could consider is signing up with DirectResponse's CPA Network, DirectLeads - their publisher database is considerable, and some other hosts seem to have success using them.

Hope this helps you...

Mike

DirectLeads aren't paid only for leads and not per sales ?

Originally posted by WebSeeker
DirectLeads aren't paid only for leads and not per sales ?

The network supports both pay-per-lead and pay-per-sale programs...

I think i'm going to give http://www.myreferer.com a try. 10 Day trial to see how the software works and a fairly inexpensive month to month cost.

then again, i may just write my own as i want something that can do sales & client tracking throughout my website

If you have a good product, affiliate programs like CJ will definitely produce more sales. I have over 100 web hosting sign-ups (spread out between about 10 companies) through CJ this year alone. I also have about 60 sign-ups with one of my independent companies, and about 30 or 40 more sign-ups with the rest.

Whether you will get a return on your money is another question though. That I don' t know.

iceishot : Taking your orders numbers as an example for one year as you mentioned it and the our current rates
If i sell to all the signups 200 x (115-40 which the affiliate cut=75$) = 15,000$

From these 15,000$ i will have to deduct for CJ.com :
2,250$ One-time fee for account setup and access.
250$ The annual maintenance fee
(200 x 40$)*30% = 2,400$
500 x 12 monhts monthly minimum because you can't do all the 200 signups in one month = 6,000$

2checkout.com will take (23,000$ * 5,5%) + (200 x 0.45)= 1355$
and let's say a dedicated server cost 12 x 150 = 1800$

my profit from the 15,000$ is 945$ per year without calculating the support expenses for these 200 domains

So with real facts if Commission Junction can't produce a real big number of singups (1000 or more) you can't take your money back at least within the first year.

I couldn't quite follow your numbers so I'm not quite sure if you figured right. Those 200 sales were for the first quater of this year (not for a full year). Also I'm only one affiliate. What about the rest that are pushing hosting through CJ. You might want to ask your question here...
http://abw.infopop.cc/6/ubb.x?a=frm&s=548608979&f=106607689

Part of the problem of using an outsourced network, just like keywords, they market is flooded. I see so many on second tier affiliate programs, and some are just offering outrageous payouts, $80 for a signup for an accont that only generates $100 a year etc. I just don't see the value you in it right now.

Chet

After some carefull considering, It isn't worth it :)

Plain and simple.

My affiliate program will be marketed to helping my existing clients
spread the word and giving them some return on that. I will not bother getting into the payout game and fighting for affiliates outside of my customer base for these simple reasons.

1. Cost: I can market my services alot cheaper then the acquisition costs by paying out affiliates.

2. Management: I can better control who speaks for my company when it is someone who is under my control doing so. I'm not gonna trust someone who can spam, put words in my mouth or push my services in a fashion i don't support.

3. Politics: Again, I don't want to put myself in the position where i rely on someone who is working for whatever provides them the best return with no values outside of that. I mean if i hire an employee i don't expect them to stay forever, but atleast i get some respect and have some control over that employee with regards to his position in my company. Affiliates don't offer this and try to reverse everything on you that your working to support them. Not a very friendly situation.

I know for some it may work. But i'll just be happy providing my clients a payback and work from there. My cost of acquiring a client is 1/20th or 1/100th the average payout of affiliates for hosting so i can't imagine it being a cost effective way of expanding my sales force.

Especially since the link marketing and referr marketing is now flushed out through the major search engines.. means those dead affiliates that used to be another click to your site can end up costing you more in ratings then anything else..

for retail outlets, it may work.. but geez.. why spend so much time marketing your business to an affiliate team and sales force when you can hire your own and focus on selling your business for alot cheaper?

I see that 5 people voted "YES" which means that affiliate networks helped them
Can you tell us how and which networks helped you ?

I'm thinking to join the bronze level of Clixgalore.com
Any experience for this network ?

Also shareasale.com looks good too.
Any experience from this ?

Any suggestions for a good results based network that you know it's reliable and produce results (except CJ.com) ?