We're looking to sign on as an advertiser with a good affiliate program to generate some more sales and Commission Junction looks pretty promising. They also seem pretty pricey. Anyone on here have anything good or bad to say about them? Also, I notice a lot of hosting companies provide say $20 per sale, yet they offer accounts for $9.95 per month , how do they do this? What happens when you pay an advertiser $20 for a sale on a $9.95 per month account and then the account cancels in a month or 2? Any good, cheaper alternatives to CJ?

Thanks

Im not sure how that works but I dont like CJ.com. I used it for a huge project I was working on and the revenue fell through. Ads die and no money was every really generated from it. :mad:

I have heard some bad things about them (nonpayment, etc). Something that looks good on paper and I have seen at least one site sing it, it pennyweb (http://www.pennyweb.com)

Originally posted by rbro
Anyone on here have anything good or bad to say about them?

:disagree: :disagree: :disagree:

You should consider CJ if you can spend thousands of $$ a month. Such an expensive campaign but the result is pretty good. But remember if you want to pay $20 per sale for publishers, you have to pay CJ $6 that totally you have to pay $26 for each sale

I'm thinking CJ is a little too pricy for us. Any other suggestions? I've got pennyweb, so far. Anything else? I also prefer to pay out commisions based on sales as opposed to impressions or clickthroughs....

Ohh, I though you were looking for ads to put on your site. My bad. You probably don't want to do popups, but I personally am considering this deal:
http://www.i-web-marketing.com/

FineClicks.com is a great one.

So is ShareASale.com

That i-web-marking thing is an interesting concept - have your site show in a pop-up.

Might be good for branding - but I very much doubt it will result in any sales.

Consumers looking for web hosting typically start on the search engine & go on from there to sites that can help them choose = targetted traffic. Those types of popup campaigns are probably better suited to a product that would be an impulse buy. Web hosting is not an impulse buy - it's a once in a while typically well thought out purchase.

Personally I think if your going to spend $100 on popup ads it would better spent on ads on sites like WebhostDir, or FindSp etc etc

Just my opinion

Still, with the I-web-marketing, If you figure $1 for every 1000 visitors, you might get 1 customer of every 3,000 visitors so that would be $3 per customer. Great :D

OK, I'm checking out fineclicks.com. Looks pretty cool. They say they charge 30% of the transaction price. I'm looking to pay out on a percentage of sale which they support. SO is that 30% of the payout or 30% of my sale? In other words if I am paying 20% on each sale and someone gets referred and orders a $10 hosting account, does fineclicks get 30% of the $10 or 30% of the $2 that I am paying the "publisher"?

I believe that FineClicks takes 30% of the $2 you give the "publisher". But I'm probably wrong.

Still, with the I-web-marketing, If you figure $1 for every 1000 visitors, you might get 1 customer of every 3,000 visitors so that would be $3 per customer. Great

Anything is worth a try - you never know until you try it. I'd be very suprised if you earned $1 per 1000 popups - this traffic is not really visitors - just annoying popups - you might hurt your company image in the process.

on the commission thing - they will take a % of the sale you book - $10 - unless I am miss-understanding the question.

I'd actually love to talk about an alternative to CJ - but that would get my post deleted!

Commission Abduction, er Junction sucks!

We are currently in the discovery phase of our case against them.

Commission Abduction! - wow that cracked me up laughing - too funny!
:)

Fineclicks.... looks promising.. but just to clear it up:
FineClicks.com will charge 30% of the transaction as our rates with the minimum transaction fee being $0.07 per transaction. The affiliates will receive 70% of each transaction. At this time, there are no set up fees or monthly charges.
So I read it as: the 'transaction' is split 70/30... 70% going to the affiliate.. and 30 to Fineclicks... so this 'transaction' has to be the commision amount, not the sale amount (becuase lets face it, if a sale amount was split 70/30 between fineclicks and the affiliate... what would we get? :)

Yes, very good. You are the winner! Now what about clickxchange? Are they any good?

Hi Mark,

What happened with CJ? I've heard the affiliate marketing stuff has been going downhill and plauged with problems -- squeezed companies "squeezing" their affiliates out of their commissions due - that sort of thing.

What are your thoughts on affiliate marketing in general -- both/either from the company having the program or the affiliate wanting to earn some money from affiliate revenue?

Thanks,

Louis

Pay per sale is good but I think you'd better spend your money on getting high ranking at major search engines and advertising your company at some web hosting forums/directories like WHT, SitePoint, HostSearch etc. Most people will come to search engines, hosting directories to find their web host and tend to visit sites having righ ranking, if your services look nice you may get customers among them. If you still like pay per sale advertising, you should consider CJ. Despite the fact that the costs for joining their networks is expensive ($1295 set-up fee, $250 monthly minimum plus 30% transaction fees), they are the largest online marketing company and have thousands of publishers. Because publishers want to earn money, they will choose to promote your products if they think your products can attract their site visitors, so it is targeted advertising for you, right? Just my little thought and hope it helps.

I don't know what to say about CJ, except that they don't provide the services that they promise, their tracking software is buggy resulting in you getting overcharged and double billed, they don't refund your escrow when your contract is up, and they don't always pay the affiliates.

I am all for an affiliate program. We ran our own before we handed it over to CJ to manage, in an attempt to save us time. We managed to settle a breach of contract (on their part) out of court, and now we are after them for the money that they owe us.

We have taken over our affiliate program again, and it does bring in customers. Your most valuable affiliates are your own clients. You should at least offer them a way to earn money through referrals.