Affiliate Program Software Essentials

Filed under Affiliate Program, Internet Marketing, Viral Marketing

An Affiliate Program created for the Internet must be tracked by a good piece of Affiliate Program software.

The availability of such a piece of software instantly enables Merchants from all over the world to duplicate their marketing efforts through their Affiliates’ efforts in return for a commission for a defined result (like a “sale”, for example).

And since there is no short supply of Affiliates who themselves come from all over the world, the Merchant with an Affiliate Program can get hundreds or thousands of Affiliates to market for him.

This is extremely powerful leverage and well worth the Merchant’s time and effort to create an Affiliate Program for his products.

Tracking for each Affiliate’s effort is done by a unique Affiliate Link for each Affiliate.

Using the Life Changing Party event as an example, Affiliate A’s Affiliate Link can look like the following:

http://www.LifeChangingParty.com?z=323ef5

Affiliate B’s Affiliate Link can look like the following:

http://www.LifeChangingParty.com?z=545wq32

The difference between the 2 links are in the alphanumeric characters after the “z=” characters. Affiliate A’s ID is “323ef5″, and Affiliate B’s ID is “545wq32″.

However both Affiliate Links will lead back to the page at http://www.LifeChangingParty.com no matter what the Affiliate ID is.

The Affiliate Program software takes note of any clicks on those different Affiliate Links and checks if a sale has resulted for any of them. If so, the commission as set by the Merchant will be credited to the Affiliate’s account.

That’s how an Affiliate Program software works, in a nutshell.

There are many Affiliate Program software out there that you can either buy off the shelf and install on your own host, or operate on a monthly access model where it’s hosted on a 3rd party’s server and you pay a monthly fee to use it.

Before we get into the merits of either approach, let’s discuss about what else needs to be present in an Affiliate Program software for both parties to get more value out of this simple but powerful marketing concept.

For the Merchant
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1. An Affiliate registration form for new Affiliates to join the Merchant’s Affiliate Program
This makes it easy for any Affiliate to join. Here’s how LifeChangingParty.com’s Affiliate Sign-Up Form looks like:

Affiliate Sign Up Form

2. A function to automatically generate unique Affiliate Links for each new Affiliate who joins the Affiliate Program

As soon as the Affiliate has signed up, he gets his own unique Affiliate Link that he can use immediately to promote the Merchants’ web site selling his products, if he’s approved.

The Merchant can set the software to automatically approve each Affiliate who signs up, or he can choose to approve each one manually.

If he sets it to approve automatically, his Affiliates get their unique Affiliate Links immediately, so the Merchant can be lazing around in his Pajamas while his Affiliate force is building up every single day!

3. Affiliates’ Commissions
The Merchant should know at a glance how much commissions he needs to pay out at any time. He should be happy to see a big amount, because the more commissions he pays out, the more sales he’s making!

4. Affiliates’ Details
This is to for the Merchant to send commission checks to his Affiliates. He can also dispense with checks and pay his Affiliates through PayPal, and so he’ll need to know his Affiliates’ PayPal e-mails.

Here’s a menu that the Merchant sees in his Affiliate Program software:

5. Top Performing Affiliates
The Merchant should also know who are his best Affiliates so that he can give them even more incentives to market better for him.

6. Fraud Control
The Affiliate Program software should be able to distinguish between fraudulent sales and genuine sales, so that the Merchant is paying out the right amount of commissions to the right Affiliate.

7. Marketing Materials section
To make it easy for the Merchant’s Affiliates to market the Merchant’s products, the Merchant will need to upload marketing materials for his Affiliates to use “out of the box” so that little thinking is required on their part.

The marketing materials include classified ads, solo ads, e-mail ads, letters and banners. There should be a “Marketing Materials” section within the Affiliate Program software that the Affiliate can check out.

For the Affiliate
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The Affiliate would be interested in the following:

1. Commissions Made
This is the first thing he would be looking at. He needs to know how much he has made from his efforts.

2. Clicks, Sales Figures
He would be interested in the number of sales he has made. If the system has been set to track clicks as well, he would have another number to look at. This can help him improve his marketing efforts.

Here’s an example:

Affiliate Sales Report

3. Banners, Ads, E-Mails that he can use
These have been prepared by the Merchant for his use. They’ll make the Affiliates get going faster with his marketing efforts.

Here are 3 banners from the Life Changing Party event, that the Affiliate can use immediately:

Banners

In Summary
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The above are the essential features, and most basic Affiliate Program software would have them.

But there are a few extra important features that can be programmed into a piece of Affiliate Program software that can help the Merchant and the Affiliate better achieve their mutual goals.

Those extra features make the Affiliate stick their necks out to promote the Merchant’s products over his competitors’.

When this happens, the Affiliates make even more commissions, and yes, the Merchant makes even more sales, with a more loyal base of Affiliates marketing his products!

Stay tuned.