Could anyone recommend an affiliate management software?   I have looked at companies that do it for you and it seems very expensive.  I am researching some software that will allow me to run my own program on our servers.  Obviously, the more hands off the better.  Any experience with this type of software or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks.

ADMIN EDIT: URL moved to your sig panel

I'm a developer, so i do it my self.

So are you saying you developed your own software?

Cromax wrote:

So are you saying you developed your own software?

yes

To be honest, from your original post, I have no idea what you want.

for example - are you an affiliate of many services and want to know what's going on and where your money's coming from

or

do you offer a service by which people may become an affiliate of yours? wanting to know who's referring who and who to pay?

if your product falls within the guidelines of clickbank, you may be able to sell your products there.

if you want to do your own stuff - it's really easy, when an affiliate registers you should have a unique field in your database as a primary key, you could use this as the affiliate id you issue.

Then ask affiliates to promote you using something like your-site.com/?affiliate_id=123

you can then set a cookie based on your tracking preferences.

when a sale is made, just look for the cookie and match the details up

there are also plenty of free scripts out there, some integrated with shopping carts (like at mals-e.com) and other's stand alone  - you may find some here

A word of caution - you mention the words 'hands-off'. If you are looking at affiliates and are thinking of hands off, then you are thinking of affiliates in the wrong way. They require support and encouragement. They should not be regarded as a faceless group out promoting your services for just the commissions. They need good marketing materials, ongoing communication to help them develop to their full potential, and make you both money - it is a partnership and needs to me regarded as such.

Matte,

I have been a saleman all my life and would never leave my salepeople to fend for themselves.  I have worked for companies that do that and ultimately they were not successful.  My main goal is to automate most of the features of the program (for instance, sign up, welcome email, assigning uique IDs, reporting, new promotions, tracking for banner clicks, url click thrus, multi tier commissions, etc.).  Obviously helping affiliates make money is the absolute way to go if you want to attain your goals which are make more money, free up some time and increase link popularity.  I think I have found a couple that look very promising.  I will post my findings in the near future.  Thanks for the advice.  I am sure some people would think what you explained.  I was looking for people who were using specific software and their experiences as some of the other things I have been doing on my 6 web sites have cost me a lot of time and money.  Free is not necessarily Free.

Northie,

I have looked at click bank and it is very expensive plus if you ever move it is nearly imposssible to get your affiliates to follow you without a ton of effort.

Cromax

[url deleted]

I have used Mals in conjunction with his cart on several sites. Very good.

Hi,

I use the idevaffiate to run my own affiliate program. It is pretty powerful. You can find it at http://www.idevdirect.com.

CitronGreen

like northie i'm a developer so built my own affiliate system but there's tonnes of agencies out there:

tradedoubler
zanox
glispa
azoogleads
commission junction

that's just five off the top of my head.

getting someone else to do the graft on this means that you can tap into the market of affiliate marketeers they are already working with giving your site and products a much larger push than you'd be able to do on your own.

yes it costs money but they will put your affiliate deal under the noses of a lot of people and get you more sales quicker than building something up yourself or getting some software to manage it for you.

as for idevaffiliate:

Installation Information
By providing us your hostname, username and password, we will install all aspects of your new product and implement a basic configuration for you.  From there, you can tweak your configuration and setup all the design templates and style sheets to match your site.

Is it just me or do those words make anyone else feel uncomfortable in a 'not a cat in hells chance' kinda way?

cromax, comments like "clickbank expensive, agencies expensive" makes me question if you even have the cashflow to pay your affiliates

cromex if your looking for to run your own affiliate program and need the software you can PM me

Here is one I used before and was very happy with. Tech support is outstanding. You can purchase the software cheap of pay a small fee monthly:

http://www.yoursoft-tm.com

Puma,

Thanks for the response.  Looks like the program can deliver but I think qualityunit.com has more horsepower.  Good luck with your program.

Mobtex,

Thanks for your input.  I am familiar with some of these.  I will explore them further.  As I said before, the draw backs are if you ever move your program, even though they have tons of affiliates they get bombarded.  I think posting to affiliate directories with a good marketing program may be more effective.  I am not looking for masses, just  partners that are willing to commit the resources to make us both successful.

Thanks.

Citron,

Good recommendation.  This looks similiar if not the same as qualityunit.  I will call them and compare.

Thanks.

You are welcome Cromax. Site Reference is a great place to come for answers.

Mobtex,

I have been online for over 10 years and developed most of the products I market and yes we have the money to pay affiliates.  We have a distributor network that is worldwide selling products from US to Australia.  Even with this being said, unfortunately distributors and resellers sometimes want to large a piece of the pie (40-50%) without expending the efforts they should.  This can cause your retail price to be to inflated to capture the market share you may need.  My products are not cheap but they do what they were developed for very well.  Additionally, since we are getting so much pressure from new competition that have deeper pockets than us, we are forced to look at other means of marketing the products to continue to grow the business

It is called common sense.  Expensive is not always better.  It's called do you homework and talk to others who are actually running software or program you are exploring and then make your best decision from there.  Are you selling anything online, have your own affiliate program?  The good companies have trial periods to test the marketing hype of their products.

"Is it just me or do those words make anyone else feel uncomfortable in a 'not a cat in hells chance' kinda way?"

Always scary but sometimes you just have to jump.  For Instance, godaddy says their cart works with quick books.  Firstly, their shopping cart is lame and will not work with quick books even though quick books promotes them on their website.  Same with Homestead.  A lot of these products are developed by one company and re-branded or use third party software for integration and they don't know diddly about the software.  That is one big red flag.

Not trying to bash you, just explaining where I am coming from.  Thanks for your input.