S
SunnyMike
Guest
Hi everyone. I am a software developer in a small company. We have a downloadable product and website live and ready, and want to start an affiliate program to get our product out there into the public eye. I would like to outline the basics of our proposed affiliate program (without identifying the product or ourselves as I don’t want to break any forum rules or appear to be advertising) and get feedback from seasoned affiliates on whether you think it’s a good idea; whether it would appeal to you; what pro’s and con’s do you see; etc.. This is the first time I’ve stepped into the world of affiliate marketing. I’ve done some research, but I know the people in this forum will know way more than I do about it. The details are:
· Affiliates advertise the software on their website, or to their audience via their blogs or email lists.
· The software operates on an annual subscription model. It can be single or multi-user. It starts from around $120 per annum for a single user up to around $1,000 per annum for 15 users. Customers can also pay for more than 15 users if they wish.
· Affiliate commission is paid per customer subscription as follows:
- First 100 subscriptions (1-100): 20% of subscription fee
- Next 100 subscriptions (101-200): 30% of subscription fee
- Subscriptions beyond that (201+): 40% of subscription fee
· The commission will be residual for an additional four years after the first sign-up by a customer, which means that as long as the customer continues to re-subscribe each year, the affiliate will continue to receive 20-40% of each annual subscription fee up to a total of five annual subscriptions by the customer.
· Customers will pay on our website via PayPal.
· Affiliates get paid via PayPal.
· Affiliates get paid 45 days after the end of the month the sale occurred in (to assist with fraud prevention).
· The software can be downloaded and trialled before the user has to register, so there will be a time lag between customers downloading and then signing up.
· To link an affiliate to a customer, each affiliate will be given batches of unique codes (guids) that customers must use when paying, so a potential customer will have to contact the affiliate for a code.
· Also, we will be taking non-affiliate sales directly on our website, but if the customer doesn’t have an affiliate code our prices will be 25% higher that if the customer goes through an affiliate, and we will clearly display to the customer that they can get a 20% discount if they find an affiliate and get a code from them.
Additional Info
· The software has been submitted to the major download sites but we’ve found once it drops off the ‘new items’ list it becomes invisible among the masses of other software on those sites.
· Our software doesn’t come up in the first ten pages of Google search results when searched using relevant keywords.
· We’ve had around 350-400 downloads since mid-August – mostly from the download sites.
· We want to avoid using middle-man affiliate networks if at all possible to avoid paying their commission.
· We feel we are well-priced vs. our competitors for the market we are targeting – small-medium sized businesses, especially considering customers can install and try the software themselves and aren’t paying for consultants which would usually be the case for this kind of software.
· All prices are in Australian dollars.
That’s about it so if you could please let us know what you think we would appreciate it. I know this is a long post but I’ve seen in forums when people ask this kind of question the replies are usually “well give us the details”.
Cheers…
· Affiliates advertise the software on their website, or to their audience via their blogs or email lists.
· The software operates on an annual subscription model. It can be single or multi-user. It starts from around $120 per annum for a single user up to around $1,000 per annum for 15 users. Customers can also pay for more than 15 users if they wish.
· Affiliate commission is paid per customer subscription as follows:
- First 100 subscriptions (1-100): 20% of subscription fee
- Next 100 subscriptions (101-200): 30% of subscription fee
- Subscriptions beyond that (201+): 40% of subscription fee
· The commission will be residual for an additional four years after the first sign-up by a customer, which means that as long as the customer continues to re-subscribe each year, the affiliate will continue to receive 20-40% of each annual subscription fee up to a total of five annual subscriptions by the customer.
· Customers will pay on our website via PayPal.
· Affiliates get paid via PayPal.
· Affiliates get paid 45 days after the end of the month the sale occurred in (to assist with fraud prevention).
· The software can be downloaded and trialled before the user has to register, so there will be a time lag between customers downloading and then signing up.
· To link an affiliate to a customer, each affiliate will be given batches of unique codes (guids) that customers must use when paying, so a potential customer will have to contact the affiliate for a code.
· Also, we will be taking non-affiliate sales directly on our website, but if the customer doesn’t have an affiliate code our prices will be 25% higher that if the customer goes through an affiliate, and we will clearly display to the customer that they can get a 20% discount if they find an affiliate and get a code from them.
Additional Info
· The software has been submitted to the major download sites but we’ve found once it drops off the ‘new items’ list it becomes invisible among the masses of other software on those sites.
· Our software doesn’t come up in the first ten pages of Google search results when searched using relevant keywords.
· We’ve had around 350-400 downloads since mid-August – mostly from the download sites.
· We want to avoid using middle-man affiliate networks if at all possible to avoid paying their commission.
· We feel we are well-priced vs. our competitors for the market we are targeting – small-medium sized businesses, especially considering customers can install and try the software themselves and aren’t paying for consultants which would usually be the case for this kind of software.
· All prices are in Australian dollars.
That’s about it so if you could please let us know what you think we would appreciate it. I know this is a long post but I’ve seen in forums when people ask this kind of question the replies are usually “well give us the details”.
Cheers…