 So you want us to join your independent program?
Some merchants want to get listed on BCL.com.au using their own internal affiliate program rather than an affiliate network. Their reasons vary but one common reason is that their shopping cart has inbuilt affiliate software and they don't see why they should pay network fees on top of commission. But is it really a saving?
When you use a network, you save on
- the costs of development and ongoing maintenance of the software as well as day-to-day running of the system.
- the accounting costs of tracking and paying out on many affiliate accounts
- the cost of maintaining trust with your affiliates.
We do accept in-house affiliate programs for a select few merchants who have the technical ability, resources and commitment to run their program properly, and whose value to us offsets the extra time it takes us to monitor their systems.
Questions we ask of both in-house and network programs include:
- Do you provide a login for affiliates to check real-time statistics?
- What is your cookie duration?
- Do you pay first referrer or the most recent referrer?
- How much information does your reporting provide about traffic and sales?
- Can we add our own parameter to links in order to track which links lead to sales?
- Do you provide a datafeed? In what format?
- Do you have policies to exclude spyware and cookie-stuffing?
- What is your payment frequency, minimum payout, payment method?
- If you have multiple affiliate programs, or combine a network with an in-house system, how do you know which affiliate to pay?
- If you have multiple websites that interlink, does the affiliate tracking cross to the other sites?
If you don't know the answers to these questions, or don't know what they mean, your in-house program is not likely to be acceptable to professional affiliates.
Posted by admin at January 17, 2006 1:03 PM
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