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Download Sites And Affiliate Programs

January 27th, 2010

I’ve got been running shareware download sites in one form or another for over three years and throughout that point I have become intimately familiar with many of the various shareware affiliate programs out there. Also in those three years I’ve got conjointly been ready to formulate an opinion related to most of those programs and some, by no suggests that all, of the vendors that choose to “participate” in these programs.

Out of the big three or 4 programs out there, RegNow, Share-It!, Plimus, and to a lesser extent eSellerate and RegSoft, only one really has a program in place to assist affiliates create the most out of the program. That affiliate program is RegNow with their certification program. This program was put in place to help affiliates determine vendors that properly participate within the program by making it attainable for affiliates to choose the vendors that use RegNow in a very way that enables affiliates to earn commissions for their referrals.

Considering the actual fact that I have conjointly used different affiliate programs like Commission Junction, Share-A-Sale and Clickbank, the query wants to be asked as to why any reasonably certification program would even be necessary. With these programs and most other larger programs, a prospective vendor should provide a means for any of their affiliates to earn commissions for any referrals, if they do not the affiliate program in query will not allow the vendor to join or keep in the program. Within the case of shareware affiliate programs, this isn’t the case.

Even with RegNow’s certification program and within the case with simply regarding all shareware affiliate programs, vendors are not required to, and a massive variety of them don’t, participate during a method that ensures affiliates get credit for referring a sale.

Shareware affiliate programs do work differently than traditional programs as they rely on prospective patrons 1st attempting the merchandise initial before requiring them to buy it. What this suggests is generally an affiliate can refer someone to download the trial version than depend upon that visitor later buying the product. In almost all cases this needs {that a} cookie set when the user downloads the trial to be recalled later when the user returns to the vendor’s web site to buy the program. This is where the fatal flaw is with reference to shareware affiliate programs.

Why is this a problem? Cookies are the idea of most affiliate programs and other than the inherent flaw with cookies in general in regards to some people not permitting cookies to be set or people who regularly delete them, many vendors that participate in shareware affiliate programs choose not to use that program as their payment provider while others use that program along with other providers allowing the visitor to choose among several payment options. What this will is guarantee that even with a cookie set, the referring affiliate has little if any chance of earning a commission for his or her efforts.

Now the query needs to be asked is why do affiliate programs allow this and why do many vendors opt for to control this approach? With regard to the affiliate programs, vendors are their bread and butter, the a lot of vendors they have the more opportunity they get to receive fees for their services. Whether or not or not an affiliate gets a commission or not does not figure into their bottom line as their cash comes out of the vendors pocket, so so long as the seller is happy, they are happy.

That leaves the taking part vendors, why do they choose this route? As way as I can tell, there’s pretty much only 2 reasons for them not providing an affiliate friendly program. The first would be ignorance, in theory I suppose a vendor may honestly not notice that they’re creating it not possible for their affiliates to earn a commission. They may not notice that the majority of affiliate commissions come back from trial downloads that are later purchased versus a client purchasing directly from purchase links on an affiliate’s site.

The 2nd and so much more sinister reason in my mind is {that the} vendors notice this however assume they can get a larger variety of sales by duping unsuspecting affiliates. Affiliates that don’t understand higher spend their time and cash doing the promoting for a vendor’s product and get nothing in return. They refer customers to the vendor’s site who then use other payment options outside of the affiliate program thus ensuring the vendor does not need to pay the commission to the affiliate.

This tactic has been mentioned at great length within the Regnow forum also alternative places and it still amazes me to hear a number of the excuses brought forward by some of these vendors. One excuse relates to how these vendors feel that RegNow charges an excessive amount of to method their payments thus they need to use other cheaper payment choices and still others complain that they feel they should not need to pay affiliates as a result of they do not feel they earned a commission. They convey up the actual fact that several affiliates don’t do much to push their product and hence shouldn’t be purchased this perceived lack of effort.

Now even looking at this from an affiliates purpose of view, I perceive that a lot of of us do not promote as heavily as we should, or as some vendors would love, however those who do not can not last long anyway and as far as a vendor is concerned, why would you care? Even if an affiliate brings you nothing as far as sales, you’re not losing anything as you merely obtain sales, plus if an affiliate happens to bring you a buying deal, it’s 1 a lot of than you’d have had.

New affiliates need to concentrate on the pitfalls of shareware affiliate programs and if they choose to not spend the effort and time weeding out these vendors, they have nobody in charge but themselves. In an exceedingly good world, the affiliate programs would try this for you but that isn’t going to happen. And my query for vendors that join these programs and then opt for not to properly participate, what’s your excuse?

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