Online affiliate marketing makes money to the affiliates in such a way that there is no order to fill, no credit cards to charge, no inventory to stock, no shipping and handling problem, no customer service and no question to sell the product.
So Online affiliate marketing program owner needs to choose software that will take a lot of work out of your hands, simple and easy for the affiliates to use. CGI scripts. Hidden form fields cookies, Java scripts and master database management are some of them.
The Software available:
These start from $500 to 15,000 and each package is different.
a. Some companies give you the software from their servers and will charge you a set up fee others will install it for you.
b. Management services will allow you to run the software from their servers, but they will usually charge you a set up fee and take a percentage of your profits.
c. Some providers offer software and solutions that are easily customizable, while others offer very few options.
d. Some will charge you “per affiliate” when your affiliate sign up. And this makes it very expensive for the affiliate program owner.
e. There are additional expenses too, hosting costs for any kind of modification that you needed for your affiliate maintenance updates, if or when needed, and then set up fees.
So, there is no set standard for this pricing for the affiliate program software, everyone sets their own pricing standards. But as usual the lease expensive software is not very good quality for usage. Here are some of the features that you should look for:
1. Affiliate sign up:
The affiliate program software sign up process should be very short simple and easy. It should allow easy access to affiliates profile and if download is required, it should be fast and simple.
2. Contact System:
Email system must be fast and automatic. The affiliate marketing software owner and admin must be able to contact all affiliates via email.
3. Flexible administrative function:
This should work for your affiliate program software that you are trying to launch. It must have a great capacity for refunds. It should print you monthly commission reports?
4. Automatic Tracking:
Web tracking for the online affiliate marketing activity is very important to trace their sales. An affiliate marketing software have to have simple and easy detailed web tracking.
5. Variable payouts:
It is very important that you have software that allows you to choose to pay a fixed amount per click through, per sale, or a percentage of the sale. The affiliate website owner need to be the in charge of pay outs.
6. Real-time statistics:
This is for affiliate’s use. Everyone who works hard wants to see results and so a detail of affiliate statistics is very important.
7. Counting visitors and sales:
This is an important feature. Many affiliate website owner do not keep track of the number of prospects by one affiliate, where as it is very important as it determines the work efficiency of the affiliate. This is a must for affiliate marketing program, to make notice of the hard work of affiliate and give them.
8. Automated check paying:
Once it is time for the pay period, your affiliate marketing software must have the capacity to print the checks for affiliates.
These are some of the must have features in an online affiliate marketing software.
Source by Fran Aslam
