Up-sale Credit For Affiliates - Am I Crazy?
 

We are getting ready to launch our second and third pay sites and would like feedback from board members on our planned integration.

First let me sat that we are an affiliate based program – our affiliates come first and we value their input and opinions.

We have decided to provide up-sale program within the members area of all of our pay-sites and want to give affiliates credit for these sales. We’ve already figured out the CCBill specifics but to do this the way we envision, it will require that each of our affiliates have two CCBill affiliate accounts with us. One for the standard affiliate referral program and one for our “up-sale program”.

It is my understanding that most pay-sites give no credit to affiliates for up-sales sold to members from within the members area. This goes against my fundamental business philosophy of taking care of those that take care of me so I’m considering a program that will give you, the affiliate, continued credit for the work you have done.

This is how we envision the system working:

1. Affiliates that want to participate will sign up for a CCBill affiliate number in the normal manner. Our primary program is currently a 60/40 rev-share program.
2. After logging into our affiliate area, you will be asked if you want to participate in our “up-sale program”.
3. At this point, you will be asked to create a second CCBill affiliate number for our up-sale group. I envision this being a 30/70 rev share but have not made a decision yet.
4. When a customer you referred logs into the members area, we will auto-load your “up-sale program” affiliate number to all banners and adds (for our other pay-sites) within the members area. If this customer makes an up-sale purchase, you will get the associated affiliate payments for the life of this customer.

Bottom line: we value our affiliates above all- and we’re looking for experienced adult marketing experts to join and remain with our program. We are not a get-rich-quick program and I will not promise you the moon. My goal is to develop jointly beneficial, long-term relationships with a number of professional affiliates.

Your thoughts and feedback are appreciated.

R. Reese a.k.a. PapaGMP
President
Glass Mannequin Productions

That's how programs can afford to pay out $30-125 for a trial signup or 70-90% recurring.

But I do like your idea :)

Let me ask this: are all the paysites under the same master CCBill account? (912345 or whatever) If so, you don't need people to get multiple accounts - you can just put the other sites on sub's of the master account (912345-0001, 912345-0002, etc) & then everyone can use just one account code for everything.

Thanks Greenie - All the sites will be under one master BBBill account (933476). If one account will work, that simplifies it a bit - I'll have my database guy get back with CCBill on that.

Short term this gets me started and long term it keeps my affiliates happy (At least that's my goal)

That might be difficult to do but if you can do it then great.

As Greenguy said that is how companies pay for the things they pay for. Maybe it's PPS or maybe it's 60% rather than 50% to affiliates. I think upsells are fine as long as you do not over do it. Focus on the content and provide what the tour says and a few links out here and there is a part of the business.

I think you'd be better off offering bonus periods or days and things like that. Personally I think affiliates will be more concerned on ratios and how much they make from your site and not the upsells portion.

I like the idea. And I prefer it to bonus days since I generally forget about them anyways, IMO it's better to have a constant benefit than an occasional one.

I think you have hit on something I would be interested in. Traffic leaks are why I don't trust $75 promos and 70% revshare. Give me 40% and treat me like a partner. These guys with these huge promos are generally the guys that don't convert.

Our goal is to treat our affiliates as partners. To develop as good of a reputation as Ramster has. I know this won't come easy but things worth having are worth taking care of and we feel this way about our affiliates.

I already told you what I think but I'll repeat it here - I think it's a great idea for affiliates, but as mentioned above it does go beyond the call of duty. As affiliates we're used not to getting a share for upsells, so no one would resent it if you just kept the bounty for those. That said, I think it can be a great incentive for affiliates looking for the true partnership model, the ones that are averse to leaks etc. It certainly would be a breath of fresh air for many affiliates.

Bottom line though will have to be how much $$$ an affiliate is making for the time they put into promoting a program. If those upsells won't amount to much, just the noble intentions alone won't make people promote your program (although they will make you popular!).