When Starting Your Own Affiliate Program

[DoctorMason]

Because everyone says you make much more money and passive income when you own the products the affiliates promote, I've invested in JAM software by jrox.com

Because I don't have a Ph.D degree in Marketing & Finance, I require assistance in setting up the software and related sales tools for affiliates. I know almost nothing about Photoshop to make the site look better. I've never tried those Google Analytics and in fact, I'm not even interested in learning to become a statistician. I'm so bad that I may look every now and then at my weblogs to see how much traffic my site brings, but I don't spend hours or days in analysis.

I'm also suspicious about intellectual property, wary about telling too much to strangers about the planning and secret information I'm working on that will bring me millions (or hundreds of thousands!) of dollars even while I'm asleep or on a beach in Hawaii.

I do think I have a great product or service and am willing to stay awake nights nurturing the sales letter, planning opt-in squeeze videos, paying outsourcers to design graphics, and all of what it takes to succeed.

But what if I received an email one day from somebody selling exactly what I'm working on? Isn't there some way to speed up the product creation cycle? What about all of that split testing of your ads they talk about on google? Doesn't that take lots of time to learn? Heck, I'm just one guy with a dream of happily paying my affiliates $750 per sale.

Since I offer a 60 day payment arrangement, is it difficult to get paypal working correctly? I've read that they offer some kinda API that will possibly send an SMS into my mobile phone each time a sale is made, how do I make it happen? Am I too paranoid or what? Do I have to do it all myself? How did YOU solve these questions?

[paradigmad]

well you have a lot of questions. First off, you can't go into it worried about someone stealing your product...the sad truth is, its gonna happen. You are going to get people that buy your product and then return it. You could always have a license key for your product allowing you to activate/deactivate it. Make sure you encrypt it if its software.

For payment processing, I like paypal but as a second method of payment. I would recommend Clickbank which does credit card processing and has paypal support plus has a built in affiliate program. This could be your answer to a lot of your questions.

Once you get more serious there are other options.

I guess to better help you I would need to know more about what your product is, maybe a link to your site?

[DoctorMason]

Originally Posted by paradigmad

... I guess to better help you I would need to know more about what your product is, maybe a link to your site?

The outsourcer in India has the template now, so the site is being developed. Found a cute one to purchase, and he bid pretty low. I have to do all of the text myself since he doesn't know my plans, and wanted him to get things going and replace those stock photos with more relevant ones.

I offer 3 niche advertising services, so the webportal must reflect this. Nothing sells for less than $2,000 so I believe CB is not an option any longer. Then the sales letter creator software has to be used. Kinda funny when I see other sales pages that use the same words and phrases, indicating to me we all use the same stuff!

That affiliate software seems to offer so many things that I'm almost lost on getting them going. As if I have to visit some other affiliate sites, copy and revise the sales tools, and install them into my own affiliate management.

I DO appreciate your comments.