If you were going to build and run a bespoke affiliate program for a big company (financial sector let's say) what would you use to build it?
HasOffers.com got a couple of good reviews online I see.
Always an option I guess to just use an affiliate network like Affiliate Window...
Cheers,
Ed
I have heard some decent things about HasOffers. If I wanted to stay in house and not go with a network I would probably choose them.
edo, did you ever do anything on this?
Ditto for hasoffers, but that's the only one I've worked with besides the networks.
>> If you were going to build and run a bespoke affiliate program for a big company
I project managed building a UK based aff network a few years ago. We used the white-label product provided by Kowabunga (as they were then, now Inuvo), and they were really good. We were basically their beta site, and I bent their devs ear for about an hour every day. I thought the final product worked out really well. Things I learned :
1) Talk directly to the dev team directly if you can. Trying to go through account managers and the like doesn't work well
2) I know it sounds obvious, but test everything. Try and break even the things you think no-one can screw up - someone will find a way, if you don't find it first
3) As soon as your sign up page goes live you will be inundated with drive by sign ups from China / India. Have a good pruning process
Re: the pruning process, I guess it makes sense to review the affiliates' sites but if you're an affiliate do you always want to show your sites, before you even start getting the money off a program? I have been on both sides, as an affiliate I hate showing my sites, a total put off is when they want you to authorise every site you will e placing your links on. But on the other hand I helped run an affiliate program for a company I worked for through ShareASale and judging who to approve for the program if you don't know the first thing about them and they do not provide their site. From yet another point of view though, so what if they provide some site URL, how do you even know it really belongs to them? A lot of us here probably remember how we used to register AdSense accounts and get them approved. There sure is a dilemma or two.
Unless they're a call center or put "google" on where they heard about our program, I'll approve them and then keep an eye on their traffic.