How can we improve our affiliate program?

[lnxcode]

How can we improve our affiliate program? Let us know what you want to see and the next version we start building, we will try to include as many suggestions as we can.

[Scott]

One thing I'd like to see is better reporting on the campaign level tracking. There's no way to see how many sales for campaign xyz for each month. Therefore, I have to use campaigns like 0907sitename and update the month (0907 to 1007) on the 1st.

I'd like to see way to track sales generated when they decide to phone their order in.

[lnxcode]

Thanks for the update, keep em coming.

[james]

can we give them option for creating and designing their affiliate link ? a cutomization feature.. they can create their ad piece in their own way

[Scott]

My links don't need frills, I encode them, but reports are lacking

[james]

so you mean to say, we already have an option for custimzation ?

[Scott]

You can send clicks to certain landing pages on the HIC site, if that is what you mean...

[lnxcode]

What else do you guys want to see in the affiliate program, so far I have:

• Secure Affiliate program https:// when you're logged in.
• Campaign Names.... better ways to seperate traffic..
• Customer IP Address

Anything else that you think we need?

Thanks guys, I look forward to your thoughts ideas....

[charles]

in addition to campaign.. i would like to see how the customer end up in purchasing. Which page in my site is generating the sales. The IP tracking, and time, what they buy, payment status, and finally a yearly overview of the affiliate program performance. Currently i have to select month by month to view the sales/month.

another thing i hope to see is some improvement to hostican homepage.
i more prefer the hosting plan & details being highlight at homepage. Various plan details.

.. and when they decided to purchase the hostican hosting, make it easier. Click on the order on the hosting they viewing... directly bring them to order page and fill in payment details. Skip the current 3 option thing. Just another suggestion.

[roger]

Do something to improve the conversion!

I posted the following elsewhere on this forum. Reports and stuff are nice (and I'm not knocking them), but I think it's important to improve the saleability at the other end. I wondered why when people click the affiliate link, that there were ZERO sales at the other end. I found out the affiliate link takes them to the Hostican home page instaed of the Hostican "sign-up" or "switch" page. I also received a bit of advice as indicated below:

"One thing I bumped into is, when a user clicks the affiliate link, they should immediately be sent here: http://www.hostican.com/promotions/switch/ [edited the following in --> (or better still ad the payment form on that "switch" page as well). [end of edit ]

Currently they are sent here and then have to click again, to get to the real page: http://www.hostican.com/

This comment (to me) came from a guy that does online sales. From memory, some of the comments were "...what's with the extra page?... don't make people keep clicking, they won't... when they click that's a "yes", don't waste it, send them straight to the buy-now link... ...if you send them to another page and expect them to click again, your conversions will not be as high as they should...". (At least this is as much as I could remember). We were also talking about monotizing one of my sites (and the Hostican affiliate link was discussed). He actually suggested I remove it (and put something with better conversion in it's spot) as the conversion would not be as high (because they Hostican affiliate banner was not being linked direct to the "buy-now" page).

Either way, I think this is good food for thought!"