What is Ultimate Affiliate?
Ultimate Affiliate
is a CGI
script written in the Perl
programming language that allows you to set up
a fully featured affiliate program on your own web
server - giving YOU the control over the program.
Instead of handing over your affiliate program to
a third party, you can now run one "in-house"
and run it the way YOU like - without the MONTHLY
payments, escrow fees, and per-transaction fees!
The
CGI scripts are easy to install and intuitive
to use for the average web developer. Ultimate
Affiliate lets you run a "pay-per-sale"
or "pay-per-lead" program where you recruit
affiliates to promote your website, then
pay them a percentage (or a flat fee) for
every sale or lead generated by their referrals.
The program tracks referrals by both cookie
AND optional IP tracking - making it virtually
foolproof for an affiliate to lose a commission.
And for the hard-core developers, the script
will also create replicated websites for
your affiliates to ensure 100% guaranteed
referral sales.
Affiliate
programs increase traffic and sales
One of my clients
sells a pretty enticing product. So enticing that when
I asked to feature their site because of it's success
they didn't want to be named because people would try
to steal their idea. Understandable. They installed Ultimate
Affiliate in July of 2001 and today they routinely put
almost 100,000 hits through the system per day and have
almost 30,000 commissions in the system (as of the middle
of 2002). Needless to say they are successful as the product
they sell is almost $100.
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Actual
screenshot from a client's setup of Ultimate
Affiliate. They
installed the program in July 2001 and by
the end of the year they had put over 2 million
hits through the system and generated over
10,000 commissions. Not bad!
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Their stats give
a perfect example of how an affiliate program should work.
Note the exponential growth in sales which is a result
of their exposure on the web through their affiliates.
These results will not be achieved by everyone, but if
you have the right product and the right marketing at
the right time - the sky's the limit!
How does Ultimate Affiliate work?
Really simply, actually.
Basically an affiliate signs up, creates an affiliate
username and password, and then receives an affiliate
URL which they will use to advertise your site. Here are
some examples:
http://www.your_site.com/cgi-bin/affiliates/clickthru.cgi?id=<username>
http://www.your_site.com/g.o?id=<username>
http://www.your_site.com/g.o/<username>
http://www.your_site.com/<username>
These are all possible
affiliate URLs with the Ultimate Affiliate package. The
<username> would be replaced with the affiliate's
own username, and they can use this URL in text links,
graphic links, email links, and even offline promotions.
When a potential
buyer clicks through the affiliate url, a cookie
is set in their browser. A "cookie" is more
than just something tasty to munch on - on the internet
it means a little piece of information that a website
can store in the visitor's browser, and in this case Ultimate
Affiliate stores the referring affiliate's username. This
cookie remains in the visitor's browser if they leave
your site, or even turn off their computer and log back
in a month later. The only way it will be deleted is if
the visitor deletes their cookies manually, reformats
their hard drive, buys a new computer, etc...but for the
average web surfer a cookie remains in their browser for
a long time.
Then, when this visitor
comes back to buy, after the sale is complete the affiliate
script will be triggered by a little tag of code in the
"thank you" page that shows up after an order
is finalized. It will call Ultimate Affiliate and the
script will look for the cookie, and if present, and reward
the affiliate with the appropriate commission. Typically,
the tag of code in the "thank you" page will
contain the final purchase price of the sale (most shopping
carts are capable of this) and the script will calculate
the commission based on that value.
Ultimate Affiliate
also has an optional IP tracking mechanism which will
track referrals in the short-term (less than a day, usually
per-visit) if the visitor's browser doesn't accept cookies
or they delete their cookies before they buy. However,
the majority of the referral tracking is done by setting
and reading cookies.
A
List of Ultimate Affiliate Features >>
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