rbro Posted May 14, 2007 Share Posted May 14, 2007 I'm trying to decide whether to go with the whmcs built-in affiliate system, or to go with something else like Commission Junction etc. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who has grappled with this decision in the past and your reasons for going for one or the other. Advantages and disadvantages for one over the other in your view........ 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trine Posted May 14, 2007 Share Posted May 14, 2007 You will potentially reach more affiliates with CJ, and hence a broader advertising base. But in the end, CJ publishers will feature you only if you have a good payout, and mind you that CJ also gets a share of it, so your affiliate advertising portion of your sale may be higher. Using a home grown affiliate network, using WHMCS built-in system, will take longer, IMHO. There may be some advantage to it, since you can structure it to be advantageous to your existing client base, not only non-customer affiliates. With such programs, you may find the click to sale percentage may actually be way higher than using CJ, for instance. IMO, client referrals are always the best. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbro Posted May 15, 2007 Author Share Posted May 15, 2007 There may be some advantage to it, since you can structure it to be advantageous to your existing client base, not only non-customer affiliates. With such programs, you may find the click to sale percentage may actually be way higher than using CJ, for instance. IMO, client referrals are always the best. I'm curious how the WHMCS affiliate program could be structured differently from something like CJ. How do you mean? And why would the click to sale percentage be higher using WHMCS? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbro Posted May 15, 2007 Author Share Posted May 15, 2007 Anyone using the WHMCS affiliates system and happy with it, or are you finding it lacking? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trine Posted May 16, 2007 Share Posted May 16, 2007 Does CJ allow one-time + residual payouts? (They didn't at the time we used them--it was one or the other). We also had tried something through BFast (if you can recall them). That didn't have much success either. The nice thing with WHMCS, is you can structure your payouts easily, fine tune them, plus take advantage of payout to your own system (account credits), so no money actually changes hands. This works well with our current system too, and we will be using WHMCS' affiliate system soon. And why would the click to sale percentage be higher using WHMCS? This is really quite subjective. With our clients, we have used in-house affiliate programs in the past and have seen that when our own customers were promoting us, we had far more success than with a third party affiliate provide. Also, with CJ, we also noted lots of click throughs that left our site as soon as they arrived. With an in-house, combined with our customer base, we saw better quality click throughs. Again, this is my opinion and experience, and you may actually see better results with CJ. I suppose it really comes down to how many visitor your site gets, how well your brand is known, and how many clients you think would join your affiliate program. Short of that, I would still suggest CJ if you are trying to reach a wider audience. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbro Posted May 16, 2007 Author Share Posted May 16, 2007 Well I didn't realize CJ has like a $2000 buy in, so I think we'll have to pass on that for now. I'm looking into something like iDevaffiliate also, although I've read some nightmare support stories on this forum and WHT. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WHMCS CEO Matt Posted May 16, 2007 WHMCS CEO Share Posted May 16, 2007 What is it your missing in the WHMCS Affiliate system? As far as I'm aware, with iDev, it assumes the client pays every month and if the client cancels, you have to manually do it in iDev. Seems like a lot of work to me when WHMCS knows when a client pays or not and only credits the affiliate if they do. One time or recurring, percentage or fixed amount payouts - what more could you want?!? Matt 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbro Posted May 16, 2007 Author Share Posted May 16, 2007 What is it your missing in the WHMCS Affiliate system? As far as I'm aware, with iDev, it assumes the client pays every month and if the client cancels, you have to manually do it in iDev. Seems like a lot of work to me when WHMCS knows when a client pays or not and only credits the affiliate if they do. One time or recurring, percentage or fixed amount payouts - what more could you want?!? Matt This is all fairly new to me, so I really can't answer your question. Maybe WHMCS has everything I want/need in an affiliate system. I'm just beginning to look into all the various options, pros and cons of each etc. Just based on the small amount of research I've done, it appears that alot of people use something like iDevaffiliate in lieu of the WHMCS system. I'm sure there are other WHMCS diehards who've researched this in much greater detail who could provide a more comprehensive comparison of iDev and WHMCS. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swdomen Posted May 18, 2007 Share Posted May 18, 2007 What is it your missing in the WHMCS Affiliate system? As far as I'm aware, with iDev, it assumes the client pays every month and if the client cancels, you have to manually do it in iDev. Seems like a lot of work to me when WHMCS knows when a client pays or not and only credits the affiliate if they do. One time or recurring, percentage or fixed amount payouts - what more could you want?!? Matt Multi-Tier affiliate, 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
othellotech Posted May 20, 2007 Share Posted May 20, 2007 What is it your missing in the WHMCS Affiliate system? Matt: Are you asking for suggestion is things to add to and improve in the WHMCS affiliate system ? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trine Posted May 21, 2007 Share Posted May 21, 2007 One thing would be missing is to define products which get recurring commissions during X months, then stop payments 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Posted May 22, 2007 Share Posted May 22, 2007 Hey, One thing that affiliate system have over WHMCS is the fact that those affiliate system are made just for that sole purpose. WHMCS is not. Those affiliate system are designed to handle matters with discounts/signups etc. So more features will be found in them with than in WHMCS. However, feel free to post any requests for the built in affiliate system in WHMCS From, Adam 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trine Posted May 22, 2007 Share Posted May 22, 2007 Agreed, but it is pretty nice, apart from what I mentioned above about stopping payments after X months. Right now, that has to be done manually. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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