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Article by Lalio

Affiliate Software – Ecommerce Sales Explosion With an Affiliate Army

Affiliate software is as important and possibly even more important than the the shopping cart software that it’s often used with.

Yet time after time I see inexperienced merchants trying to build a their ecommerce system in a piecemeal fashion, with multiple different sources of software, from multiple different software vendors.

And while an argument can be made that the best multi-function shopping cart software may not be the best affiliate system software, this is usually an argument that falls apart upon closer inspection. The reality of any good ecommerce software is that it never works in isolation – your affiliate program is no exception to this rule.

Affiliate software always works in conjunction with ecommerce shopping cart software because without an ecommerce action, there is really nothing for the affiliate software to do. In other words, if there’s no sale, there’s no affiliate commission. And if there’s no affiliate commission to be earned, you’ll never get affiliates to drive traffic to your site. There’s simply no incentive for them to do so.

So when you’re doing an affiliate software review, it’s critical that you look not at the software functionality in isolation but how the affiliate software works as part of your overall “system”. And when you look at the operation of the entire system, you’ll find that most “stand alone” affiliate software pales in comparison to affiliate software that’s produced and intended to be part of an integrated system.

Follow The Microsoft Model

This is analogous to the way Microsoft Office operates and how Microsoft Office became the de facto standard for business applications. Microsoft started out with applications that many would agree lacked their competition in breadth and technical capabilities but Microsoft combated their lead by focusing on interoperability and a commonality in menus and basic functionality.

For example, regardless of which Microsoft application you open, the menu is very similar. “File” is the first menu item, then “Edit”, then “View” etc. These might seem like small items to the highly technical and frequent users but for the general masses this commonality becomes a critical strategic advantage for Microsoft.

And we all know how the Microsoft office story played out and it was because they took a “system” view of their product versus an isolated feature by feature product view.

But my point is not to extol the virtues of Microsoft but to simply emphasize how critical a system view is to your business software.

What Makes Good Affiliate Software

Even though your business model is unique, your affiliate software requirements are going to be much more common than you think.

1. Integration – Affiliate software must easily integrate with your shopping cart software. 2. Accuracy – There’s nothing more deadly than an affiliate program that does not track sales accurately. Tracking ‘cookies’ are no longer sufficient as the modern browsers all delete these cookies too easily. Good affiliate software now uses a combination of ‘cookies’ and ‘IP tracking’ to ensure accurate recording of affiliate sales credit. 3. Flexibility – You will have many different affiliate programs going at once so ensure you can set up multiple affiliate programs without limitations. 4. Simplicity – Paying affiliates can be a time consuming effort so this is an area to review in intimate detail. Remember that you’ll likely have hundreds or even thousands of affiliates so ease of payment is critical. 5. Reporting – Affiliates are fickle beasts. If they do not feel like they’re making enough money with your program, they’ll simply switch their websites to promote a different product. Good graphical reports are needed to communicating effectively with your affiliates. 6. Motivation – Having an instant sales notification tool can be a great motivator. The more often you’re able to remind your affiliates that they’re making money from you, the more motivated they’ll be to sell more of your product. Look for an affiliate system that provides this motivation to keep your affiliates in high gear. 7. Super Affiliates – Affiliates do not fall into the 80/20 rule, their ratio is much more extreme. Super Affiliates will account for 90% or more of your sales and you’ll need a way to automatically reward them if you want to keep your Super Affiliates happy. Make sure your affiliate software has the ability to do this automatically as 98% of the existing software does not. 8. Clean Interface – If it looks good, your affiliates will think it is good. People do judge their books by their covers so a modern interface is a must have item

Keep in mind that even if the affiliate system has all these features built in, they still need to all work in conjunction with your shopping cart software or they really don’t count.

Review your affiliate software carefully because affiliates will be the life blood of your online business. If you’re able to build an army of effective affiliates, your business will grow with explosive force.Auto Click Profits It’s A Complete Marketing Solution! My advice is to try it Click Here!

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