subject: What To Look For In Success Producing Affiliate Management Software [print this page] Choosing the right affiliate management software can make the difference between success and failure when it comes to your own affiliate program. There are a lot of different programs out there, and while many of them are good and adequate, not all of them are going to be worth your time and money. There are a few things you need to look for in affiliate management software to ensure that you're getting the right software that will make your own affiliate program a successful one. Here is what you have to look for.
First you want to make sure that the software you are looking to purchase has good tools for managing commissions. There are a lot of systems and product sellers out there that only work with a single tier of commissions, but it generally works better if you offer a flexible, tiered scale on commissions. Basically, you want a program that lets you set up different commission levels based on sales, so that you can offer your affiliates greater and greater commission percentages the more sales they make. This will incentivize your affiliates to sell more- even more than just a normal, static commission level will.
A flexible commission structure will also allow you to set up different levels of commissions for different modes of referrals. For example, you can set up a different commission scale for CPA and CPC. This is important because it will attract a broader blend of affiliates for you, and it recognizes that different methods of affiliate marketing have different margins and necessitate different pay scales.
A good piece of software will also have powerful CRM (Client Relationship Management) tools built in. It's not enough to just attract and create customers, you also need to retain those customers, especially the highest quality customers that buy more than once from you. Affiliate CRM is one of the biggest secrets of success when it comes to managing your own affiliate program, so you want to make sure that you have software that lets you make it a priority. At a base level, your affiliate management software should have features that allow and encourage internal and external communication with your customers.
Finally, you need affiliate management software that has powerful features for tracking affiliate performance, that creates easy to read and understand reports that allow you to quickly see who's performing well and who you shouldn't pay much attention to. At a base level your software needs to track traffic and earnings from each affiliate, as well as some easy way to compare their performance with previous periods working with your own affiliate program.
What To Look For In Success Producing Affiliate Management Software