Allan,
As you know, I own two accounts for AssocTrac, and have recently purchased another of Corey’s products, Mailloop. Before I go any further, I’d like to personally THANK YOU for recommending AssocTrac to me! It has really helped us a lot.
To be honest, I was skeptical of Corey because he really does push quite a sales pitch on his pages … but he can back it up, which is a lot more than most people can say!
As I promised, here is a brief overview of our experiences to date with AssocTrac, both pro and con. To begin with, a little history:
I started my affiliate program 10/6/98. The Puzz.com Affiliate Program allows webmasters to promote free and trial offers (newsletters, sweepstakes, downloads, trial magazine subscriptions, etc.) on a cost per action (lead) basis. The program was manually intensive for us, and we did not have the programming knowledge or capabilities to provide a two-tier referral program or many other much needed features. I asked if you knew of a good way to automate our affiliate program. And you did: AssocTrac.
Value for money
AssocTrac cost me $977.00. That may sound like a lot to some people. It isn’t. But other than a monthly hosting fee of about $20 (AssocTrac is NOT hosted on your server, which I consider to be a big plus, since they do automatic backups and upgrades – read on for more info about this second issue), that’s all you pay.
Our program pays on a per-action basis, but AssocTrac is designed for people with per-sale programs: people who are wanting others to promote their products on the web. Even though AssocTrac was not designed for a program like mine, it works quite well!
AssocTrac can be purchased for $100 or so less than I paid if you DO NOT want the two-tier feature. I can’t imagine anyone not wanting this – the two-tier feature is one of AssocTrac’s greatest benefits.
Since we have purchased AssocTrac, which to me is kind of like owning a condominium (you pay a monthly fee, but still technically “own” it, and there are benefits for the fee you pay), they upgraded the system from 1.0 to 2.0.
And here’s what I find interesting and a latent benefit: we can still use the 1.0 version. 2.0 has many added features, but there were some things we liked about 1.0. When entering data with either system, it goes into the SAME database – so you basically get to choose which features you like more.
Plus we simply log into a different URL for each version, but with the same ID and password. I can have two browsers open if I want, using both versions at once, entering and retrieving data from the same database which my affiliates are using.
Meanwhile, my wife, who handles our statistics (commissions) and payroll, can be doing the same thing at the same time on a different computer, anywhere in the world – without any conflict whatsoever – all entering and retrieving in real-time from the same database. A 3.0 version and probably many others are on the way, and hopefully these upgrades will solve the few problems we have (read further) with AssocTrac.
What AssocTrac does
AssocTrac is designed to track sales in real-time. Also, they can be manually entered by the administrator (person who owns an account). In most cases, the offers we promote HAVE to be entered manually – but this is still MUCH better than the way we were doing things before. In the cases where we could use the real-time feature, we currently do not.
This is because it records each sale for each product separately: it does not group them. So if an affiliate sold 200 magazines at $1.00/magazine in a given month, it would show EACH sale, by date, and would not group the sales. So you would have to count up the total number of sales to determine your commission.
The way around this problem for us was creating “blocks” of sales. You have to create a “product” in the system before it can be sold. Normally the product is listed for 1 sale. But you can create a “product” or “block” that is for more than one, if you are entering it manually.
For example, a listing for “Sweepstakes: 500 Leads” – we set the commission for this “sale” and for the referring site’s commission as well. To clarify that, you get to set the commission however you wish, along with the commission to the 2nd tier referring site, for each product. I can set it as a percentage, a flat amount, whatever.
So if someone had 508 sweepstakes leads, we’d enter a sale for 500 Leads, if we had a block for that, and then one for 8 Leads. It would of course be better if we could simply set one listing for 508 leads, without having to create a “product listing” for this exact amount, and I’m hopeful that AssocTrac will eventually do this.
A few negatives
Another problem is that AssocTrac does not show the total amount earned for each affiliate where they can see it. They have to total it out themselves. This is another area for needed improvement. And while I’m concentrating on the negatives, I should point out that AssocTrac does provide real-time click stats. But again, we do not currently use this feature. This is because of 2 serious flaws:
1. If a visitor is not “unique” to AssocTrac’s system, it will not count the click. So if a person with a given IP address has ever clicked on an AssocTrac link, it will count the click the first time, but not any subsequent times, for any products.
2. It counts the total number of unique clicks for ALL products. It does not list them separately by product. For these 2 reasons, we felt that the click stats would mislead our affiliates, and so we do not currently use them. But I am both hopeful and confident that this problem will eventually be fixed.
A few good points
AssocTrac really does automate a lot of manual work. You can use their application template so that affiliates can apply and immediately be accepted – the administrator doesn’t have to do anything at all. I use my own form, because our clients require us to not accept certain sites into our program. But it is easy for me to enter them into the database. AssocTrac then immediately issues them an acceptance letter, which I can edit, and contains their ID and Password, the page they need to go to to login, and any other information I desire.
If they lose their password, which is a VERY common problem, AssocTrac prompts them to enter their ID. If they at least know this, it then sends the Password to the e-mail address on file for them – AUTOMATICALLY. I don’t even know about it. One of our competitors, a very successful multi-million dollar company, does not even have such a feature for their high-tech, in-house system!
Statistics and mailings
AssocTrac has a generic “site” that affiliates can login to to view their stats, and use other features. Or you can integrate it into your site, which I did, so more options are available to them.
They can go to my site, update their address, if it has changed, unsubscribe from my e-mail newsletter/announcements, if they wish, see how much they are earning for each product and for which dates, not only for themselves, but for the sites they have referred in. Yes, it tells them which specific IDs sold which products on which dates, and you can cross reference this to see the NAME of the person or company the ID belongs to.
This creates some privacy issues, in rare cases, but is especially useful if you personally refer someone into the program, for example, or wish to mark the trends for your most productive referrals.
They can see the name or company name of each person they have referred in (whichever checks are mailed to), and on what date they were referred in, but not any other information about the individual, such as address, email address, and other personal things.
When I send a newsletter to them, I can choose to have AssocTrac send it to all affiliates, or I can have it sent only to ones who are selling specific products, joined before or after a certain date, etc. It allows me to mail merge many different features into the newsletters.
I can have it enter the person’s first and/or last name, company name, ID, Password, and many other things, and where I want them in the newsletter. And because affiliates can update their personal information online, INCLUDING the Password, any changes will be noted in real-time when my announcements go out. If I don’t want AssocTrac to do the mailing, I can download the information to send through another utility.
Payments made easy
Payments are much easier than the way we were doing it before! An all-day procedure is done in a few short minutes! Really! We can set the minimum level for payouts, and have it roll amounts under this to the next month. Those who meet the minimum payout are downloaded into QuickBooks (which is fairly cheap). Currently, only the name or company name, plus the amount is automatically placed on the checks. We have to copy and paste in the addresses from AssocTrac, but this only takes few minutes for us at present.
It would be a serious chore if we mailed several hundred checks each month, or especially with thousands, and we’re hoping AssocTrac will eventually load the addresses as well. But as I said, it isn’t too bad at present, and we print and mail the checks, for an entire month – THOUSANDS of dollars, in just a few short minutes. And again, all of this information is up-to-date (name or company name, address, etc.), because affiliates can update it automatically online in real-time – we aren’t even aware when they do it.
AssocTrac is a powerful tool. There are few deficiencies, which I have outlined above. In time, I suspect that these problems will be fixed, and additional improvements added, at NO extra cost to the owner. This is a big advantage!
I honestly believe that we would have shut down our affiliate program if we hadn’t come across this tool.
Our competitors hire programmers and easily spend tens of thousands of dollars building and maintaining their systems. I couldn’t afford to do this, and I’m not a programmer. Plus, they will only see improvements in their systems through their own programming efforts, or again, by paying someone else. I receive upgrades free of charge, minus my almost negligible monthly hosting fee.
In short, if you are wanting to run your own affiliate program, do NOT want to spend thousands and thousands of dollars getting your system going (and WHAT IF IT DOESN’T WORK?), are not a programmer, or even if you are, do not want to spend hundreds or even thousands of hours building and maintaining your system, then AssocTrac is probably for you!
[Editor’s Note: Puzz.com CEO Bill Bultass tells AssociatePrograms.com CEO Allan Gardyne what he thinks of AssocTrac.]Allan,
As you know, I own two accounts for AssocTrac, and have recently purchased another of Corey’s products, Mailloop. Before I go any further, I’d like to personally THANK YOU for recommending AssocTrac to me! It has really helped us a lot.
To be honest, I was skeptical of Corey because he really does push quite a sales pitch on his pages … but he can back it up, which is a lot more than most people can say!
As I promised, here is a brief overview of our experiences to date with AssocTrac, both pro and con. To begin with, a little history:
I started my affiliate program 10/6/98. The Puzz.com Affiliate Program allows webmasters to promote free and trial offers (newsletters, sweepstakes, downloads, trial magazine subscriptions, etc.) on a cost per action (lead) basis. The program was manually intensive for us, and we did not have the programming knowledge or capabilities to provide a two-tier referral program or many other much needed features. I asked if you knew of a good way to automate our affiliate program. And you did: AssocTrac.
Value for money
AssocTrac cost me $977.00. That may sound like a lot to some people. It isn’t. But other than a monthly hosting fee of about $20 (AssocTrac is NOT hosted on your server, which I consider to be a big plus, since they do automatic backups and upgrades – read on for more info about this second issue), that’s all you pay.
Our program pays on a per-action basis, but AssocTrac is designed for people with per-sale programs: people who are wanting others to promote their products on the web. Even though AssocTrac was not designed for a program like mine, it works quite well!
AssocTrac can be purchased for $100 or so less than I paid if you DO NOT want the two-tier feature. I can’t imagine anyone not wanting this – the two-tier feature is one of AssocTrac’s greatest benefits.
Since we have purchased AssocTrac, which to me is kind of like owning a condominium (you pay a monthly fee, but still technically “own” it, and there are benefits for the fee you pay), they upgraded the system from 1.0 to 2.0.
And here’s what I find interesting and a latent benefit: we can still use the 1.0 version. 2.0 has many added features, but there were some things we liked about 1.0. When entering data with either system, it goes into the SAME database – so you basically get to choose which features you like more.
Plus we simply log into a different URL for each version, but with the same ID and password. I can have two browsers open if I want, using both versions at once, entering and retrieving data from the same database which my affiliates are using.
Meanwhile, my wife, who handles our statistics (commissions) and payroll, can be doing the same thing at the same time on a different computer, anywhere in the world – without any conflict whatsoever – all entering and retrieving in real-time from the same database. A 3.0 version and probably many others are on the way, and hopefully these upgrades will solve the few problems we have (read further) with AssocTrac.
What AssocTrac does
AssocTrac is designed to track sales in real-time. Also, they can be manually entered by the administrator (person who owns an account). In most cases, the offers we promote HAVE to be entered manually – but this is still MUCH better than the way we were doing things before. In the cases where we could use the real-time feature, we currently do not.
This is because it records each sale for each product separately: it does not group them. So if an affiliate sold 200 magazines at $1.00/magazine in a given month, it would show EACH sale, by date, and would not group the sales. So you would have to count up the total number of sales to determine your commission.
The way around this problem for us was creating “blocks” of sales. You have to create a “product” in the system before it can be sold. Normally the product is listed for 1 sale. But you can create a “product” or “block” that is for more than one, if you are entering it manually.
For example, a listing for “Sweepstakes: 500 Leads” – we set the commission for this “sale” and for the referring site’s commission as well. To clarify that, you get to set the commission however you wish, along with the commission to the 2nd tier referring site, for each product. I can set it as a percentage, a flat amount, whatever.
So if someone had 508 sweepstakes leads, we’d enter a sale for 500 Leads, if we had a block for that, and then one for 8 Leads. It would of course be better if we could simply set one listing for 508 leads, without having to create a “product listing” for this exact amount, and I’m hopeful that AssocTrac will eventually do this.
A few negatives
Another problem is that AssocTrac does not show the total amount earned for each affiliate where they can see it. They have to total it out themselves. This is another area for needed improvement. And while I’m concentrating on the negatives, I should point out that AssocTrac does provide real-time click stats. But again, we do not currently use this feature. This is because of 2 serious flaws:
1. If a visitor is not “unique” to AssocTrac’s system, it will not count the click. So if a person with a given IP address has ever clicked on an AssocTrac link, it will count the click the first time, but not any subsequent times, for any products.
2. It counts the total number of unique clicks for ALL products. It does not list them separately by product. For these 2 reasons, we felt that the click stats would mislead our affiliates, and so we do not currently use them. But I am both hopeful and confident that this problem will eventually be fixed.
A few good points
AssocTrac really does automate a lot of manual work. You can use their application template so that affiliates can apply and immediately be accepted – the administrator doesn’t have to do anything at all. I use my own form, because our clients require us to not accept certain sites into our program. But it is easy for me to enter them into the database. AssocTrac then immediately issues them an acceptance letter, which I can edit, and contains their ID and Password, the page they need to go to to login, and any other information I desire.
If they lose their password, which is a VERY common problem, AssocTrac prompts them to enter their ID. If they at least know this, it then sends the Password to the e-mail address on file for them – AUTOMATICALLY. I don’t even know about it. One of our competitors, a very successful multi-million dollar company, does not even have such a feature for their high-tech, in-house system!
Statistics and mailings
AssocTrac has a generic “site” that affiliates can login to to view their stats, and use other features. Or you can integrate it into your site, which I did, so more options are available to them.
They can go to my site, update their address, if it has changed, unsubscribe from my e-mail newsletter/announcements, if they wish, see how much they are earning for each product and for which dates, not only for themselves, but for the sites they have referred in. Yes, it tells them which specific IDs sold which products on which dates, and you can cross reference this to see the NAME of the person or company the ID belongs to.
This creates some privacy issues, in rare cases, but is especially useful if you personally refer someone into the program, for example, or wish to mark the trends for your most productive referrals.
They can see the name or company name of each person they have referred in (whichever checks are mailed to), and on what date they were referred in, but not any other information about the individual, such as address, email address, and other personal things.
When I send a newsletter to them, I can choose to have AssocTrac send it to all affiliates, or I can have it sent only to ones who are selling specific products, joined before or after a certain date, etc. It allows me to mail merge many different features into the newsletters.
I can have it enter the person’s first and/or last name, company name, ID, Password, and many other things, and where I want them in the newsletter. And because affiliates can update their personal information online, INCLUDING the Password, any changes will be noted in real-time when my announcements go out. If I don’t want AssocTrac to do the mailing, I can download the information to send through another utility.
Payments made easy
Payments are much easier than the way we were doing it before! An all-day procedure is done in a few short minutes! Really! We can set the minimum level for payouts, and have it roll amounts under this to the next month. Those who meet the minimum payout are downloaded into QuickBooks (which is fairly cheap). Currently, only the name or company name, plus the amount is automatically placed on the checks. We have to copy and paste in the addresses from AssocTrac, but this only takes few minutes for us at present.
It would be a serious chore if we mailed several hundred checks each month, or especially with thousands, and we’re hoping AssocTrac will eventually load the addresses as well. But as I said, it isn’t too bad at present, and we print and mail the checks, for an entire month – THOUSANDS of dollars, in just a few short minutes. And again, all of this information is up-to-date (name or company name, address, etc.), because affiliates can update it automatically online in real-time – we aren’t even aware when they do it.
AssocTrac is a powerful tool. There are few deficiencies, which I have outlined above. In time, I suspect that these problems will be fixed, and additional improvements added, at NO extra cost to the owner. This is a big advantage!
I honestly believe that we would have shut down our affiliate program if we hadn’t come across this tool.
Our competitors hire programmers and easily spend tens of thousands of dollars building and maintaining their systems. I couldn’t afford to do this, and I’m not a programmer. Plus, they will only see improvements in their systems through their own programming efforts, or again, by paying someone else. I receive upgrades free of charge, minus my almost negligible monthly hosting fee.
In short, if you are wanting to run your own affiliate program, do NOT want to spend thousands and thousands of dollars getting your system going (and WHAT IF IT DOESN’T WORK?), are not a programmer, or even if you are, do not want to spend hundreds or even thousands of hours building and maintaining your system, then AssocTrac is probably for you!