Affiliate payment systems using pre-paid credit cards

Recently I came across an international affiliate network that is working with a pre-paid MasterCard company offering their affiliates a pre-paid credit card that can be used around the world for payments.

This appears to work exceptionally well from the feedback I’ve seen on it.

It is an on-going challenge for affiliate companies to find just the right way to pay affiliates. In New Zealand at least, it’s quite common for direct online bank-to-bank transfers to take place and it’s usually considered to be ok to pass your bank account details to a trusted affiliate company.

The idea of a pre-paid credit card that is sent directly to an affiliate on their first payment (especially for an affiliate network) is brilliant. It circumvents all the transfer issues a company would usually have, including extra costs associated with online payment wallet systems like PayPal, Neteller and the like and it allows the network to have the funds available immediately for the affiliate.

Hopefully we’ll see this implemented in a few more of the affiliate programs and networks both internationally and within New Zealand as the technology becomes easier to integrate with online administration systems.

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Commission Monster Application

I’m happy to say that Commission Monster came back with a reasonably quick acceptance of the application with a nicely done information email describing the services.

There are many affiliate programs who do not spend enough time looking at what their affiliates say when they apply and do not fit quite the same setup which the affiliate program is looking for. Commission Monster are obviously not one of these. Good service!

I also received a follow-up email suggesting a couple of programs. They may not have been targeted to what I’m promoting (e.g. New Zealand affiliate programs) but at least they are being proactive about it.

An initial look through their system shows an easy to use interface with a well laid out selection of reports, features and ways to apply or search for programs to apply to.

If you’re interested you can Sign Up to Commission Monster.

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Commission Monster Review

I haven’t discussed Commission Monster in any in-depth way yet as I had not seen many New Zealand affiliate programs using this more Australian based network.

Late last week I came across an NZ shopping affiliate sign-up (stoffels.co.nz) which is using the Commission Monster network as its program so I figured it was time to become familiar with the network.

Commission Monster is part of the Viva9 Group (viva9.com) which includes Commission Monster, Monster Mall, Rewards Palace, Wildkard and Postclick. All groups appear targeted mainly at the Australian online publising market. Lead by Shane Murray (former CEO of BMCMedia Ltd) with Peter Brighton heading up Commission Monster itself, the group has quite a powerful level of experience in building publishing networks online.

They have some heavy weight brands in the online industry that they show as their clients including; InterFlora, Virgin Money, Wizard Home Loans, Nestle, HSBC and AOL.COM.AU.

The network is very slick from the front-end and appears to be quite up-front with who they are working with and what else they are up to online.

I started to apply by going to the Publishers section and came across something I haven’t seen in an affiliate application before. The first piece of information they require is your email address and the following statement follows;

Please note: Commission Monster requires you to use an email address affiliated with the website you have nominated in this application e.g. www.flowers.com = myname/info/admin@flowers.com. If you cannot do this, please place the words ‘Powered by Your Full Name’ at the bottom of your home page or another page you nominate in the space provided below.

This is quite surprising. I understand that the network would want only publishers who have spent the time and effort to register their own URL and have an email address attached to it however that’s not the only reason people may not standardly use an email address which is attached to their URL. Many people now use webmail systems like Gmail and others to bring in all of their email (this may increase now that Gmail have launched IMAP capabilities) and do not have an email address setup on the site they are looking to promote.

It’s quite understandable that they have done this but it definitely must reduce the amount of legitimate publishers who decide to sign-up to the network. I use the email address affiliate[at]nzbase.com for this website and do not have an email address setup under “@affiliateprograms.co.nz” for no particular reason other than I didn’t really need yet another set of email domains.

I’ll register with this standard email address and see what happens :)

If you’re interested you can Sign Up to Commission Monster.

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Using the Google Referrals system - validation period

Recently Google announced on the Adense Blog that they are implementing a “validation period” on the referrals system for non-Google products.

The Google Referral System lets you (through Adsense) connect directly to advertisers with a revenue share, CPA or hybrid (CPA + revenue share) commission agreement.

The idea of implementing a validation period is that Google can reduce the level of commissions paid to the publisher until it is convinced that the publisher is in fact passing through valid traffic and sales;

For some publishers who display referrals for non-Google products, the earnings you receive for the ad may now be less than the maximum referral value displayed for that ad. This is because our system will initially place a restriction on referral earnings as we monitor click and conversion data to determine that the conversions generated are valid. Once this validation period ends, you’ll begin earning the maximum value of the conversions as displayed in your account.

Nothing particularly surprising about that. It’s quite common in affiliate programs to have a tiered commission structure where an affiliate receives a better commission once they are sending through a certain level of qualified traffic.

Here’s the interesting bit;

We can’t say precisely how long the validation period will last, but will make every effort to ensure that it’s as speedy as possible. It will vary by publisher since site activity is different for everyone, and we anticipate that the majority of you will be minimally affected. However, advertisers will only be charged the maximum referral value once a publisher has completed the validation period.

Now my first question on being put into a validation period is “How long is this period going to last?” and Google have said “We don’t know” or at least “We won’t tell you”.

As an affiliate publisher, one of the key metrics I need to know at any given time is how much money each of my referrals is generating so that I have a basis for deciding on the performance of the advertising I’m running.

It’s easy to see why Google have done this, they are protecting the advertiser to the highest degree possible by saying that they will not increase referral revenues until they deem the maximum referral value has been earned.

Fair enough from an advertisers point of view but very hit-and-miss from a publishers point. Perhaps there is a way that Google could bring some level of transparency into at least the amount of referral revenue a publisher will receive during this validation period and possibly even, on an account by account basis, the expected validation period time-frame?

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Google takes on the affiliate market with Referrals 2.0

The New Zealand affiliate market just became a whole lot more interesting.

Google have now fully launched their “Referrals 2.0″ through Google Adsense.

For some time now Google have offered referral fees for promoting their own internal products; Adsense itself, Google Toolbar + Firefox and others. Now they have rolled this Referrals 2.0 product (another name for an affiliate network) out to all Adsense publishers.

There was a beta for the Referrals 2.0 launch in March and now it has launched properly into Adsense accounts with a small advert on the overview page of Adsense saying;

NEW Congratulations, your account has been upgraded to include the all new Referrals 2.0 - click here to get started

Is this relevant to the New Zealand affiliate market? Yes.

On a search for “New Zealand” on the products offered within the Adsense Referrals 2.0 there were 10 results including accomodation programs, flights (of course), rental cars (as expected) and interestingly even Green Lipped Mussels!

This is a major step forward for NZ affiliates but is it the best step forward? Specilised affiliate networks live and die on close, personal communication with their affiliates. Will Google be able to live up to this?

I would think it isn’t a huge focus for Google as they already have the majority of the market in PPC advertising in New Zealand anyway so publishers are bound to flock to them.

So, Google Referrals 2.0 is likely to be an excellent option for lower level affiliates but the top level affiliates (who cover 80% of the market, as usual) may well be cautious on using this system as they will lose the ability for one-on-one deals with the affiliate managers.

Time will tell but Google Referrals is here to stay and will become a dominant force in New Zealand where there is a lack of quality affiliate networks.

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New Affiliate Network from Google?

Google have just launched a Beta within Google Adsense which looks to be a version of an Affiliate CPA network.

Called “Google Referrals” the Beta allows publishers to pick out of hundreds of advertisers therefore specifically increasing the relevance of the Google adverts while setting a defined action for the payment. Sound like an affiliate CPA to anyone?

With referrals, you’ll be paid when your visitors click through to an advertiser’s site and complete an action defined by your advertisers, such as a sale or sign up. Because these actions are often more involved than a simple click or impression, advertisers pay more for these referrals, which can translate into higher earnings for your site. Further, you’ll see the expected earnings and advertiser performance ahead of time, so you can make the best decisions about what to refer. You can also choose to target the keywords that will ensure you get the highest-paying referrals for your ad space.

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Advantages to using an affiliate network

Something which does not appear to have caught on yet in New Zealand, probably because of the lack of market size, is the idea of larger affiliate networks with multiple affiliated products available for advertising.

All of the affiliate programs I have seen around specifically run by New Zealand sites also seem to be running their own internal development of the affiliate programs. This is a good idea if your company has large internal development resources but can be quite expensive in any other situation.

There are many advantages to being part of a wider affiliate network if you have a product to promote. The two main ones are having access to a large database of affiliates, beyond what a small site could recruit as well as having access to an affiliate network’s technology for serving your advertising to the affiliates.

Let’s hope we’ll see something like this emerge in the New Zealand affiliate market soon.

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