A few questions

[deano6410]

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Hi guys n gals.

I haven't been posting on here for the past 7 days due to my parents coming visiting me here in sunny Madrid. It has also been my birthday and I have been suffering badly with hayfever (Any tips would be great).

Anyway, back into the swing of things now and I have a few questions that perhaps you can help me with.

I am looking to create a site that acts in a similar way to a cashback site. Basically the users can register and then they can sign up for things and for each service they sign up for they get xxx of cash. If they sign up for enough of these services then I will personally send them an MP3 player.

I would love to hear suggestions for the following problems:

1) Is there a decent free/cheap script out there that will allow users to register at my site and then track what they sign up to?

2) Will I be able to track EXACTLY who has signed up for what and how much they have spent?

3) Anyone got any hayfever tips?

Thanks in advance.

Dean

[morleymouse]

cashback in principle isnt hard and quite do able yourself. thin kI even wrote one a hile back but never used it.

basically you need a database, someone registers at your site with a username or user ID. once they login to your site all the affiliate links are displayed with that username or user ID in the trackin element, for example with TD the epi code, so all links when I logged in forexample would be &epi=morleymouse

from the network reports you cna see exactly what they have spent and what commission you get and then decide what o pay them.

like I said, its easy enoug hto do, but do well is another thing. I've see na lot of cashback sites, and a lot of bad ones

You have to distinguish yourself from the crowd, make it look good, have better features than the rest and pay more on sales, only with all of these will you be able to make a decent crack at it.

so yeah, cashback shoudnt be a problem, hayfever, not a clue mate

[deano6410]

Thanks for the reply.

I am more of a marketing and SEO man myself, so if anyone has a script that they can send me or if anyone can install a script for me then I would be happy to pay you for your troubles.

Many thanks.

[drivetowin]

It's not the technical side of cashback that's the problem, it's dealing with all the queries from your members, tracking down 'lost' transactions, dealing with fraud, trying to reconcile your click reports against network click reports - that's what takes the time - for a reasonable size member base that needs at least one person full time - and you do actually end up having to email and phone members of the public (your members) so if that's not your bag - don't even go there.

[thomaskay]

Do networks/merchants mind you using the affiliate deals to give cashback to the customers. I always thought it was by special arrangement?

Is it ok to give cashback to other people? so a referrer could earn a percentage of their referrals cashback when they start using the site?

Tom

[uklejon]

We thought about cashback a while ago and decided not to. The technical side of things is fairly easy, the admin side not.

The great thing about affiliate marketing is that you don;t have customers and don;t have to deal with shed loads of complaints each day. If you ran a cash back site you would have customers and all the problems they bring.

[3wdl]

Do networks/merchants mind you using the affiliate deals to give cashback to the customers. I always thought it was by special arrangement?

Is it ok to give cashback to other people? so a referrer could earn a percentage of their referrals cashback when they start using the site?

Usually when a client signs up to a network they ask what their policy is in relation to incentive sites - sometimes they are given a different payment structure to standard affiliate sites.

[shyguy0507]

Usually when a client signs up to a network they ask what their policy is in relation to incentive sites - sometimes they are given a different payment structure to standard affiliate sites.

They can also impose certain restrictions on what incentive / cashback sites can promote for example only paying for one lead per unique visitor a day (for obvious reasons on certain campaigns)

I know of one piece of software for cashback sites but not really sure what it does which is iTrack. You can find more information on it at http://www.afftrack.com/products/itrack.asp.

The only other script that I know of uses the phpBB forum at http://www.phpbb.com in coordination with the Mod Cash mod.

Not sure if that helped or confused matters even more