Tracking sales without an affiliate network

[cgphome]

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Hi all. I run a price comparison website, where all merchants are a member of an affiliate network. I've recently been getting enquiries from merchants outside of any network asking if they can be included on my site.
Is my best bet to try and get them to join a network, or are there any straightforward methods to implement a simple tracking system that we can both monitor? Obviously there are a few more trust issues with the latter, but my question really is is this feasible, and if so is there any software out there that would help me/them implement it?

Many thanks!
Chris

[sgpratley]

I've been looking at the same thing, effectively it involves setting yourself up as network with only one affiliate on it, and I've not really found anything that does the job.

The other route is to get each of the merchants to set themelves up with a private affiliate programme you can join. There are more of these around, relatively low cost scripts like iDevaffiliate, up to hosted systems like MyAP from Kowabunga.

Never really got to the bottom of it before other projects took over, I'd be interested what you find though.

[KGP]

i believe the best option is to "get them" on a network in order to save time and possible risk.

tracking and monitoring them as well as invoincing i trust will take considerable part of your time not to mention handling with all of them

[sgpratley]

That's pretty much the conclusion I came to and why I didn't pursue it.

They'd have paid me as much to set up a private tracking system as a couple of smaller networks quoted in set-up fees, and I'd have had a lot more work to deal with.

It'd have to be something pretty special to have as an exclusive to make it worth it.

[Steved]

You could consider taking the orders yourself, say through Google checkout and passing them over to the merchant daily. I'm pretty sure it can't be that hard to automate. Of course there will be more admin than a regular affiliate deal so you'd have to charge a higher commission to cover it all.

[scifind]

Hi all. I run a price comparison website, where all merchants are a member of an affiliate network. I've recently been getting enquiries from merchants outside of any network asking if they can be included on my site.
Is my best bet to try and get them to join a network, or are there any straightforward methods to implement a simple tracking system that we can both monitor? Obviously there are a few more trust issues with the latter, but my question really is is this feasible, and if so is there any software out there that would help me/them implement it?

Many thanks!
Chris

Entirely feasable - there are many pieces of software out there that will allow you to track sales for one or many merchants. Could cost you anything from £50 to £5000

You might be better off signing them up under a PPC model though, alot easier to track and fewer problems regarding sale reporting, reversals, merchant honesty, bugs in tracking code, loss of tracking code when the merchant upgrades their site etc.

[hirschnathan]

Furthermore do you want to hassle of chasing someone else for payment, settling disputes, Imo not worth the hassle of doing it yourself.
One company asked me directly to work with them and promised a much higher payout, they didnt understand, but I explained, I dont need the headache of chasing payments, more paperwork etc