Boradband widget question

[Oron Adam]

We are in the broadband comparison business and I was interested to know what the community thinks about the following idea.

Updating the offers every day / week is a bit of a nightmare, providers change prices and conditions every week, and we had to assign someone to do that as one of her daily tasks.

Now my question is. Since we are already putting resources on updating this list, I thought I could introduce a widget that many other affiliates can use to promote the same offers.

Of course I don't want to deal with billing / invoicing etc, so my thought is to allow each of the sites who would like to use this widget to put their own affiliate id and tracking text and we will just display their id instead of ours. We can do it either as a flat rate price, or as a distribution of our id / their id let say 20/80 to cover our costs and make a small profit.

This widget will have a custom css and size / width so each site can tailor it to their own theme / taste and will link direct to the merchants or can jump to a bigger version of the widget with the full list, again displayed on the partner's site.

Would you think this will be interesting / work for other affiliates ? Is this allowed as far as the networks / merchants are concerned ?

Thanks for your time.

[jamcamuk]

Hi

I think that it is a real good idea and would work better on a share or links that way for smaller sites or new sites with not much traffic can have up todate details and prices.

Please let keep me update also what site is yours that you have the broadband on? PM if you like.

Thanks
James

[tbp]

That sounds good, and i`d be interested if it was done on the basis of putting in your affiliate id every so often.

[cclapper]

Originally Posted by osa We are in the broadband comparison business and I was interested to know what the community thinks about the following idea. Updating the offers every day / week is a bit of a nightmare, providers change prices and conditions every week, and we had to assign someone to do that as one of her daily tasks. Now my question is. Since we are already putting resources on updating this list, I thought I could introduce a widget that many other affiliates can use to promote the same offers. Of course I don't want to deal with billing / invoicing etc, so my thought is to allow each of the sites who would like to use this widget to put their own affiliate id and tracking text and we will just display their id instead of ours. We can do it either as a flat rate price, or as a distribution of our id / their id let say 20/80 to cover our costs and make a small profit. This widget will have a custom css and size / width so each site can tailor it to their own theme / taste and will link direct to the merchants or can jump to a bigger version of the widget with the full list, again displayed on the partner's site. Would you think this will be interesting / work for other affiliates ? Is this allowed as far as the networks / merchants are concerned ? Thanks for your time.

I was thinking about developing it but then realized there won't be many people interested and it will also increase competition in broadband comparison


Just as a side note - if someone wants a broadband speed test to add to the broadbadn comparison then check the link in my signature

[Oron Adam]

Originally Posted by cclapper I was thinking about developing it but then realized there won't be many people interested and it will also increase competition in broadband comparison

Why wouldn't people be interested ? I would be very interested to use such a tool if there was one ? Increase competition in the broadband comparison ? How can that be a bad thing LOL

[Oron Adam]

The main site is still not live, we are still in development that's why I am asking all the questions now.

There are some open issues / questions.

1. What happens if an affiliate does not have an ID with one of the networks / merchants ?
2. We can introduce different ratios for different widgets - 75-25 for one with no links to us, 90-10 for ones with no links to ourselves etc, do you think it makes sense ?
3. Do you know if the networks / merchants care where the link is coming from. Our current system work in such a way which loads an intermediate page with an auto redirect to the final affiliate url, so we can see the click in the stats etc. Would this be a problem ?

Thanks for the replies and I will PM / post some more details when we are ready.

[cclapper]

Originally Posted by osa Why wouldn't people be interested ? I would be very interested to use such a tool if there was one ? Increase competition in the broadband comparison ? How can that be a bad thing LOL

I wasn't saying that people wouln't be interested. There will definitely be couple of people interested in that. I am just saying that there won't be many. Its very specialized service appealing to some of the small affiliate website . Every bigger affiliate will create its own broadband comparison as he has better control over the content and no need to share teh payouts.

You see - I talk from the experience of my speed test - its a very niche product as well - how many people actually want to have a broadband speed test on their site? Not many. Was it worth for me to create this widget? Definitely, but not because of other websites that bought the widget - the revenue from that is very small - but from getting couple of good contacts with people in the industry.

[Oron Adam]

Got your point, I was thinking more not on broadband affiliates, but more on big sites who have other content and want to show broadband comparison, like blogs / forums / chat sites etc. But I guess they will not have IDs so I have to work with them on some other basis...

Re your widget, what's the deal ?
Do you just give it away for the links ?

[cclapper]

Yeah. You would need to take care of billing and stuff as they won't have affiliate logins. Also, networks won't accept everyone without site etc..

My widget - its free if you don't mind linking to me. Otherwise its $300 per year.

[Oron Adam]

BTW does anyone know how the companies who supply post code checker for broadband do it ? Who supplies the data regarding where the connections are available. I assume ADSL is everywhere by now, but what about cable ? what about other forms of broadband ? how can I find out ?

[jamcamuk]

here you go Samknows