Cheating software vendors

22 September 2008 - 16:15

You might not have realized it, but software is usually sold on the net in a different way to most other products. Sites like CNET's download.com, Tucows and indeed Tech-Pro.net are not software resellers. We are affiliates. When you purchase a product from one of our sites, we don't actually take your money. Instead, you are referred to the software developer's e-commerce partner, which processes the order, delivers the product or license key, and pays the referring site a commission for generating the sale. Unfortunately, many independent software vendors (ISVs) don't play fair by their affiliates.

The only way an affiliate site is guaranteed to get its commission is when customers click the Buy buttons on the affiliate site. Then the ISV's e-commerce site knows exactly which site they came from, and the affiliate gets his cut.

However, most software buyers want to try software before they buy. Sites like download.com, Tucows and Tech-Pro.net encourage people to download trial versions. There is no need to purchase the software until you are 100% satisfied that it does what you want. The trouble is that most downloaders don't go back to the site they got the software from if they decide to buy the full version. Many don't even remember where they got the download. So they go to the software vendor's own site to buy the license instead.

This should not be a problem, as e-commerce systems have been designed to cope with it. As long as the Buy buttons on the vendor site use the same e-commerce partner as the links given to the affiliate, the e-commerce site knows who the affiliate was, thanks to a cookie that was placed on the customer's computer when they downloaded the trial version. The trouble is that some ISVs now use a different e-commerce system on their site to the one they encourage affiliates to use - and the other system doesn't recognize the affiliate. This means that the site which generated the sale gets precisely nothing. The affiliate is cheated out of his commission.

RegNow is one of the most popular software e-commerce providers, and a lot of well-known products are sold through it. Recently, due to some real or imagined problems with RegNow's payment processing, some ISVs have been considering moving to alternative providers that have recently appeared on the scene such as Avangate. Some have already made the switch, and now have links to Avangate on their purchase pages. None of the developers that I have noticed have done this has had the courtesy to inform me - and presumably their other affiliates - in advance of the change. Presumably they expect me to keep on selling their products for nothing.

I've been in the software business for a long time, and I know for a fact that the majority of ISVs or "shareware" developers go ballistic when they discover some warez or crack site that is allowing people to download the full version of their product without paying for it. Yet they apparently consider that there is nothing wrong in avoiding paying their affiliates. Talk about double standards.

Used tags: affiliate, affiliate_marketing, avangate, download_site, isv, regnow, shareware, software

« Free software can be … | Home | How Google profits fr… »

four comments

Julian,

As you mentioned our name in the article, I’m taking the opportunity to name few of the advices we always give software vendors working with multiple affiliate networks. First of all, I will start by saying that it should be in the vendor (and affiliate network) best interest to pay the affiliate for the work they do, because if they don’t get paid they will stop making sales and everybody loses. When working with multiple affiliate networks, software vendors should work on 2 levels as you suggested: site purchase and buy from within the product.

1. On the site, our advice is to create a script that identifies what affiliate network has referred the product. This way, buy buttons in the site can be changed accordingly to one network or another, depending on what the affiliate is using.

2. At the product level, there are 2 solutions: custom builds for every affiliate network or buy links that forward to generic buy pages on the site. With the custom builds, the affiliate can offer as a trial version a product that has the embedded buy links to the preferred affiliate network. Or, if the buy links go to a generic buy page on the site, then with the help of the script described at point 1, the buyer is presented with the correct buy buttons.

Of course, I completely agree with you that the software vendors should clearly communicate with the affiliates regarding the procedures when working with multiple networks. That would be in the best interest of all parties involved.
Cristian Dorobantescu (URL) - 23 September 2008 - 16:48

Thank you for your comment, Cristian. Custom builds are a help, but they are only a partial solution. By linking to a hosted custom build for network X via a link that placed a cookie for network Y, whose links were on the software vendor’s purchase page, I have shown that up to 50% of purchases are made direct from the vendor’s site, even when the software starts and closes with a “Register Now” screen containing the affiliate links. This represents significant leakage for the affiliate.

I think your suggestion 1 is the only fair way for vendors to handle affiliates if they wish to use multiple networks, but I have encountered very few vendors who do this.
Julian (URL) - 24 September 2008 - 10:39

Julian,

We use two payment systems, but only one affiliate networks. We are working to avoid the leakage through the trial version. We not only offer custom build via RegNow, but also make sure that our site tracks the RegNow affiliate ID when the trial version is installed. Thus, even if the customer purchases the product on our website, you can completely get the commission as you deserve.
Elaine (URL) - 7 October 2008 - 06:41

Staying with only one e-commerce partner can be problematic due to several reasons. I’m in the process of switching from Plimus to Cleverbridge (depending on how my test period goes), but I don’t think it will hurt your commissions at all. Your point about the e-commerce provider’s cookie is very valid, but I store a cookie myself which contains your affiliate ID, which I carefully map to your affiliate ID on Cleverbridge if it is your Plimus one. All serious vendors should do this. I wouldn’t want to upset my affiliates – why would I.
Brian (URL) - 17 October 2008 - 16:29

Trackback link:

Please enable javascript to generate a trackback url

Topics

Business
Computers
Internet
News
Other stuff
Soapbox
Software
Tips and tricks
Web development
Windows

Cheating software vendors

Archives

Topics