I’m new to the affiliate program. Got some concerns about it, as I see others have. Just wondering about the quality of the consultation you took on this if this is the final product.

I have set up a system on my website, whereby an affiliate only needs to link to me to make sales. I now see on this forum (information in general on 2CO is VERY hard to find and seems to be scattered around the place in forum/blog posts) that sales from an affiliate must come from the affiliate’s website (news to me).

I presume you check the “referer”? Under my system, the affiliate simply makes a link to my site. The customer then purchases from MY site. Therefore my site will be the “referer”. Does this mean the sale will/won’t go through? Does this mean the affiliate will/won’t get commission?

This is the format of the purchase link on my site:

https://www.2checkout.com/2co/buyer/purchase?sid=1333122&quantity=1&product_id=2&aff_id=xxxxxxx

(where xxxxxxx is the Affiliate ID)

Looking at the sample HTML you provide for linking to Vendor products, the above link looks good to me but I need urgent confirmation about the “referer” (I currently have this system up and running – with as yet, no affiliates).

This is the format of the link that the affiliate makes to my site:

http://formtoemail.com/formtoemail_pro_version.php?aff_id=xxxxxxx

(again, xxxxxxx is the Affiliate ID)

This page explains how my system works:

http://formtoemail.com/affiliate.php

If all of the above is acceptable, then I think I can use this program. Some issues of concern, though.

1. Extremely poor information on Vendor’s products and the Vendor that I might be interested in selling. I had a look at the affiliate “opportunities”. I saw some vendor’s products that I was interested in and figured I could probably sell from my site. I wanted more information on the product and the vendor. That information wasn’t available to me. Yes, I know the vendor provides a description, but under the way the affiliate program is currently run, I need to sell the product from my own website, with the customer purchasing from me and getting sent directly to the 2CO purchase page.

There is NO WAY I can do this. This has the effect of the customer purchasing from ME. They do not see the Vendor’s site, they know nothing about the Vendor (heck, *I* know nothing about the vendor, his site or his product!!). I took one look at this and backed off straight away.

Even if I did know A LOT more about the Vendor and his product, under the current scheme the customer is purchasing from ME. So if the customer has a problem with the product, they will come to me for support. There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY I can/will support another Vendor’s product.

2. No way to simply link to the Vendor. To save all of the above hassle, an affiliate could simply make a link to a Vendor (that’s what I provide for prospective affiliates on my site). This makes it extremely easy to get Affiliates linking to our products. I await clarification on the above to see if the system I am currently offering is in fact any good!

3. Bad signup process for new affiliates. As has been said before, the signup form is very poor indeed. It is confusing and off-puting. Firstly, it is the signup for the 2CO Vendor account referrals scheme. This is the first thing you see at the top:

“Earn extra cash for yourself by referring your customers and site visitors to 2CO”

Palease!!! This is the form I want *MY* prospective affiliates to use!

I can see people leaving right away at that point, bewildered and confused.

The wording then continues, “to become an affiliate for FREE”. Again, WHOSE affiliate??? 2CO’s or the Vendor’s??

The form must be rewritten to make it CRYSTAL clear what the visitor is signing-up for.

The form is also daunting with the amount of *required* information and the emphasis on the “Company” details, the insistance on a “Customer service” phone number for example. It’s highly unlikely you are going to get Corporate users signing up to the affiliate program, they are more likely to be part-timers, clubs, hobby website owners. That said, with its present fundamental failings, it’s highly unlikely you will get anyone signing up for it!

Please clarify all of the above points. The future of my participation in this scheme, depends on it.

Regards.

Charles Sweeney
FormToEmail.com