Appendix 3: User Feedback on Affiliate Management Software

Stand-Alone Affiliate Programs

• Affiliate Tracking Network (1)
• Affiliate Window (23)
• Affiliate Wiz (2)
• AffiliateClicks (1)
• AffiliateShop (2)
• AssocTrac (7)
• ClickAlyzer (1)
• ClickBank (23)
• Commission Junction (11)
• Commission JunctionAffiliate Guerrilla (1)
• DirectTrack (3)
• EasyOnlineSales (1)
• IDevAffiliate (1)
• Interneka Affiliate (6)
• IsalesForce (1)
• JVManager (6)
• Kiosk's superaffiliate script (1)
• Links4Trade (1)
• LinkShare (8)
• Little Salesmen (2)
• Managed Affiliate Program Software (1)
• My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (30)
• MyReferer Affiliate Software (1)
• PartnerManager (1)
• Performics (2).

Affiliate Programs Integrated into Shopping Carts

• 1AutomationWiz (2)
• 1ShoppingCart (10)
• Ashop Deluxe (1)
• Click and Build (1)
• ClickCartPro (2)
• Decentrix (1)
• Design a Shop (1)
• eCOMpal (1)
• Mal's e-commerce (1)
• osCommerce (3)
• QuickPayPro (1)
• ShopSite (2)
• StoreFront (2)
• Synergyx (2)
• Website Wizard (1)
• X-Cart Gold Shopping Cart Software (1)
• Yahoo! Merchant Solutions (2)

Custom Programmed Affiliate Management Software (36)

Affiliate Tracking Network (ASP Hosted). Deborah, USA. Sales: $500 to $5,000. 40% to 50% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive:

Negative:

Affiliate Window (Network). Alec, UK. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Poor. Service: Poor.

Positive: -Paying our affiliates with a single cheque, by a trusted intermediary. -Flexibility of program e.g. ability to use it to track our own marketing activities (e.g., PPC) by signing up to our own program and setting commission to zero.

Negative: Software is basic, slow and doesn't store your selections properly - even during a single session. Doesn't store individual clicks-throughs. (Just totals the clicks on any given month) We need to measure our own auction cycles which don't cleanly match calendar months... VERY Slow response of tech support to fix problems.

Affiliate Window (Network). Phil, UK. Sales: $500,000 to $1 million. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive:

Negative: 30% over-riding commission.

Affiliate Window (UK) (Network). Alec, UK. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: We can use it to track other marketing activities. We only write one cheque/month. We can see and contact our affiliate and move Affiliate Program if necessary. Open and honest feel to everything. Developers not too patronising unlike some.

Negative: Rather clunky unreliable software. Slow support from developers. Sometimes never fixing a problem. Doesn't allow us to use pre-define date ranges which we can store.

Affiliate Wiz (Licensed). Mike, USA. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Nice feature set.

Negative: Only cookie-based tracking.

Affiliate Wiz (Licensed). Aaron, USA. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Excellent.

Positive: It gives us the flexibility with a developer in house to make changes as needed.

Negative: reporting and contact management.

AffiliateClicks (ASP Hosted). Jean, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: Easy to use.

Negative: Not popular with some affiliates.

AffiliateShop (ASP Hosted). Scott, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Poor. Service: Good.

Positive: It didn't have licensing fee -- only a small monthly fee.

Negative: The user interface is poor. The functionality is very limited. The design is amateurish.

AffiliateShop (ASP Hosted). Dennis, USA. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive:

Negative: Difficult (or impossible) to vary payouts by product category.

AssocTRAC (ASP Hosted). Mike, Australia. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 30% to 40% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive:

Negative:

AssocTRAC (ASP Hosted). Laurence, USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: It's simple to use.

Negative: For the price, it's not as flexible as I'd like it to be.

AssocTRAC (ASP Hosted). Kevin, USA. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: It works and has been reliable for us for the last several years.

Negative: Some features that ought to be routine aren't. For example: In order to add a product I have to generate a 'fake' sale through my website. There isn't an interface to do that. Also, to change my master password or email I have to actually go to tech support to get that done for me--this was an issue when an employee got fired last year and I needed to quickly change the passwords.

AssocTRAC (ASP Hosted). Mike, UK. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 30% to 40% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Good.

Positive: Developed by someone who uses it for their own successful business.

Negative: Having to depend on third party servers.

AssocTRAC (Licensed). Orlando, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Poor. Service: Poor.

Positive: Nothing really, from the start they did not offer installation, and when I got my web design guy to install it I ended up paying just like other better programs.

Negative: Not much that I like, it is slow and did not fit our needs, I could have gotten some better, maybe more expensive, I'm not sure but I would getting better results from it.

AssocTRAC (ASP Hosted). Sales: $500 to $5,000. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive:

Negative:

AssocTRAC (ASP Hosted). Daniel, USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Good.

Positive: It seems to be reliable and hands free.

Negative: The cost. Since starting with this program, a lot of new possibilities have become available. Most of them have more services for the same or less cost. There does not seem to be any interest on the part of the provider to add any upgrades. This program has been static for several years.

ClickAlyzer (ASP Hosted). Tom, Canada. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: It's integrated with an EXCEPTIONAL stats solution. Plus, it allows my affiliates see what happens to their referred visitors on MY page(s), all the way to the sale. This way, I can give them suggestions on how they can improve their pre-selling efforts.

Negative: The last several months, support questions have been responded to very slowly (although it's been getting better the last little while). It seems that they had a major spam problem in November, so much of their time was devoted to overhauling their entire communication process. On top of that, they've also just totally redesigned their website, so I imagine that has been hindering them from providing better support and follow-up.

ClickBank (Network). Marian, Eastern Europe. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. 30% to 40% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: all.

Negative: zero.

Clickbank (Network). Kristi, USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Very reliable.

Negative: I would like to see better stats.

ClickBank (Network). Jim, USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 30% to 40% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: I like the hands off aspect of this program.

Negative: Would like to receive more data about affiliates, i.e. email address, name, phone number.

ClickBank (Network). Pal, USA. Sales: $500 to $5,000. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Good.

Positive: Easy easy easy. No need for affiliates to sign up for specific products, and they take care of the checks for you.

Negative: without 3rd party software, you can't sell more than one thing through an affiliate link. The interface is archaic.

ClickBank (Network). Dave, USA. Sales: Under $500. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: It is handled hands off by me.

Negative: It only deals with downloadable products.

ClickBank (Network). Edwin, USA. Sales: $500 to $5,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Its great.

Negative: none.

ClickBank (Network). Tim, USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Everything as far as payments to affiliates, etc. is handled directly by ClickBank thereby relieving us of all of the hassles.

Negative: Nothing, so far.

ClickBank (Network). Reggie, Australia. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 70% to 80% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Good.

Positive: Ease of use.

Negative: Difficulty in signing up others.

Clickbank (Network). Doug, USA. Sales: Under $500. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Service: Good.

Positive: easy to set up, ClickBank pays all commissions.

Negative: Concerned about affiliates buying my product through their own links, commission theft, spam sent by affiliates associated with my product, whether the first or last referrer should get the commission.

ClickBank (Network). Lam, USA. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 40% to 50% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive:

Negative:

ClickBank (Network). Andrew, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: It is build-in solution.

Negative: I have to pay for service and I have no control over the whole process.

ClickBank (Network). Eldon, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: It is easy. Most affiliates are already members so it's a no hassle approach. They handle the business side so you don't have to deal with most issues.

Negative: Would like better tracking.

ClickBank (Network). Albert, USA. Sales: $500 to $5,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: I like the fact that there are a lot of different affiliate partners who are part. It gives me wide distribution quickly and my affiliates can easily add their links because they use this system a lot.

Negative: The accessibility of information is terrible, especially for my affiliates. There is no way to improve the information or stats of this system.

ClickBank (Network). Doug, Canada. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Poor. Service: Poor.

Positive: easy to implement.

Negative: fees and holdbacks of income by charging for checks and withholding a percentage of sales for months.

ClickBank (Network). James, Australia. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 30% to 40% affiliate driven sales. Software: Poor. Service: Good.

Positive:

Negative: Inflexible in terms of varying commissions for sales; doesn't allow hard products or services. can't be used for links to varying products.

Clickbank (Network). Dr. Mani, India. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: It offers a payment solution to my affiliates, even though I live outside the US.

Negative: The lack of flexibility, and inability to sell tangible goods.

ClickBank (Network). Ruben, USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: Easy for affiliates to sign up. No responsibility on our end to track/pay out.

Negative: Links are cumbersome and do not help in raising link popularity due to their syntax not including the website name.

ClickBank (Network). Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive:

Negative:

Clickbank (Network). Allan, Western Europe. Sales: $500 to $5,000. 30% to 40% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: No headaches - it's automated and my programmers get lots of free exposure. Sometimes I'm surprised where all the buyers actually come from...

Negative: Slow payout [2 weeks wait for cheque to be sent out] and quite high commission payment to CB.

ClickBank (Network). Darryl, USA. Sales: $500 to $5,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: It's linked to thousands of other affiliates.

Negative: can't give a guarantee longer than 3 months.

ClickBank (Network). Sales: $500 to $5,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive:

Negative:

ClickBank (Network). Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 50% to 60% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive:

Negative:

ClickBank (Network). Chris, Australia. Sales: Under $500. 80% to 90% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: set and forget.

Negative: nothing.

Commission Junction (Network). Matt, USA. Sales: Over $10 million. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Excellent.

Positive: CJ has some good back-end process such as consolidated bill payments and an easy-to-use interface.

Negative: 1) CJ does not give merchants any tools to recruit new affiliates? 2) CJ does not track conversations and relationships with affiliates, like a SalesForce.com or ACT!.

Commission Junction (Network). Deborah, USA. Sales: $500,000 to $1 million. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Very self-service, but when you do need help, representatives are very responsive. Access to a large pool of affiliates.

Negative: Cost.

Commission Junction (Network). John, USA. Sales: $500,000 to $1 million. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive:

Negative:

Commission Junction (Network). Deborah, USA. Sales: Over $10 million. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: CJ is responsive and network is good.

Negative: Poor reporting.

Commission Junction (Network). Zach, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Excellent.

Positive: The customer service is excellent. Whenever I have a problem I can get someone on the phone quickly to help me understand and work towards a solution. The reps really make an effort.

Negative: The usability of the interface is poor and the site is slow. The quality of the affiliate network is poor and the link and product creation capability is also weak. The CJ system does not provide the useful information that I would like to have at my fingertips and has a messy affiliate management system...

Commission Junction (Network). Josh, USA. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Good.

Positive: CJ has a well known name.

Negative: They take 30% commissions which is much higher than others. They give affiliates commissions on total sales including shipping. They only allow 20 banner ads to be posted. They charge a $500/month minimum which hurts when you are first starting out.

Commission Junction (Network). Heidi, USA. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Good.

Positive: customer service.

Negative: reporting.

Commission Junction (Network). Amy, USA. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Poor. Service: Poor.

Positive: Large program with lots of traffic and affiliates. Although we have not managed it well, it has brought increased traffic and helped to establish out site in the search engines.

Negative: Requires a lot of technical knowledge. Large investment. We have not used this tool to its fullest potential.

Commission Junction (Network). Amanda, USA. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: Wide variety of affiliates; well-known; easy to use software.

Negative: Lack of custom reporting; no support (or very limited support) below Vantage level; expensive.

Commission Junction (Network). Pierre, USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive:

Negative:

DirectTrack (ASP Hosted). Linda, USA. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Total flexibility and customization.

Negative: Want a better email module.

DirectTrack (ASP Hosted). Christophe, USA. Sales: $500,000 to $1 million. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: Fully customizable. We set our own terms of service and directly manage the affiliates.

Negative: Back office is not really user-friendly.

DirectTrack (ASP Hosted). Mark, USA. Sales: $500,000 to $1 million. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Cost effective and feature rich.

Negative: Can't be hosted on my servers.

EasyOnlineSales (Licensed). Kurt, USA. Sales: Under $500. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: It generates a high resale value.

Negative: Do not get enough customers to buy.

IDevAffiliate (Licensed). Joseph, USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 30% to 40% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: Reasonable price, good support.

Negative: Slow to get updates, not as full featured as other top dollar products.

Interneka Affiliate (ASP Hosted). Richard, USA. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Good.

Positive: Interneka is solid, it works and it very user friendly. Our company will continue to use their software in the future.

Negative: I don't like the fact that they do not have a customer support telephone number, but they are very fast to respond via email.

Interneka Affiliate (ASP Hosted). George, USA. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Excellent.

Positive: The software was really easy to implement and has been up 100% of the time. It is pretty easy to use and payouts are easy to perform. Reporting is basic but useful. Private linking allows us to have affiliate links be seen by Google as linking directly to us, helping with our ranking. It caters nicely to a two-tier and special discount program for individual affiliates, plus lifetime commissions - all great for recruiting purposes. Plus, deep linking and the ability for us to actually have links that add products directly to our cart help to differentiate us. Customer Service is EXCELLENT, and they generally respond quickly and even make changes/enhancements within days of a request.

Negative: The product is pretty complete. However, it does not provide for product-level sales reporting or commission programs (i.e. all products receive the same commission). The lack of product sales reporting is a big one for us, since our affiliates need this to help manage their sales efforts. The reporting could be beefed up, and the PayPal interface only works if ALL are using PayPal for payout, which is never the case, so we have to do PayPal manually.

Interneka Affiliate (ASP Hosted). Charlie, Western Europe. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 40% to 50% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: Easy to use, easy to follow stats and easy to approve affiliates.

Negative: For our kind of service, it would be great with some function for the affiliates to create many product links at once. This ought to be the case for any company that offers a large product line.

Interneka Affiliate (ASP Hosted). Andrius, USA. Sales: $500 to $5,000. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Flexible commission model, excellent customer support.

Negative: No multi-language support, can't customize admin area layout.

Interneka Affiliate (ASP Hosted). Tom, USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: It is modestly priced and offers most of the same features as large and expensive programs like CJ.

Negative: Program does not offer an affiliate directory program to recruit affiliates.

Interneka Affiliate (ASP Hosted). USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Ease of use, ease of configuration and the ability to inexpensively run completely separate campaigns.

Negative:

iSalesForce (Licensed). Diego, Argentina. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 30% to 40% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive:

Negative:

JVManager (Licensed). Mike, USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Relatively easy to use. Gives a way to centralize all of my customers and affiliates, instead of having separate software for each.

Negative: I don't like how I have to manually approve each affiliate before they can login (if I'm away from the computer for an extended period of time, they'll have to wait until I get back to start promoting). You can't just go in and add a product. You have to create a package first, then add a product to that package. Its really no big deal, but it gets a bit redundant.

JV Manager (Licensed). Gary, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: It's hosted on my own site. I can create packages of products easily. I can provide special affiliates with extra commissions. There's a feature that allows me to give a percentage of my overall sales generated to one or more affiliates. I can have one or two tier for any of my products. Customers can pay using 4 or 5 different payment processors such as Clickbank, Stormpay, 2CheckOut, PayPal, and MoneyBookers.

Negative: The affiliate tracking code I have to place on each of my webpages just takes a lot of time to set up if I have many products.

JV Manager (Licensed). Dave, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 40% to 50% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: You are in control of the total process. This way you can provide the tools for the serious affiliate and the extra help they may need for success.

Negative: It has a sharp learning curve. But it's a powerful piece of software that you constantly find methods to benefit from.

JVManager (Licensed). Edwin, USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 30% to 40% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Good.

Positive: The ease of use, as well as the quality of workmanship that went into the programming of the script. It was very easy to install and runs very smoothly!.

Negative: I haven't found anything that I don't like about it.

JVManager (Licensed). Tim, USA. Sales: $500 to $5,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Easy to use.

Negative: Can't think of anything.

JVManager (Licensed). Dirk, Western Europe. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: It offers an all-in-one solution. I can use it for collecting the email addresses of my customers and affiliates. I compared several programs but this one is really the best I ever have seen.

Negative: -.

Kiosk's superaffiliate script (Licensed). Dennis, USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 80% to 90% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: Easy to customize, provides excellent statistics, easy for members to use.

Negative: Upgrading from older version to current version is very hard and may not even be possible without having to manually reenter all of the affiliate.

Links4Trade (ASP Hosted). Muryal, USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Excellent.

Positive: I have not been working with it long enough to have any comments here.

Negative: I have not been working with it long enough to have comments here.

LinkShare (Network). Amie, Canada. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Good.

Positive: The reach of the network; the amount of data available for analysis.

Negative: $1500 'affiliate manager' fee that gets us, essentially, a weekly pep-talk telling us to contact more affiliates but doesn't do much in the way of building relationships or attracting super-affiliates.

LinkShare (Network). Brian, USA. Sales: Over $10 million. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: Not a whole lot to like.

Negative: Yes, it tracks our sales but the whole report process is terrible. And there are way too many fraudulent affiliates that sign up. My current approval rate is 40%.

LinkShare (Network). Laurie, USA. Sales: Over $10 million. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Poor. Service: Poor.

Positive: they take care of the details that we don't have the manpower to do (sending out checks to affiliates) and supply us with affiliates (we don't have the manpower to put a full-time effort on recruiting new affiliates).

Negative: Customer service isn't as good as we'd like. Their interface is difficult to use & slow We don't have as much control over what we'd like to do with and for our affiliates.

LinkShare (Network). USA. Sales: Over $10 million. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: Good name brand. New analytics reporting is solid.

Negative: Exclusivity and lack of merchant and affiliate customer service. Also, lack of being proactive for kicking out 'adware/spyware' affiliates in their network.

LinkShare (Network). USA. Sales: Over $10 million. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Poor. Service: Poor.

Positive:

Negative:

LinkShare (Network). USA. Sales: Over $10 million. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive:

Negative:

LinkShare (Network). Chris, South and East Asia. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. 30% to 40% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: Excellent reporting functions and the ability to communicate directly with my affiliate base.

Negative: Lack of consolidated payments.

LinkShare (Network). Stephanie, USA. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Poor. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: Large base of active affiliates in program/network.

Negative: Interface is very slow, clunky, and complex to use. Reporting is nearly impossible to dig in to and find answers to simple questions (new reporting system somewhat better but still not answering some basic questions).

Little Salesmen (Licensed). Dave, Middle East. Sales: $500 to $5,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Poor. Service: Poor.

Positive: marketing.

Negative: no.

Little Salesmen (Licensed). Carolyn, USA. Sales: $500 to $5,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service:

Positive: It was easy to install and use.

Negative: I would like more of a back office.

Managed Affiliate Program Software (ASP Hosted). Jenny, Eastern Europe. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Poor.

Positive: Nothing specific.

Negative: Poor customer service.

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Christopher, USA. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 80% to 90% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Easy to use, good customer service.

Negative: Poor results from the network in recruiting new affiliates.

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Linder, Canada. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: We have more control over our communications with our affiliated publishers. We work together and that won't change just because I change our software/network solution.

Negative: It's a lot more labour intensive - but we're up to it!.

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Ian, Canada. Sales: $500,000 to $1 million. 40% to 50% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: It is customizable and there is no additional charges based on sales. Flat fee.

Negative: Not much :).

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Heather, USA. Sales: Over $10 million. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service:

Positive: It's accurate and inexpensive.

Negative: They are not part of a network so we don't have much access to affiliates.

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Victoria, USA. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Provides consistent and reliable reporting. Very versatile, can use for multiple purposes other than just affiliate tracking. Customer support is always very easy to work with.

Negative: Only that at the present I can't see a way to use it on ALL my websites without upgrading.

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Tony, USA. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Good.

Positive: It has all the bells and whistles of the more expensive programs, yet is priced for the small business.

Negative: There is nothing that I don't like. The program is easy and comprehensive; the people are friendly and professional; and they are always coming up with new and innovative additions.

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Susan, USA. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 30% to 40% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Software is customizable, and excellent customer service.

Negative:

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Mike, USA. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Flat fee, customer support, no charge promotion network, check writing service, monitoring, management, free upgrades to software.

Negative: Nothing I don't like.

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Dave, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Great pricing, best customer service.

Negative: N/A.

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Ken, USA. Sales: Over $10 million. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive:

Negative:

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Martin, Australia. Sales: Over $10 million. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: Easy to manage.

Negative: Slow response from vendor after issues arise.

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Jessus, Latin America. Sales: Under $500. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Good.

Positive: Its customer service and clarity of instructions.

Negative: Perhaps it has to do with the short affiliates I got.

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Ian, USA. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Easy to use and easy for affiliates to use.

Negative: Graphically it could be improved but it is a 8 on a scale to 10.

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Sales: $500,000 to $1 million. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive:

Negative:

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Sam, USA. Sales: $500,000 to $1 million. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service:

Positive:

Negative:

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Jeremy, USA. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: Price and features.

Negative: Number of referral affiliates. I do not like the shopping cart integration process either.

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Daniel, USA. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Excellent.

Positive:

Negative:

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Jennifer, Canada. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive:

Negative:

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Kelly, USA. Sales: Under $500. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Excellent.

Positive: It allows companies to obtain easy access to other organizations.

Negative: The set up needs to be more step-by-step. Not easily understandable.

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Michael, USA. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Accurate, easy to use, easy to sign people up, great tracking and other features.

Negative: It's good the way it is - but more customization is always nice.

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Scott, Canada. Sales: $500,000 to $1 million. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: Let's us control payments to our affiliates - simple to use and administer.

Negative:

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 50% to 60% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Everything.

Negative: Nothing.

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Edward, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 70% to 80% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: Easy set up.

Negative:

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Karen, USA. Sales: Over $10 million. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: I like that they have different options for level of service. Their MyAP software is very user friendly.

Negative: Their program management is terrible. We hired them to manage our account, but it's not working, so now, we're trying to figure out how best to do it on our own.

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Bessy, Canada. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Excellent.

Positive: We 'own' the affiliates. Easier customer relation management.

Negative: Reporting features.

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). USA. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Excellent.

Positive:

Negative:

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Shawn, USA. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. 30% to 40% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: MyAP is a very flexible, scalable, and customizable solution at an affordable price. And now they have incorporated a network (Kolimbo), it's an even better deal.

Negative: Not all affiliates have a Kolimbo account, so there is sometimes a hurdle to get them to fill out a new registration form.

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Keith, UK. Sales: $500,000 to $1 million. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Good.

Positive: Simple to use Kolimbo network is great!

Negative:

My Affiliate Program (MyAP). Joshua, USA. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 30% to 40% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: I particularly like its excellent reporting features over a variety of topics. I enjoy its ease of use after the initial setup. The affiliate's side of the software seems to be nicely organized. It's nice for my affiliates to be able to view their progress at any time. The integration with other website technologies is excellent.

Negative: Customization is sometimes difficult, and payout commissions aren't fully customizable. The user interface is cumbersome and sometimes downright non-user friendly. It takes a while to 'get used to' the interface. Configuration is not always straightforward.

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Sanjay, India. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Good.

Positive: Great program! Very intuitively laid interface. Easy to understand and most importantly, KowaBunga is very innovative. Hats off to Rachel and her team.

Negative: Not much!.

My Affiliate Program (MyAP) (ASP Hosted). Howard, USA. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive:

Negative:

MyReferer Affiliate Software (ASP Hosted). South and East Asia. Sales: $500 to $5,000. 50% to 60% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive:

Negative:

PartnerManager (ASP Hosted). Hans, Canada. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: Allows good reporting.

Negative: Not as configurable as I'd like.

Performics (Network). Darrin, Canada. Sales: Over $10 million. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Good.

Positive: The fact that they manage the program for me.

Negative: The higher commissions I pay is 1st. I have also had to ask questions, such as for datafeed options, where I would've hoped they told me proactively about what I could do.

Performics (Network). Sales: $500,000 to $1 million. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive:

Negative:

Post Affiliate Pro (Licensed). Sylvie, Canada. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: French version available, easy to understand, easy to use, able to offer multi-level of commissions AND affiliates ! (We paid a lot with other affiliate software to learn the difference !) Billing integrated.

Negative: Nothing for now... :-) WE LOVE IT !.

Post Affiliate Pro (Licensed). Jude, USA. Sales: $500 to $5,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Good.

Positive: I can have more than one product and it is easy to install the script.

Negative: You have to create your own 'text links' for ezine ads or articles. They plan to incorporate that into their next upgrade.

Post Affiliate Pro (Licensed). Steve, UK. Sales: $500 to $5,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: Zero Cost and easy to customize.

Negative: Not easy to add extra links unless you have a fair understanding of PHP, luckily I do.

Shareasale.com (Network). Bob, USA. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Good.

Positive: They are easy to contact and get support from.

Negative: There isn't much flexibility in structuring our commissions. They are also weak on downloading of reports and on email communication with affiliates.

Shareasale.com (Network). John, Western Europe. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive:

Negative:

SiteLink Manager (Network). Sammy, USA. Sales: Under $500. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: it lets me adjust the prices customers see and that I get paid first then pay supplier.

Negative: little slow on customer service to me.

Super Affiliate Software (Licensed). Frank, USA. Sales: $500,000 to $1 million. 90% to 100% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Great software at an affordable price.

Negative:

Super Affiliate Tracker (Licensed). Debra, USA. Sales: $500 to $5,000. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Poor.

Positive:

Negative:

Super Affiliate Tracker (Licensed). Gary, UK. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Good.

Positive: Price, support.

Negative: PHP script based system has limitations - rebuild feature falls over if large database, or large number of product sites to rebuild for each affiliate. System is based on replication of pages, rather than a dynamic affiliate system Interface looks old. User manual only just recently improved.

Ultimate Marketing Center (ASP Hosted). Douglas, Canada. Sales: Under $500. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Its connectedness to Clickbank. Tightly integrated with other core web business tools.

Negative: Lack of detailed reporting.

Ultimate Affiliate Manager (Licensed). Ley, Latin America. Sales: Under $500. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Easy to use and implement.

Negative: N/A.

Ultimate Affiliate Software (Licensed). Ellery, USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Good.

Positive:

Negative:

Ultimate Affiliate Software (Licensed). Hodges, USA. Sales: Under $500. 30% to 40% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Good.

Positive: combining affiliate program with shopping cart.

Negative: programming the scripts to get them to do what I want them to do. I would love a GUI that I could just place my information into and the information would be integrated into the script.

Ultimate Affiliate Software (Licensed). Ken, Australia. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 80% to 90% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: It is very user friendly, yet completely automates sales, follow-up, affiliate payments and stats. Overall it does give all I require and the biggest advantage over another program that I did purchase is it's user friendliness.

Negative:

Ultimate Affiliate Software (Licensed). David, USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service:

Positive: I have just recently set it up on a recommendation from a friend. I don't have enough experience with it to say yet.

Negative: I don't have enough experience with it to say yet.

Ultimate Affiliate Software (Licensed). Vaughan, New Zealand. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 40% to 50% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: Multi product across multi sites.

Negative: needs to be easier to modify.

Ultimate Affiliate Software (Licensed). Amar, India. Sales: $500 to $5,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Very simple to install and no maintenance needed.

Negative: Long affiliate links.

1AutomationWiz (Shopping Cart). Eva, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: Not in any particular order - many things: 1) It comes with a shopping cart 2) It lets me track various campaigns 3) It comes with unlimited autoresponders designed to automatically unsubscribe the customer from one after they buy and move them to the next in a series. (Or I can just use the autoresponders to teach a sequential class that the customer can start at any time.) 4) It lets me upload e-books or files that can be sold and downloaded, creating a temporary download page good for only about 24-48 hours. 5) It lets me load up graphics for various sales pages 6) Their order security tools keep evolving to meet the needs or their customers. (I had someone spamming my order form - big time - to the tune of 100s of fake orders per day. They wrote a subroutine requiring people to enter random characters with each order. The automated spamming stopped.) 7)I can lock out any IP addresses I want. (Also added as a result of my spamming problems - now both tools are available to everyone.) 8) You can download your reports into QuickBooks and integrate them straight into your accounting system 9) It works with most gateways and merchant accounts, including PayPal...as well as with Corey Rudl's e-book download tool. 10) They are always improving it. They listen to customer feed back. 11) You can offer different rates of commission to each affiliate, or on each product. 12) It offers a two-tier program. I am sure there are more good things about it...but these are the first that come to mind.

Negative: 1) It's not intuitive. 2) It's hard for someone to just walk in and start setting things up and run with it. You have to do things THEIR way. I've had two rather smart people throw their hands up and run, rather than continue to work with the program. 3) There are many aspects of it that I don't use because I simply don't have the time to figure it out. 4) I can never find certain things - like how to offer a temporary discount. 5) Customer service is not fast. Tickets can take a day to answer. And their phone line isn't available in evenings and early mornings when many of us have quiet time to work...and need help. But, if you do call them - they ARE helpful. (I really wish you had a choice between GOOD and EXCELLENT. They are better than good, but fall short of excellent.) 6) My links aren't working right and I spent an entire evening trying to get them to work - but their input is confusing so I don't know, when I fill in field, never mind. I am smart enough that it shouldn't be so complicated - and I should be able to make them work. Lost it. Haven't tried to update it in months. (And no, I didn't ask them for help - they weren't there at that time of night.).

1AutomationWiz (Shopping Cart). Dany, Canada. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: Features, easy to start with.

Negative: Monthly cost.

1ShoppingCart (Shopping Cart). Jesse, USA. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: It's part of the shopping cart and it has lots of features.

Negative: Not sure yet. Haven't spent enough time working with it to find any negatives.

1ShoppingCart (Shopping Cart). Teri, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 40% to 50% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Integration with all marketing and ecommerce functions.

Negative:

1ShoppingCart (Shopping Cart). Steven, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: Easy to manage, works well.

Negative:

1ShoppingCart (Shopping Cart). Lois, USA. Sales: $500 to $5,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Automatic calculations; can have more than one tier; autoresponder messages when sales are made; allows you to create ads and custom banners for the affiliates.

Negative: It doesn't work with membership software.

1ShoppingCart (Shopping Cart). Jay, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 70% to 80% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: It can handle multiple affiliate programs if you like.

Negative: No way to export as PayPal's Mass Payment format when it's time to pay the affiliates. I have to export as Excel and then do a bunch of cutting and pasting. Very surprising limitation for an otherwise very good package. You also can't bring up all earnings for one affiliate for a given date range -- that's needed when it's time to do 1099s.

1ShoppingCart (Shopping Cart). Donna, USA. Sales: $500,000 to $1 million. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: Ease of use.

Negative: Not easily customizable.

1ShoppingCart (Shopping Cart). Cynthia, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: As I was already using 1ShoppingCart for my digital download shopping cart needs, it seemed easy to begin using their affiliate module when I was ready to develop my affiliate program. The setup was relatively painless and convenient, as everything was in one place (customers, affiliates, prospects, etc.). For a newbie like me it was worth the low monthly cost and reduced hassle, at least at the time...

Negative: Now that I'm not a newbie anymore (ok, I'm a Sophomore) I find that 1SC is rather lightweight. I also feel 'stuck' with them because if I switch now I'll have to track two affiliate programs (or jeopardize losing a few affiliates if I ask them to re-join using a different affiliate module/software/whatever.) INTERFACE ISSUES: The affiliate interface is a confusing for affiliates, especially if they don't realize they're supposed to choose from multiple affiliate programs in a drop down menu. This seems rather obvious, but I have multiple affiliate programs that I want to direct them to, but they generally just use the default that appears first. So much for all the money I spent on creating media for the other programs. The affiliates see the drop down menu, with the default appearing first, and don't think to scroll down to find/investigate the other affiliate programs. And 1SC charges an additional fee for maintaining over five affiliate programs -- programs which my affiliates don't seem to access because of 1SC's bad interface design. COST: Even given the drawbacks, I don't know of any other program that gives as much bang for the buck, particularly if one sells high-margin digital products. Their digital download function is worth the price in itself (don't tell them that, as 1SC has already had one price increase this year). TECH SUPPORT: I'm constantly finding errors/bugs/general confusion within the assorted modules. Being a former product manager at Disney Interactive, I always call the tech support people to find out whether it's me (operator error) or them (bad programming or quality control). About 30% of the time it's them, with the conversation ending with the tech support guys saying, 'I'll let the programmers know.' Their pattern is to release updates while the code is still untested and to let the clients complaints act as their QA. Rather bush league.

1ShoppingCart (Shopping Cart). Martha, USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive:

Negative:

1ShoppingCart (Shopping Cart). Lois, USA. Sales: $500 to $5,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Everything is automatic.

Negative: I can't use it for my paid membership site because the shopping cart doesn't integrate with phpBB to allow some folks to be paid members and some to be free. I have to use a different product, aMember, and it doesn't offer an affiliate program.

1ShoppingCart (Shopping Cart). Michael, USA. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Very easy to use, doesn't seem to make mistakes.

Negative: Would like more control over chargebacks.

Ashop Deluxe (Shopping Cart). Paul, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: Two tier program. Good admin panel. Easy product / affiliate management. Integrated retail and wholesale shopping cart with affiliate program. Easy to customize html catalog pages and product listings. We didn't have to change hosting and loading the 40+ table database was done automatically by running set-up.

Negative: Their extensive help directory is organized poorly. Most help topics are one sentence short of a complete explanation. I feel it is intentionally vague in places to encourage us to pay their optional fees for customizing our program. They have made nice upgrades (free) but each time there have been bugs in the new releases followed by patches.

Click and Build (Shopping Cart). Victoria, Australia. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Excellent.

Positive: It was relatively easy to integrate.

Negative: There is a glitch that banners and buttons are visible.

ClickCartPro (Shopping Cart). David, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: We have not started using the affiliate part of the software yet.

Negative: We have not started using the affiliate part of the software yet.

ClickCartPro (Shopping Cart). Laura, USA. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: Easy to use. The interface is very intuitive.

Negative: Because of it's simplicity, the program is not very robust. Because of that, the program cannot handle anything out of the ordinary...

Design a Shop (Shopping Cart). David, USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service:

Positive: Very easy to use. I just give a link to our vendor with a code (any code) I want to use at the end.

Negative: It would be good if the software determined how much and when each affiliate should be paid. It doesn't have any back office stuff, it just gives us raw data about who helped sell what (and when).

eCOMpal (Shopping Cart). USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: It's integrated with my shopping cart so it's easy to track end-to-end.

Negative: It doesn't have an integrated payment system. I have to manually prepare the payments.

Mal's e-commerce (Shopping Cart). Kristina, USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Poor.

Positive: I like that it tracks commissions for each person.

Negative: I don't like that I have to go through and add up everyone's total, at the end of the month. And I don't like the check writing process. I would rather let someone else do that for me and keep track of my affiliates commissions.

osCommerce (Shopping Cart). Cathleen, USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service:

Positive: built in software, no fees to merchants, no monthly fees.

Negative: Needs some work on tracking codes and such. Not very sophisticated. You need to be able to and have time to code PHP to add features.

osCommerce (Shopping Cart). Stan, Canada. Sales: Under $500. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service:

Positive:

Negative:

osCommerce (Shopping Cart). Jeff, USA. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service:

Positive:

Negative:

QuickPayPro (Shopping Cart). Chris, USA. Sales: $500 to $5,000. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: The on-the-fly order forms, easy affiliate management and ease of setting up the path a prospect follows through the sales system.

Negative: A link on the order page to sell the ThirdSphere service. No membership management for doing membership sites.

ShopSite (Shopping Cart). Craig, USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: It integrates with Site Build It!.

Negative: If we leave Site Build It! we can't take it with us.

ShopSite (Shopping Cart). Christi, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: It's seamless and I don't have to worry about it. The orders seem properly tracked.

Negative: I don't like the way it exports from the interface. I have to download it as a CSV file, then import it into Excel to create the reports. Then I have to do my own addition. Also, it doesn't calculate 'commissions to date'; I do that. Lastly, it only allows one commission percentage, but the affiliates get two different commissions depending on which products customers purchase.

StoreFront (Shopping Cart). Earl, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Poor. Service: Poor.

Positive: It is supposed to be integrated into the storefront software that I purchased.

Negative: So far I have not seen it work very well. I does seem to have a lot of limitations.

StoreFront (Shopping Cart). Greg, USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: It is fairly easy to set up and the affiliates could do it themselves. We haven't allowed that as of yet due to tracking concerns.

Negative: I'm getting more and more disgusted with Store Front as they change their licensing options for webmasters. The affiliate program requires a custom report that I had to write to send individualized reporting to the affiliates.

Synergyx (Licensed). Western Europe. Sales: $500 to $5,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive:

Negative:

Synergyx (Licensed). Joe, UK. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Very comprehensive stats. and reports.

Negative: Nothing.

Website Wizard (Shopping Cart). Neeraj, Canada. Sales: Under $500. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: Easy to use.

Negative: Haven't spent enough time learning all its capabilities so I can't say.

X-Cart Gold Shopping Cart Software (Shopping Cart). Kyle, New Zealand. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: Not a lot actually.

Negative: Too hard to use.

Yahoo! Merchant Solutions (Shopping Cart). Wes, USA. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: Takes care of most of what I need.

Negative: Need more flexibility in the info that I get from the program.

Yahoo! Merchant Solutions (Shopping Cart). Woostock, USA. Sales: $500 to $5,000. 50% to 60% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: Easy to use.

Negative: The reports.

Custom. Jaye, USA. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Customization. We can fine tune things to our liking.

Negative: We don't have the reach of giant networks, but have found that affiliate relationships that we build are more meaningful.

Custom. Francisco, Western Europe. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: Customizable.

Negative: Not easy to use.

Custom. Val, Eastern Europe. Sales: $500 to $5,000. 30% to 40% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: Support.

Negative: It takes many resources.

Custom. Nancy, USA. Sales: $500 to $5,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive:

Negative:

Custom. Igor, Eastern Europe. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. 40% to 50% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive:

Negative:

Custom. Rose, USA. Sales: Under $500. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Good.

Positive:

Negative:

Custom. Thomas, Canada. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: It's flexible. If we want to give a bonus to anyone who does any work in the landing of a contract, we can do it through the affiliate program.

Negative: It currently does not generate detailed reports.

Custom. K, Canada. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service:

Positive: We have control.

Negative: Some affiliates will only join the big networks.

Custom. Jim, USA. Sales: Under $500. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive:

Negative:

Custom. Brad, USA. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 40% to 50% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: That is custom made for us by our own staff. Not only does it do what I want and need, but it can be modified to add features at a moments notice without any fuss, quotes, or extra cost the company.

Negative: Nothing that I can think of.

Custom. Max, Western Europe. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. 50% to 60% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: Reporting: it is the most important aspect to us we will have complete reports of traffic and earnings, broken down per media used (banner, links, etc..).

Negative: Still under development. We have not tested yet.

Custom. Kelly, USA. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: I feel like it is another avenue to generate inbound links, market the program to others that could send 'qualified' visitors to the site, and generally offer others an opportunity to sell certain products and services easily from their web sites.

Negative: So far so good.

Custom. Deb, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 30% to 40% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: It's completely integrated into my commerce site, and tracks the clicks, and tracks commissions.

Negative: N/A.

Custom. Sales: Under $500. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Easy to use.

Negative: Nothing.

Custom. Meg, USA. Sales: $500,000 to $1 million. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: It makes a lot of money.

Negative: N/A.

Custom. Andrew, USA. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. 40% to 50% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Does not rely on cookies, nor do we have to 'payout' a cut to a third party affiliate software vendor.

Negative: No promotion of the affiliate program outside of our own promotion.

Custom. Brandon, USA. Sales: $500,000 to $1 million. 40% to 50% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service:

Positive: N/A.

Negative: N/A.

Custom. Mark, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service:

Positive: It is easy to use.

Negative: It has only a few of the features we need.

Custom. Matthew, Western Europe. Sales: Over $10 million. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Excellent. Service:

Positive:

Negative:

Custom. David, UK. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software:   Service:

Positive: Don't have to pay anyone else a cut to run the program.

Negative: Poor interface.

Custom. Gary, USA. Sales: Under $500. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Poor. Service: Poor.

Positive: Inexpensive.

Negative: Not stable, does not have many features, nor benefits for the affiliate.

Custom. Sasi, India. Sales: $5,000 to $25,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service:

Positive: It allows us to have different percentages of commission for different products.

Negative: Reports generated are not very useful for identifying trends.

Custom. Volker, Western Europe. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: Easy to modify.

Negative: Usability is not so good; tracking not possible.

Custom. David, USA. Sales: Over $10 million. 20% to 30% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: Suits our unique non real-time transactions.

Negative: Not scalable, too many manual processes.

Custom. Jan, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 40% to 50% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service:

Positive: We designed it to be unobtrusive, transparent, and seamless to any recipients of the messages. Our clients can turn-off the 'Powered by InfoMailer' affiliate links if they want. We encourage them to keep them On and enjoy the lifetime commissions on any new accounts.

Negative: Too soon to tell. We will launch this new web marketing service in May 2005.

Custom. Todd, Canada. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Provides reports - runs itself.

Negative: Need more reports.

Custom. James, South or East Asia. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 60% to 70% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Excellent.

Positive: Easy to understand and use.

Negative: Not that I can think of.

Custom. Harold, USA. Sales: Under $500. 10% to 20% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: It is self driven.

Negative: Not enough marketing support to advertise the products.

Custom. Ken, USA. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 70% to 80% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: Flexibility.

Negative: Having to maintain it.

Custom. Haig, Canada. Sales: $1 million to $10 million. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Excellent.

Positive: When a problem arises the programmers fix it nearly each time the same day.

Negative: Still could use a lot of refinement.

Custom. Tam, Middle East. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 40% to 50% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Excellent.

Positive: All the features.

Negative: It had some technical problems in the last reporting period that led to some mistakes in calculating the affiliates dues.

Custom. Tom, USA. Sales: $100,000 to $500,000. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Satisfactory.

Positive: We are not sure yet. We may be looking at other options.

Negative: It is not generating enough response, so more effective marketing would be helpful.

Custom. Elise, USA. Sales: $500,000 to $1 million. Under 5% affiliate driven sales. Software: Good. Service: Good.

Positive: The website is automatic.

Negative: You can't add any outside URLs.

Custom. Sandra, Caribbean. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 80% to 90% affiliate driven sales. Software: Satisfactory. Service: Poor.

Positive: Having access to the database to investigate and/or repair any abnormality, to change affiliate status and account information.

Negative: That it does not provide some of the reporting features one would expect from an affiliate software program that I wish we had built in.

Custom. Mike, USA. Sales: $25,000 to $100,000. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software:   Service:

Positive: Avoids dependence on cookie based tracking software. Very inexpensive since we're not paying any intermediate service.

Negative: Requires human attention.

Custom. Lynda, USA. Sales: $500,000 to $1 million. 5% to 10% affiliate driven sales. Software:   Service:

Positive:

Negative: We're actually thinking about redefining our program.