I currently use just Plimus but looking at some of the comments regarding RegNow it seems like using RegNow as well might be useful to bring in new affiliates and use the Digital River Distribution Network. My problem is, I don't know how to do that best and would appreciate some advice from anyone who's done it or at least has some good ideas how I should do it. Essentially I want to use Plimus for all sales which come directly from my site. Possibly I might use RegNow for failed Plimus orders as was suggested on another recent thread, but for the most part, I like Plimus and I want to use them. I have Plimus affiliates too, so I want to make sure they continue to get credit for everything they send my way. But I also want to make sure that RegNow affiliates get credit for everything too. I own Software Passport Pro and I understand that this can be used for making versions for the DR Network, but I'm pretty unclear on the other issues involved in making RegNow trials, and there seem to be schemes for making affiliate-friendly versions which I can't really find clear information on either. I'm planning on converting Bowling Babes over to a key-based system as well soon, so pretty soon, I won't be offering full version downloads for any game. I've had a good read of the RegNow forums but frankly the messages and reports are very confusing and frequently contradict each other about what is good for affiliates and what is good for vendors. This is going to be considerably more complicated, I suspect, when using two completely unrelated payment processors. Any advice on the subject would be much appreciated.
Just setup your RegNow account. When an affiliate wants to sell your products you will be notified by email. You then choose to accept or deny the affiliate (just like in Plimus). All links on your site and in the game should point to your Plimus sales page, but all affiliate versions and pages point to the RegNow page. Pretty much as simple as that.
You do this using a Regnow script. The script will check whether a Regnow cookie exists and send the customer to the Regnow ordering page when it exists. All your other customers are sent towards your usual Plimus ordering page, resulting in either unaffiliated sales or Plimus affiliated sales. Here's an excerpt from the Regnow control panel help:
Related question, so I will piggyback. Say somebody is set up on RegNow but not Plimus, and I want to carry their game on my site, which uses Plimus for taking orders. How much of a turn-off is it if I approach that RegNow guy and ask him to set up on Plimus so I can carry him as an affiliate on my site? Note that I'm not asking about them carrying my game on their site. In that case, I'd assume I'd need to be on RegNow for different reasons. To me, it seems like they have to take about 15 minutes to set up a store with their product descriptions and make it available for affiliation. I imagine providing a document with step-by-step instructions to make it easier--perhaps even give them instructions with their product descriptions from the RegNow store copy-and-pasted in. Heck, I'd set up the store for them if I didn't think it would cause security concerns. Unlike RegNow, the store setup is free. They'd have to hassle a little bit with receiving payments from an extra processing company. They'd have to point their order URL in a custom build to the Plimus order page, but that has to happen regardless of whether the affiliate is on RegNow or Plimus. The answer I'm expecting is "well it depends if carrying the game on your site is going to bring in enough sales to make the trouble worth it." Sure, sure. But I'm wondering if I'm assessing the amount of trouble correctly, or if people would be even more reluctant than I'm thinking. And then of course, being new to the affiliate stuff I'm expecting to be blindsided by some all-important detail I forgot about or had never considered. That is always happening to me. -Erik
I would not set up a new vendor account for just one affiliate - it is _vastly_ easier to set up a new affiliate account than a new vendor account. It took me many hours spread over several days setting up my Plimus account (learning the new control panel, moving the several products, setting up the discount offers, repairing my custom C licence key generator code to work with Plimus - and now I'm going to have to create a clients database to support both Regnow and Plimus customers). IIRC Regnow affiliate accounts are also free.
Thanks Diodor, that looks like exactly what I need. If I'd signed up first, I'd have seen that, but I wanted to make sure that it was possible and practical to do what I wanted. With the dual payments in one link, it seems very practical.
Just one word... don't believe what someone says that plimus had just 3 affiliates... here's a list of SOME of my current affiliates, and note that THEY ASKED ME, I didn't go around anywhere to supplicate them to sell my games: addictive247 gameparade DFG diygames gametunnel eurodownload terragame phelios games2download positech This last one had X copies of Democracy (can't tell how many without his permission), his latest game, just sold by me in 2 days, with Plimus. So as you see, it is an unknown system at all...surely need some optimization, like the affiliate page which is confusing and take some time to load with a isdn connection, but so far I'm very happy with them.
Speaking of Plimus affiliates, I just signed up with Plimus a couple weeks ago and have had 4 people request affiliation (2 of which were obvious scammers), without me having looked for anybody. They obviously just trolled the Plimus listings. So if RegSoft is more affiliey than that, I don't know if I could even keep up! Secondarily, I am now on Plimus. people, so sign up to be a Hamumu affiliate!!
Well, the scam is very simple: sign up, order 20 copies of something, get paid, then refund all the orders and disappear. Someone else on this forum (Jack Norton?) earlier mentioned it happening to them. What I noticed about these two guys were: one had an email address of blackhat@something, which in and of itself would be fine, if his website hadn't been for the Vietnamese Hacker's Alliance or something (black hat + hacker = bad). I was actually kinda iffy on this because I went to the site (which was all in vietnamese, so a little tough to follow) and tried to find anything damning, and I couldn't (it could actually be a 'good' hacker group). So maybe he is legit, but I don't hold out much hope. And besides, the site didn't have anything to do with selling games, so I don't think I'm losing anything by ignoring him. The other one was more obvious: his website was a "build your website here!" message, he's in Indonesia, and the product he asked to affiliate was the Super Mega Dumb Pack on CD... by odd coincidence, the most expensive product I had listed (at $130!), and the one nobody would ever be able to sell a copy of. I've since removed the product entirely, as I was just considering it as an idea, but I don't think anyone would ever buy it (all my games combined for 50% off). I imagine he was just trolling for high priced products. Now, I could be wrong on either or both of them, but what they showed me in their requests wasn't enough for me to lose sleep over dismissing them, so the technique to use is just common sense. Just like you wouldn't buy a watch from a shady guy in an overcoat in an alley, if someone seems shady, don't get into business with them. That's just my theory - someone else told me they approve every request they get.