Earn a Free iPad and Make Money Doing it. Introducing ServInt Affiliate Rewards!
Earn your very own iPad from ServInt!
As far as Affiliate Programs go, ServInt has always been one of the most generous and competitive in the hosting industry. In an industry where 25% payouts are the norm, we’ve quadrupled that sum and have cultivated one of the most successful affiliate programs in the hosting world.
In March, we launched a slew of improvements to our Affiliate program as part of a larger redesign of our website and customer portal. The redesign also allowed us to introduce a few features that affiliates were really clamoring for, and it started another conversation internally about how best to leverage the success of our program while simultaneously attempting to expand it to those who previously had reservations.
That’s why today we are introducing Affiliate Rewards.
The ServInt Affiliate Rewards program is an exciting new way for us to reward our most effective Affiliates. The Rewards will consist of a prize, ranging from the latest and greatest gadget to a gift card or even cash! The top performing Affiliate will earn the top honors while two runners up will receive a $100 and $50 Amazon gift card respectively.
This month, our inaugural top Affiliate Reward will be none other than the most anticipated gadget of 2010, the Apple iPad!
These rewards are an added bonus on top of your Affiliate commissions, it couldn’t be more simple!
The new Affiliate Rewards are in addition to the other great improvements we’ve made to our Affiliate Program, including:
- 100% Payout Structure. You earn 100% of the base monthly price on any converted sale. That means commissions ranging from $49 well into the thousands!
- Exact Dollar Reporting. View our entire product line’s commission grid in dollar values. This makes it simple for you to identify sales trends, develop budget and revenue estimates, and much, much more!
- Improved Reporting System. Easily track and analyze your Affiliate campaigns with our new reporting system. Conversions are easier to identify and payout time frames are easier to track in an all new, intuitive reporting interface exclusive to ServInt’s Customer Portal!
The top prize will likely change month to month, and we will ship the item anywhere in the world where it is legal to do so. We will also be expanding this program in the future.
Currently, our affiliate program is only open to ServInt clients. Not a ServInt client? Why not join the best host in the business and start an Affiliate campaign today? Whether you’re looking for the flexibility of a VPS or SuperVPS or the power and confidence to go Solo with our Solo Series dedicated servers, we have you covered. Order now!
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at busdev@ServInt.com.
Yup, We’ll Pay for Your Hosting…
I have had the opportunity over the past two weeks to carry the news of ServInt’s LA launch to several well known tradeshows that are popular with our clients. Last week I attended both the PubCon and DevConnections conferences in Las Vegas. This week I’ll be at both Interop and Web 2.0 Expo in New York City. I’ve already got to meet a number of clients face to face, which is always fun. I’m going to meet more this week and I can’t wait! I love to hear how our products are being used to build new companies, and I like to hear feedback of all kinds directly from our customers. It’s the way we grow and improve.
I was surprised to have one particular conversation with multiple people, on something I thought was fairly common knowledge. It made me want to get a blog post out as quickly as possible.
More after the jump…
How To Grow Your Business With ServInt’s Affiliate Program (and others too!)
At HostingCon earlier this month, we received some excellent feedback regarding our affiliate program that I thought I’d share with you and expand upon.
It seems, from what I can gather, that ServInt’s affiliate program is great from a feature perspective (our payout is currently at 100% which is, and I’m not just saying this because I work here, absurdly awesome) but could use a bit more hand holding for new users. I thought I’d do a little hand holding for those who have been curious about how to take part in ServInt’s affiliate program and earn free hosting!
First let’s investigate some of the jargon involved in affiliate programs and affiliate marketing.
Campaign: A campaign is simply a collection of ads that you want to run at any given time. For example, let’s say you wanted to dedicate a week on your site to celebrating Earth Day and green causes, products, and services. ServInt has several ads with an eco-friendly theme. You could create a campaign that would allow you to aggregate all of your eco related ads together for easier perusal.
Clickthrough: A clickthrough is exactly what it sounds like, the act of clicking an ad link through for more information. These are measured in ServInt’s customer portal, similar to other measuring tools such as Google Analytics. A clickthrough does not necessarily mean anyone purchased a product (i.e. a conversion, more on that later), and thus it does not necessarily mean you will receive a commission. It is an important tool regardless as it let’s you know what ads are more popular than others and in what locations might they be more effective.
Conversion: A conversion happens when a clickthrough results in a sale. The ad and click has just been “converted” into revenue.
Most affiliate programs, including ServInt’s, have some form of “Earning’s Pending” metric or measurement as well as an “Earning’s Paid” metric. This allows you to see how many credits you have earned, and how many credits have actually been deposited to your account.
Once a campaign is created, you can create ads for that campaign. Here is a picture of ServInt’s implementation.
A Portion of ServInt's Affiliate Campaign and Ad Manager
Clicking on Manage Campaigns allows you to create a campaign.
Manage Campaigns
After a campaign is created, clicking on Manage Ads let’s you create ads within a campaign.
Manage Ads Within a Campaign
With the creation of each ad, you have the opportunity to choose from dozens and dozens of banner or text ads. Once you select a banner ad, a code is generated that includes a link to the flash or photo banner and you’re set!
A Sample Affiliate Link
I, however, wanted to try something a little bit different. I chose to make a text ad and rather than paste the entire code as-is, I removed the html tags leaving only the following url, minus quotes.
“http://www.servint.net/index.php?refid=CDE152400365″
That URL is all that’s needed to generate clickthroughs and conversions. You could paste that into a URL shortener like bit.ly or tr.im for easy Twitter and Facebook integration, or you could embed it into a link on a blog or forum.
Every link, and every conversion, counts.
Now, there are certainly some ethical concerns to iron out. Neither ServInt, nor yourself, want to be seen as simple shills. Being transparent about an affiliate link is a must, but when these links are used in ways that genuinely benefit people, there is no problem with receiving credit for an Affiliate referral and thus subsidizing your web hosting.
The key to our affiliate program is simple, you can effectively have your entire site(s) hosted for free by earning affiliate commissions if you so choose. Having the backbone of your business, i.e. your web hosting, financially covered allows you to grow faster AND it helps you invest in the areas of your bread and butter that may have been in neglect before.
Work ON your business, not IN it.
Any other successful tips on Affiliate Programs, ServInt’s or others even?
Let me know in the comments, on Twitter @Servint, or on Facebook!
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