As any other marketing channel, affiliate marketing has its tips and tricks, and it takes know-how and experience to be good at it. That is why Missy Ward and Shawn Collins have undertaken the difficult task of helping affiliates and merchants share knowledge and find new business opportunities by organizing the Affiliate Summit conference that happens twice a year – on the East and on the West coast of the USA. The most recent Affiliate Summit just happened in New York, from August 10th to August 12th, and our team was quite excited to attend it. This year in New York, the learning focus was on how to maintain an affiliate website and get traffic to it.
When we launched our new affiliate program almost 2 years ago we aimed to increase the number of people who recommend us by providing very competitive payout terms. However, we did not want to diminish the importance of our service quality and our goal was to keep it the number one reason for people to endorse us. The ever growing numbers of affiliate sales over the last 2 years showed that we were on the right track in attracting more affiliates, but we were not so sure about their motivation to join the program and recommend us. That, combined with our wish to gather more information about who our affiliates are, how they rate the different aspects of the program, and what we can do to make things better for them, made us conduct a survey among our affiliates and the results are summarized below. Continue reading “Our Affiliates’ Verdict: Quality Matters!”
I met Adam W. Warner at Pressnomics conference this year. Almost from the very beginning he became a good friend who not only taught me the basics of golf, but helped me learn a lot about the WordPress community. As of recently, SiteGround and FooPlugins, Adam’s company, partnered because we like and respect each others’ work. FooPlugins is a place where you can find multiple useful plugins for WordPress, but the most popular one is FooBox Media Lightbox for which SiteGround customers now get 20% discount.
So, I asked Adam a few questions on his business tactics and for some useful tips based on his experience as an entrepreneur with a WordPress-centered business that could be valuable to anyone who has their own online project.
The standard web hosting affiliate market was a place we had been reluctant to go to. It somehow seemed wrong to us to pay more than a whole year of income for a sale generated by someone, who chooses which hosting services to recommend not based on personal experience but only based on the commission rates offered. And now here we are: launching a new affiliate program that is extremely competitive with commission rates among the highest and withhold periods among the shortest in the industry (see affiliate program comparisson PDF).
UPDATE: We no longer have a partner relationship with 2checkout and the stated special terms do not apply anymore.
SiteGround is happy to announce a new partnership with 2Checkout – a company for online payment processing services. As a result of this partnership each of our customers will have the initial setup fee for a 2Checkout account completely waived. The discount code is available in the Free Resources section of the SiteGround customer area. With this new free addition we provide a very convenient way to all e-commerce website owners to start selling goods and services online with no initial investment for payment processing.
This initiative is in line with our consistent policy of sharing SiteGround online business experience with our customers. We have used 2Checkout service ourselves when we were a starting company. Back then in 2004 SiteGround faced many challenges typical for a start up. One of the fundamental issues was the online payments processing. At the beginning we looked for a solution that could handle the multiple strict security regulations and complex procedures for fraud review, credit card information storage and handling on behalf of our company, as to do this ourselves required substantial investment of time and resources, which we were not yet ready to afford. And what we have found to be among the most appropriate options for fast and easy start to accept online payments was the 2Checkout account.
Now, seven years later, we are happy that 2Checkout, the company that has helped us have a successful start, is willing to make the payment processing setup even easier for our customers . Based on our own experience we strongly believe that by providing this free 2Checkout account we will make it easier for more people to have a successful e-commerce website. We have always looked for ways to share our successful practices and we will continue to do it as we know that our future depends on our customers’ success.
We have been quiet for a while, so I thought you might be interested in what’s new at SiteGround. Well, Reneta and I went to London at the end of last week for a business meeting with the CEO of The Planet (our main datacenter located in Texas, USA). It was only a two-day trip, very short but also interesting.
On one hand we had a productive meeting with a major partner of ours and on the other, we enjoyed one of the most amazing restaurants we’ve ever been to. It’s called Nobu and as it turned out it is a very popular place in London. Maybe due to the fact that Robert De Niro owns the place and once in a while, you might see a movie star dining there. Well, we didn’t see any stars, but we were totally amazed by the food. I hate sushi, honestly, and when I entered the restaurant, I was hoping I won’t have to eat any raw fish out of courtesy. But everything we ate there was superb! The chef is incredibly good in mixing the spices and achieving extraordinary combinations. We tried several types of Sake too, which was a terrific experience. So, take this as a referral – if you are willing to spend some quality money in London, go to Nobu 🙂
Now, you would say, a two-day trip (even a day and a half) is not a long time to be away from office. But, we are full of surprises. When we came back, we found out that we have a new member of our team. Well it’s a kitten, but you know, we are very tolerant…and it’s so cute, so irresistible! Actually, we are now looking for a respectable home for the kitty. Anyone interested, be quick – applications are piling up 🙂 Also, the little boy doesn’t have a name yet, so feel free to share with us your suggestions.
So, don’t think we are just losing time around here. We are also working very hard on a few new projects that are to be launched shortly. But, I won’t say a word now, just wait and see what’s coming next…
We stated that our blog will be about life behind the scenes. And life behind the scenes is not only SiteGround employees, procedures, and customer service policies. It is also about our partners. In this first episode of “SiteGround Partners” series, I am pleased to say Hello to Dan Ushman from SingleHop. He agreed to answer my questions in an email interview for you. See what Dan & Singlehop have to say about their experience with us.
Tina: Tell me how long SingleHop has been doing business with SiteGround and what are the services you provide us with?
Dan: SiteGround and SingleHop joined forces in the middle of 2008 to offer dedicated servers to customers whose websites have outgrown their shared hosting accounts. SingleHop provides infrastructure and automation services while SiteGround focuses on sales, marketing and customer service. SiteGround has thrived due to their unrelenting commitment to its customers needs (both technical, and ease-of-use.) So, overall the relationship is truly unique because it is more than just a business relationship, our partnership has powerful synergies that produce some of the industry’s best technical innovations and customer experiences.
