Hey,<p>At the very early stages of a commercial webapp in development. I've been very interested in leveraging affiliate networks like CJ to acquire customers easily. Being that the app will be subscription-based, I wouldn't mind paying 1.5-2 months generated revenue based on their leads.<p>Has anyone used such networks to acquire customers, and if so, what do you think about it? Was it successful? Paying for guaranteed paying clients seems like it could lead to any business being profitable - as long as you have a product that people will pay for.<p>Thanks..
I can comment on this from the perspective of an affiliate promoting products on networks like CJ. Affiliate programs can be a very profitable way to gain customers, but there are lots of issues that come up. In particular:<p>-Before your product is listed on an affiliate network, you need to put down a significant investment- mid to high $XX,XXX as a prepayment to the network<p>-Especially for a webapp, there could be issues of rampant fraud-affilites using VCCs to sign up and so on- this is something you will need to be proactive about filtering out<p>-Products that do well on affiliate networks have a large target market- if your webapp is niche affiliates won't bother to take the time to set up campaigns to promote your product
CJ is a high-end network. There are much cheaper options, like clickbank, which is often used for webapps. Depends on your market to an extent.<p>One of the potentially false appeals of an affiliate network is easy access to affiliates. You still need to get their attention somehow, prove your sales conversions, and demonstrate that you actually have a good product worth promoting.<p>I have been very successful in selling my web app by simply setting up a self-hosted affiliate solution (we wrote our own, but idevaffiliate is good) and going to conferences to befriend the people who already have access to my market, well in advance, and then organizing a launch with them getting good commissions.<p>The "if you put it on cj, they will come" marketing model isn't going to get you near the same kind of loyalty and promotions that you will get from connecting with real live people and getting them excited about what you've done.<p>John.