Marketing Software and Key Principles

[Julian]

Hey Everyone,

I'm sorry if this question has been posted and answered elsewhere. I checked the first page in this forum and didn't see anything, so I'm going to ask:

I will be building an affiliate marketing program for my company's website but I don't know the first thing about it. Does anyone have any suggestions for either (a) a good, comprehensive affiliate marketing management software, and/or (b) a good, practical ebook or regular book which goes over the basics of affiliate marketing both in theory and the programming side?

If you're feeling especially generous with your time and knowledge, I'd love to hear about the challenges you faced when building your first affiliate marketing program.

Thanks for helping me out!

 

[Julian]

P.S.: I work for a merchant, not an affiliate.

 

[Roundabout]

 

[Crisis]

I'm not feeling generous with my time or knowledge. Especially if you aren't willing to spend time learning the basic elements of what you want to achieve.

 

[Julian]

Well, right now, we do affiliate marketing, but it's all done manually. So generally speaking we get a proposition by e-mail from someone, we send them an affiliate contract, and then we basically create a new custom affiliate build/DRM of our video games and links, and then send these plus marketing materials to each affiliate individually. We also pay them manually, etc.

My goal is to automate this entire process, because that's the only way for us to really tap into the affiliate market. Doing it all manually is so time consuming that I can count our affiliates on two hands -- and still have fingers left.

I've looked at Affiliate Wiz (Affiliate Marketing Software/Affiliate Program Software for .NET | AffiliateWiz Affiliate Software for Tracking Affiliates) and a few other marketing programs, and it looks good, but I'd like something that's highly customizable and also something that isn't browser-based.

That better?