Avangate celebrates its five year anniversary today. To mark the occasion, we sat down on soft couches and thought hard about what we’ve gained in all of these years. And came up with a little concept that has since grown on us:

Avangate Wins 5:

• 5 Years of Experience
• 5 Years of Trust
• 5 Years of Knowledge
• 5 Years of Fun
• 5 Years of Success

And Thousands of Enthusiastic Partners!

Hurray!

Plus we threw in an anniversary fun contest to go with it so we can celebrate together. Cool prizes to be won!

Now about our story, which actually starts in 1992, being part of a larger IT group. Avangate as a brand was born in 2005 – back then we were starting with the idea that we could bring a new level of services in eCommerce for the software vertical. It has not always been a smooth journey, but five years down the road tell us we did well. Our 1,500+ clients and 18,000+ affiliates surely agree.

[Tricky to make a selection of testimonials]

It seems the interest for analytics in the software vendors community increases more and more, according to the requests I get by email. I believe in actionable metrics, so I decided to act and publish an updated version of the Analytics miniBible for Software Vendors.

No matter if you got the chance or not to download the first release, here are some changes and highlights in this analytics eBook for software vendors.

Switching to async tracking

When Google Analytics first introduced asynchronous tracking, a lot of people reacted as being one of the biggest improvements in web analytics in ages. The new tracking technology offers better accuracy and affects less (close to zero) the loading time of websites.

The Analytics MiniBible for Software Vendors offers step by step support on how to switch all your tracking needs to the new asynchronous technology.

We’re preparing for a trip to the US during August 15-17 – to New York City, to be more specific. I’m pretty excited to attend Affiliate Summit East 2010, a major event of the affiliate industry, together with my colleagues Adriana and Casey. So this is your chance to meet me in person:) and of course my other colleagues.

So why go to Affiliate Summit other than to meet our partners there and find new opportunities? To tell you the truth, we have some solid reasons to be there – here are the most important ones:

• since the beginning of 2009, our affiliate marketing network has grown rapidly, now having over 17,000 active affiliates that promote software products online;
• merchants have become more and more interested in a dedicated software affiliate network that gets them targeted sales all over the world;
• the latest survey sent to our affiliates allowed us to see what we’re doing OK, what affiliates need from us and how we should further develop the network.

So, long story short – we’ll be in New York during August 15-17 and we’re looking forward to seeing you there!

How high is your shopping cart conversion rate? Is it 30 or less? 40? 60? One day a client asked me: what exactly makes a conversion rate to be smaller or higher? Is it the number of steps, the security logos, the product images, adding/removing cross selling? Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a secret formula to it. However, we have found that the absence of 3 elements can influence in a negative way your shopping cart conversion rate: trust, confidence and security.

On trust, confidence and security

Trust comes from the experience with the shopping cart itself. Most of the users don’t care about technicalities or 3rd parties and so on, but when they find themselves in a cart that doesn’t look like anything on your website, some of them will hesitate to trust it. A feeling that something might be wrong could take over. It’s common sense after all. In all the tests we’ve done, the better the customized cart was (in terms of look and feel), the higher the conversion rate.

Are you already a member of the Avangate Affiliate Network? Then consider this post as “What’s New” type information. If you aren’t convinced yet, I hope you will become an affiliate after reading this post. :)

The beginning of this long awaited spring of 2010 came with a an important update to our Affiliate system – the new version of the management interface for affiliates. Its aim is to maximize the revenue generating opportunities both for affiliates and software vendors.

Affiliates Save Time and Effort

Enough with the big words – let’s see the highlights of this update:

- redesigned dashboard with essential information at your fingertips, including sales statistics and featured products

If you ever wondered what our team does when it leaves the office and hangs out together for a weekend, well… I have some information for you in this post:). However, I don’t want to just give this away for free, so let’s play a game:

I’ll only show you the pictures from the team-building we’ve been to in the beginning of this month (from our Extravaganza Party) and you must name the persons behind the characters, if you recognize them. Comment with at least 3 correct answers and receive the “Avangate Spring Buddy” title:).

If you win, we will proudly present on our blog, in the Avangate Spring Buddy badge your blog/website and will send you a surprise gift. Ready or not, here are the questions: