Software Business Blog

Shanghai, here we come! And it should be both business and pleasure, since this is one of the most fascinating cities in China.

Alexandra, Adriana, Florentina and Andy will welcome all of you software professionals at the conference. If you want to meet software experts, develop new business partnerships or just schmooze with key people from software & eCommerce industry, then don’t plan anything on Saturday, December 4th and join us in the beautiful Everbright International Hotel.

We’re going to talk about selling software in Europe and the US and see what the trends are for 2011. Also, speaking of international sales, there will also be an interactive panel where DVDFab and WinXDVD will share their best practices on this subject.

On top of this, you will learn how to optimize your conversion rate via practical tips from our experts.

And if you don’t know the Avangate platform and what it can do – don’t worry. We’ll have a live solution demo over there.

So, we’re looking forward to meeting and chatting to you there! See you in Shanghai!

In case you missed it: Avangate just turned 5 – Happy Birthday, Avangate! :)

With this in mind and with a strong desire to unwind, we left the office and went for 3 days to the quiet town of Săcele, in the heart of Romania, close to the mountains.

Apart from enjoying the glorious scenery, we did a lot of fun activities to help us bond and discover new ways to put into practice the company values.

We also discovered the artist within. For 4 full hours we went back school, this time to to the art and craft classes. A very special moment. We basically  painted a huge picture split in several pieces. Imagine a large room full of people working frantically, ingeniously mixing colors, and making sure they are consistent across the board (difficult task!), and let’s not forget also the personal touch. The outcome was spectacular as you can see below:

Like every beginning of November since 2006, you have the chance to meet us at the ESWC (European Software conference). This time, on the 6th and 7th of Nov (this weekend!), in wonderful Vienna.

Avangate is the Premiere Sponsor as we have been every year and we are proud to take part in the event, meet so many people passionate about software and exchange ideas.
As we did at ISDEF, we want to celebrate (again) our 5th anniversary. So prepare for toasting because on Saturday evening at the Epsilon Awards Ceremony the drinks are on us. ;)

How to make sure your affiliate partnership request is approved by the vendors

Before an interview for a job, university acceptance, membership to a super private club or whatever else you may want to obtain, it’s always ideal if you can talk to an insider, to properly prepare yourself for success :). In a similar manner, this article aims to offer you inside information about top vendors that are open to partnership requests from Avangate affiliates.

We asked some of the top vendors in the Avangate Affiliate Network about their expectations from new affiliates: how can they be convinced to accept you, what turns them off and what is their number one advice to you as affiliate to sell more of their products.

We got some great answers from:

• Claire Waledisch, Commercial Manager at VSO-Software,
• Frank Chang, Marketing Manager at DVDFab,
• Keros Tudos, Relationship Manager at IObit and
• Alex Lamba, CEO at RSJoomla!

So, here are their tips on how to make sure you will be accepted as an affiliate (can be applied to most software vendors):

1. What are 3 qualities you look for when analyzing a partnership request from an affiliate?

• VSO: The main thing we look at is the website associated with it.  Does it look clean, does it have any traffic and would the targeted traffic be interested in our products?  This means nothing however, as we have good affiliates in the past that either do not have a real website or haven’t yet finished it at the time they requested to be an affiliate.
• DVDFab: Affiliate website; Affiliate IDs (normally – the smaller, the better); Potential.
• IObit: We will firstly analyze his website based on three aspects:  the  category, the traffic rankings and the source of the traffic. This will allow us to provide the best suitable plan accordingly and calculate the affiliate’s earnings prospect.
• RSJoomla: The website has to be related to IT/software. Creating your own text about our products rather than copying it from our website really improves the chances to be found by greater audience. Product reviews and blog posts usually are the best ways to do so. Targeted communities or local communities that use our products usually get the most of the affiliate partnership.

2. What are the most common reasons for rejecting an affiliate partnership request?

• VSO: We do not reject affiliate partnership requests, we have not yet needed to.  However, if an affiliate does not go by the rules we have outlined, we will lower their commission.
• DVDFab: Spam promotion or violating our affiliate policy.
• IObit: Websites containing inappropriate content, malicious websites and illegal websites will be rejected. Affiliates without clear profiles will also lead to a rejection.
• RSJoomla: Websites that share false discount coupons or warez get rejected.

3. Do you have any special policies regarding pay-per-click advertising done by affiliates?

• VSO: We request affiliates not to use our brand name when doing pay-per-click advertising, i.e. VSO or VSO-Software. Eventually this will also be applied to product brand names. Affiliates should have the role of making the product known, offering it as a solution when user is looking for a tool to use to do a certain task. If a user is looking for “Product Name XYZ” because they already know of it, then the affiliate here does not really have a role in terms or advertising unless of course that vendor site is not appearing in an organic search. If the affiliate is providing added value then this argument could be contested. Added value content would be landing pages in specific languages that do not exist on vendors site, guides, coupons, etc.
• DVDFab: Currently, we don’t allow our affiliates to use PPC program on search engines to promote DVDFab products
• IObit: Our affiliates can promote our products through PPC, but it is not allowed to use our trademarks or any IObit product names as PPC keywords, for this is against our policy and the law.
• RSJoomla: We don’t have any special policy on the pay-per-click thing. Affiliates can use any politically correct marketing strategies to get more sales.

So, to put this in a nutshell, when requesting partnerships with software vendors, make sure your website has relevant content and it doesn’t violate the vendor’s affiliate policies, especially if you’re running pay-per-click advertising campaigns. If you don’t use a website for your affiliate marketing business, let the vendor know this.
Also, always communicate with the vendor – let him know how you’re promoting their products and ask if you have certain requirements.

We have more to share: stay tuned for the next part of this Behind the Scenes series!

The Contest, part II

Wow, an amazing 200+ people took part in the “Avangate wins 5” contest. Going through all the answers was a wonderful experience per se – thank you all for your kind thoughts and words of appreciation – big happy smile on our faces.

Thanks for your thumbs up for our customer support, account managers, for helping you increase sales and manage your partners, for our affiliate network, impeccable accounting, for joining the same conferences that you go to and so much more. Here is how Avangate in your 5 words looks like:
It was a pleasure going through your answers and really difficult to choose only 2 winners, so… we decided to give away 3 prizes. Well, let’s not keep you guessing:

Avangate is in Moscow this week, at ISDEF Autumn (Sep 30th – Oct 3rd). Wow! It’s the 11th time we are attending this event, by far the biggest software event in Russia. Avangate is the Special Sponsor of this edition and, like every year, we are proud to take part in the event, meet so many people passionate about software and exchange ideas on how to sell software worldwide in a way that is efficient, secure, locally relevant.

Avangate eCommerce consultants will make presentations on hot issues that impact software companies today – developing trust and optimizing conversion rates – and will also be available for one-to-one discussions throughout the event. So don’t miss them: