iDevAffiliate Review

I am working on a big new project, and one of the key areas is the affiliate management system. As you probably know affiliate marketing is a strong component of most promotional strategies these days, and making sure that you pick the right solution for your needs is vital.

After some an extensive online research comparing the bits and bytes of the available solutions, I decided to go with iDevAffiliate, and here is why:

1. Hosted software: There are hosted solutions out there that will handle your affiliate programs on their website. I used some in the past, and I they work fine if you are looking for a simple affiliate management system. When you want to have full control of the affiliate program, however, using a software that you can host on your own server is the best choice. It is liking hosting your own site versus using a free hosted service.

2. SEO Links: When you use a third party affiliate program, the links of your affiliates will point to that site, and you will not reap any SEO benefits. With iDevAffiliate you have an SEO module (requires the Platinum edition) that will make the links of your affiliates point to your website in a search engine friendly way. This was a big motivator for me.

3. Advanced features. The software is probably the most complete on the market. You will have the options to create several commission levels, customize the commission alerts, used second tier commissions and so on.

4. Integration capabilities. Your affiliate management system will inevitably need to be integrated to some other scripts or payment gateways like Paypal, so choosing one that is easy to be integrated will save you time and money. iDevAffiliate comes with an Integration Cart Wizard which pretty much does the job automatically if you are going to use a popular payment system.

I have been using the software for a couple of weeks, and I am pretty happy with it so far. Truth be told you will need to spend some time learning how to navigate the Admin control panel and how to configure all the different options and settings, but that is normal when you have a software with so many features.

The basic edition costs $99, and it gets the job done. If you need advanced features like Language Packs or Quickbooks integration, you will need the Platinum edition which costs $299.

Do I think it is worth it? Definitely, I will probably be using it for all my projects where I will have affiliate marketing involved.

Over to the readers: Have you tried any affiliate software or hosted solution in the past? How did it work out?

Daniel Scocco on December 2, 2008 Subscribe to our RSS Feed

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11 Responses to “iDevAffiliate Review”

JB on December 2nd, 2008 10:07 pm

You should join their Affiliate Program. I may sign up with their service and I will purchase the link through you. I do have a question since you use it and the Live Chat is unavailable. Can the users check their stats without the downloaded Windows program and what about Macs?
Product Reviews on December 3rd, 2008 1:02 am

I have purchased and used many different types of programs and online services over the years. I have spent a ton of money through out the years on IT and the setup of these programs. Often the amount of support you receive post-sale has NO direct relationship to the purchase price of the program. You guys have a rock solid, well thought out program! The support and response time is the best I have received.
Hajib on December 3rd, 2008 5:15 am

This is cool.. great affiliate stuff..
Daniel Scocco on December 3rd, 2008 6:39 am

@JB, yeah you can check all the stuff online, there is no need to download anything on your PC, just on your server.
Darren Alff - Bicycle Touring Pro on December 3rd, 2008 7:06 am

I use iDev to promote my bicycle touring store (http://bicycletouringpro.com/blog/affiliate-program/) for many of the reasons you mentioned here - mainly the fact that there was no monthly expense. Those monthly charges really add up over time! One time fees are always great! Now the trick is ust to get a bunch of affiliates to actively promote for you!
Ian Fernando on December 3rd, 2008 12:57 pm

hmmm I was undecided with either idev or jrox jam and went with jrox jam - I really like jrox a lot - but i dont think idev can support multiple domains or am I wrong?
Ulrik Fredrik on December 3rd, 2008 1:09 pm

Affliate marketing’s a really new concept to me but I think iDevAffiliate’s sounds like a good bet. A little pricey though at 99 bucks.

http://www.newmanutd.com
New Fans, Seasoned Fans, We’re United Fans
George on December 3rd, 2008 1:21 pm

I liked using clickbank because of the fact they take care of some of the money management issues and tax issues. However, I have used idevaffiliate as an affiliate and like it much better as an affiliate. Idevaffiliate is the software I would choose to run an affiliate program if I needed more functionality than clickbank provides.
Daniel Scocco on December 3rd, 2008 1:59 pm

@Ian Fernando, that is correct you would need one license for each website, or you could handle all your product purchases from a single website, even if you would promote them on other sites and channels.
Peter on December 4th, 2008 5:46 am

I agree, that idev has many features, but from my experiences it is not best buy for that money. Take a look e.g. on Post Affiliate Pro (they have new version PAP4 now)
With Starter edition for $49 you can make a lot of “affiliate music”.

Specially gadgets in multi window mode I like in PAP4, because I don’t need to use netvibes or igoogle anymore - I have all my gadgets on my PAP4 desktop.
Daniel Scocco on December 4th, 2008 8:09 am

@Ian Fernando, actually you can use multiple sites, here is a quote from an email I got from their support:

“You can connect unlimited websites to one installation of iDevAffiliate through the use of Marketing Groups. Create a marketing group for each website and set each marketing group to have it’s own defined incoming traffic page. Now upload marketing materials to each group. When affiliates login to get banners, links, etc., they will choose which marketing group to get the banner, link, etc. from. Traffic they deliver will be routed according to the incoming traffic page defined for that marketing group.

If this is not how you want to setup your program, you will need a seperate installation of iDevAffiliate for each of your websites and you will need to manage these websites independently from each other. ie. Each installation will have it’s own admin center.”