CCBill's New Affiliate System

After hearing rumours last year that CCBill was working on a new system for program owners to get marketing materials to affiliates I was SO excited to log into CCBill today and see them announce "Web Marketing System (WMS) is a new-generation affiliate system providing all the tools you need to easily and effectively manage your programs to maximize their performance and profitability."

Fuck. YEAH!

I just called up to be put on the list of sponsors who want to demo it. I'm guessing bigger clients will get a shot at it first, but even if that's the case I don't care because a) they'll have worked out the kinks by the time I get in on it, and b) once it's in place it should really help level the playing field for small operations like ours.

So many small program-owners don't even know how to customize their mailers so the promo links are ready for affiliates (I didn't even know we could do it myself until a few months ago) and without buying software or hiring a programmer yourself it's really difficult to customize your promo offerings, links, etc. to provide each affiliate exactly what s/he wants without giving them what they don't. I know as an affiliate I love promoting ccbill programs . . . all except for when it comes to getting the promo materials, link codes, etc. It's KIND OF a time-sucking nightmare with most sites. I definitely prefer harvesting promos from sponsors who use NATS, partly because it's pretty consistent from sponsor-to-sponsor and because I can customize what I want. I really really hope this new CCBill thing does all of that and more.

I didn't even bother checking the boards to see what people are saying before I called up (though I did get reassurance from CCBill that OLD LINKS WILL STILL WORK and THE NEW PROGRAM WILL RUN IN TANDEM WITH THE OLD so no work will be lost; affiliates who don't want to try it don't have to); whatever it's like it's bound to be better than what we have now. When I heard the rumours before I called and asked about it but the rep said he hadn't heard any such thing. I think that was during the phone call when I found out how to send out the mailers with the affiliates' numbers already built into the links. Anyhoo . . . good news. This will be a big help.