Thesis Affiliate Program Moving to Share a Sale

Last year was big for the Thesis Theme for WordPress, and our awesome affiliates played a huge role in that. But we’re just getting started.
In 2009, we paid $392,828.80 to Thesis affiliates.
In 2010, we’re aiming for $1 million in affiliate payouts.
To accomplish that goal, it’s time for the DIYthemes affiliate program to once again take a step up. While the wonderful Missy Ward helped us grow last year, this year we aim to accelerate that trend by moving from an in-house to a world-class program.
To do that, we need a world-class affiliate management partner. For us, Share a Sale is the only logical choice.

Why Make a Switch?

We’ve always tried to run a different kind of affiliate initiative, in that we don’t view affiliates as an alternate sales channel that our direct efforts compete with. Instead, we go out of our way to promote the tutorials, resources, and content our affiliates create, because that’s a great thing for us as well.
But when one realizes some have 6-figure businesses revolving around promoting Thesis, while others pay their mortgages each month as our affiliates, perspective tends to change.
It’s at that point you realize that nothing but the best possible solution is an absolute requirement. Our affiliates (call it sentimental if you wish) are part of our family.
In other words, we need to stop trying to save a buck by running our affiliate program ourselves, and start delivering the best program possible. In fact, from this point forward, all of our major affiliate programs will be run with Share a Sale.

Why Share a Sale?

Here are the reasons that drove our decision to go with Share a Sale (SAS):
Tracking – SAS has robust, battle-tested affiliate link tracking that makes sure sales don’t slip through the cracks. With our in-house system, we used a “belt and suspenders” approach because we knew we couldn’t trust the front-end tracking to catch every sale.
Our affiliates never got cheated because we paid four-figures monthly to manually reconcile every transaction. With a high-volume product like Thesis, that just doesn’t scale. Plus, affiliates don’t get accurate real-time sales data. Problem solved with SAS.
Support – A bigger issue with an in-house program serving a large amount of marketing partners is affiliate support. Remember, DIYthemes is essentially a two-person company with three incredible support ninjas.
Most of the focus of that support team is on customers, where it must be. Moving to SAS means world-class affiliate support powered by years and years of experience, rather than us trying to staff up with newbies on our end.
Trust – Never mind the stellar reputation Share a Sale enjoys in the affiliate marketing world. Never mind that many of our top-earning affiliates practically demanded we make the move.
The final selling point for me was SAS CEO Brian Littleton, who (ironically) I’ve never seen do any selling at all. This guy runs a powerful company, and yet not only takes time for a jerk like me, but for each and every person that catches him at a conference. A true gentleman in the truest sense of the word, and I dig that.

What Does This Mean for Existing Thesis Affiliates?

Okay, so here are the important details.
Whether you are:
  • An existing Thesis affiliate without a Share a Sale account;
  • An existing Thesis affiliate with a Share a Sale account; or
  • Someone who wants to become a Thesis affiliate . . .
Sign up here for the new Thesis affiliate program.
Go ahead and do that right now, no matter which category you’re in.
If you’re an existing affiliate, come back for further details about the transition. The short version is, we’re taking good care of existing marketing partners so you won’t lose a single sale.

What About My Old Thesis Links?

As current Thesis affiliates know, we use a 60-day cookie. That means if you send someone to the diythemes.com site today, and they buy anytime within the next 60 days, you get credit for the sale.
We’re keeping the old program active for 60 days from today, so you won’t lose any sales you would have otherwise been credited for. But you need to go ahead and change your affiliate links as soon as possible in order to start tracking new leads and sales through the Share a Sale system.
While you technically have 60 days to change your old links, you could actually miss sales by waiting due to the cookie issue. Plus, at the end of 60 days, your old links won’t pass commissions at all.
So, complete the quick sign-up process with Share a Sale today.
Existing Thesis affiliates will be getting notifications and reminders by email. I wish we could just port everyone over, but we can’t do that. So don’t delay and you won’t miss out on great revenue opportunities with Thesis in 2010.

 
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