Hi Paul
PAFoster wrote:1) I'm a noob too, and asking noob questions is how we move up to the 'noob who knows a bit more than the average noob' level, lol.
PAFoster wrote:2) iDevAffiliate is Affiliate Software, not Membership Site Software.
Sorry... that was a badly worded part of my question... I'm looking to build a membership site in Wordpress using a membership plug-in. S2member is one of my top candidates somewhere. However, I am expecting my major membership stream to be from affiliates, so am also looking at iDev affiliate
PAFoster wrote:3) I'm confused about your 'bespoke system'. Is that bespoke affiliate software or membership site software that you've created - or something entirely different?
I currently run a site that is not a membership site but sells hypnosis mp3 sessions. I'm a competent PHP developer (not primarily an internet marketer) and the functionality of this site was built up entirely from scratch, including the affiliate system. However, maintaining code is time consuming and I guess we are all familiar with the old saying "The cobbler's children wear no shoes"? What I meant to indicate was that my existing affiliates have told me that they like using iDev. And if that gives an affiliate or a potential affiliate a sense of confidence, it seems to make sense to me to give it to them
PAFoster wrote:4) I use (the rather excellent) s2MemberPro (by the guys who create/run PremoThemes) to run the Membership Site side of things.
s2Member is definitely my front runner choice at present. If the system works I'll upgrade to pro purely to put some money into the coffers (I have a principle of paying developers for software that I find useful, particularly if it helps me make money
)
PAFoster wrote:5) iDev and s2Member talk to each other very well, so in answer to your question, yes, when the monthly payment is collected PayPal sends that info back to s2Member, who then sends it onto iDev, and iDev allocates the 'sale' to the affilate. Incidentally if the member cancels, PayPal sends that info back to s2Member, who then cancels the subscritption to the site, and therefore no notice is sent to iDev for that month. Basically then your affiliates will accumulate their monthly affiliate fee for any member as long as they stay a member. (In addition, if a member - or you, manually - upgrades, or downgrades a membership, then the affiliates commission will go up or down too.)
Excellent... that was the impression I got but thank you for laying it out so explicitly... I feel reassured enough to proceed on that basis