Buy.com's Affiliate Program

How does it work?

[chak]

I've had a couple Buy.com affiliate programs running and I'm not sure if they're working right (or setup right). I create my links through LinkShare's interface and then post them. Pretty simple. When I click on the link, it brings me to the item.

My question, to those who use Buy.com, does Buy.com's purchases count when they are pre-orders? I had a campaign running for a while with pre-orders for Mortal Kombat Deception. My clickthrough rates have ranged between 1.8% to 4.7% but nothing has been sold... or so LinkShare says.

To test it, I actually went ahead and purchased an item myself. I wanted the item, so it worked out well. Still, today, this item has not shown up through my affiliate program (via LinkShare) as sold.

Is something wrong? Or does Buy.com not count pre-orders for the affiliate programs?

Thanks in advance.

[shri]

Buy.Com converts at about 3 to 4% for us.

So, do the math. You're sending about 4 out of hundred visitors to you site, to buy.com. 3 or 4 out of the 100 will convert.

Now this stat is for widgets that people would have to buy. The game market is very different and unfortunately also difficult to convert.

We had the number 3 position for some new hyped game release and ended up converting 1 out of about 4000 clickthroughs set to the merchant. This is in comparision with a site that converts at 7-8% of its visitors into buyers on a merchants site.

[chak]

Thanks for the input.

But do you know if Buy.com's preorders work right? As I said, the one that I pre-ordered through my site didn't register. Not sure why...

[shri]

Depends which report you're looking at.

Do you see a "NEWCUSTOMER" transaction under the Individual item report for the time frame you placed your own order? If it does, I'd use the session ID and ask buy.com about the specific transaction.

This is assuming that you're a new buy.com customer.

[chak]

Ah... I see. I guess the reports aren't done in real time. I went back just now and ran the report and my single purchase showed up. Neat. Now if I can just drive some OTHER people to buy stuff. :-)

Thanks a lot for the tips!