Affiliate & Distribution Channels for your Digital Goods
By Carole Nickerson

It's a lot of fun and hard work developing digital products, but even the best product can get lost in the crowd. As more and more people create digital products like ebooks, templates and software, it can be hard to get visibility in recruiting new affiliates and an edge in marketplaces. I'm still amazed by how many people are still limiting themselves to just one affiliate or distribution channel, and even more surprised by "experts" who don't even mention other services. Over the years, I've tried and tested a number of different distribution channels. Some were great, some really ... sucked.

There IS more to life than Clickbank!

Unlike Clickbank, a lot of these services are either free, or cost very little to get started with. Don't get me wrong - I've enjoyed Clickbank for many years both as a merchant and an affiliate. It's a great service, but there are other options which are equal and often better. The point is that you don't have to limit yourself to just one and while many of them may seem like they support only software, they actually allow ebooks, templates, and other kinds of digital goods.

So here's my reviews of channels you can use to sell your digital goods to reach a wider audience, gain more affiliates and of course - boost those sales, or not!

PayDotCom.com - http://paydotcom.com/

Similar to Clickbank, PayDotCom offers some impressive features. You can sign up for a free account which lets you sell one products for free, or upgrade for just $29.00 and submit as many products as you want - for life. There is no pre-approval process, handles both digital and tangible goods, gives you instant payments to your Paypal or Stormpay account, plus much more. This service has made the top of my list and I'm sure you'll hear the same thing from many other people as it grows in popularity.

RegSoft.com - http://www.regsoft.com

Another great network offering a huge affiliate network, multiple payment services, and great management options. Your customers can order online through credit card, or offline by fax, phone or mail. If that isn't sweet enough, they'll even let you put your products on CD with just a few clicks. It costs $9.95 to set up an account and they take commissions of $3 to 8.9% of sales. You couldn't ask for a better deal.

RegNow.com - http://www.regnow.com/

Excellent service which has been around as long as I remember and is one of the largest distribution channels on the web with a proven record. With their massive long-running successful affiliate network, great management tools & payment options, this is definitely one site you'll want to check out. There is a sign-up fee of $19.95 and they keep commissions of 6.9% + $1.00 per sale.

Payloadz.com - http://www.payloadz.com/

This popular service offers lots of great features through an easy-to-use control panel, connected to your Paypal account by which you receive payments. Secure & automated file downloading, eBay auction support, Adwords conversion tracking, and more. The affiliate program is their greatest weakness as it is not accessible enough from their website, and products can't easily be searched, with only the top-selling products appearing to be listed. Basically, you'll be getting 98% of your affiliate recruitments through your own website efforts. While this is a great service for managing sales of digital goods, it in itself will not provide the built-in exposure that other networks do.

Plimus.com - http://www.plimus.com/

Similar Regsoft, this is a smaller network but free to get started. They take a commission of anywhere from $0.75 up to 4.5% of sales.

MediaPal - http://www.mediapal.com/

Allows you to sell any kind of digital media including audio files, charging a $0.40 fee on every sale and a delivery fee of $0.01 per megabyte based on the file size, and 10% of the retail price. You can sell products from your website or CD. I joined them a while back, but never bothered doing anything with them because I found their control panel to be clumsy at the time their support for some products was limited. They seem to have come a long way since then, so you might want to give them a try.

Other distribution channels you might want to try that don't offer affiliate program management, but part of a network are listed below:

Lulu.com - http://www.lulu.com/

Lulu is just a darling. Sell not just digital goods throughout their growing network, you can also create and sell your own books and manuals in print! They have many options to choose from and you only pay fees if an item sells (they range depending on product type). This is one of those services that just gets better and better.

SwiftCD.com - http://www.swiftcd.com/

Allows you to create and sell CDs on demand for your products. Prices vary depending on the options you choose, but overall inexpensive.

BuyCreative.com - http://www.buycreative.com

- Offers you a place to buy and sell a variety of multimedia products including illustrations, photography, audio, 3D models, software, plug-ins, and more. While it is free to join and become a vendor, they keep 50% commissions. While this may seem like a lot, you have to put it into perspective - they bring the traffic, handle the sales and deliver the goods to the customer. Another important point is this: 50% of a $29.95 sale is $14.97 and 50% of nothing is $0.00 - so why be picky?

Emetrix.com - http://www.emetrix.com

- Similar to Payloadz.com, they offer free accounts and take a 15% commission per sale. While they do support affiliate programs, it is only through a selection of 3rd parties you must choose from (Shareasale, Clixgalore, MyAffiliateProgram, AffiliateShop, and Commission Junction) and then add to your control panel. Fine if you are a member of these affiliate services, but if not, you should know that they cost money - ranging from under $100 to over $3000.

Qwerks.com - http://www.qwerks.com/

- Probably not worth mentioning, but maybe you'll have better luck with it. I personally didn't see a single sale come through this service for the full year I was testing it. In all fairness though, that was a couple years ago, so they might have more traffic in their network by now.

Even more digital goods distribution networks to look into (which I didn't have time to review and may or may not offer affiliate options) include:

BitPass - http://www.bitpass.com/

eSellerate - http://www.plimus.com/

Leah Merchant - http://www.leahmerchant.com/

TradeBit - http://www.tradebit.com/

PaypalDownloads - http://www.paypaldownloads.com/

Before I forget, here's a tip: Instead of putting all the payment options on one page, creating new pages for each service's unique order link. This will benefit you and maintain good standing with your affiliates.

Good luck with your sales!

Carole Nickerson has been a web developer and internet marketer since 1998. Visit http://www.thenetter.com for more free articles, tips and software.

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