DA marketing

This is different from the topics here. Feel free to move it if that is appropriate.

Something I've been wondering about for a long time. DA clearly is about twice as good as cpanel, but its market share seems to be sinking compared to it.

I have the misfortune of having to work with CP for a customer. I lost about 3 hours of my time because of cp muck ups. I've been keeping a log and will probably put up at least a few more pages on the topic, but I've been thinking about a whole website too.

Unfortunately I don't want to do it on a volunteer, charitable donation basis. I've been contacting different DA hosts to see if I can get an affiliate link. The answer from the ones I'm most interested in has been 'no, not unless you are a customer.'

Well, no wonder the market share has been sinking. This goes against one of the most fundamental principles of marketing. The more buy buttons you have on the net, the more sales you make.

I am an affiliate for Hostgator, but am not a customer. In fact, with HG, you can use your own affiliate link to buy hosting. I'm always impressed by their marketing and they seem to be doing quite well. A side effect of all their affiliates is that they have people all over the web jumping up and down saying 'HG is the greatest. CP is the greatest.' Affiliates tend to do that, right over their sigs. People see that enough, don't see anyone arguing, and start assuming it must be true.

I do have an affiliate link from my own DA host, but it would be a lot better to have at least 5 or 6 on a site like this, and give people some choice.

Wouldn't it be a good idea for DA to get together with DA hosts, and maybe work on changing their customer / affiliate requirements? It would result in more sales.

At least it would help my new website

I'm not at all sure what you're asking.

Webhosts aren't going to offer buy buttons for DirectAdmin, and if you want a buy button for people to buy DirectAdmin you'd need to speak with DirectAdmin sales.

I'm guessing that the reason most webhosting companies don't want to offer you an affiliate link because they haven't signed up with an affiliate program, and only use whatever is built into their billing program. If I'm right, then they'd need to code something especially for you.

Another issue I can see is I don't know how you could manage more than one affiliate link unless you were in a system that rotated ads, and that's only going to work for hosts signed up with an affiliate program.

Please clarify your thoughts.

Jeff

jlasman said:

Webhosts aren't going to offer buy buttons for DirectAdmin, and if you want a buy button for people to buy DirectAdmin you'd need to speak with DirectAdmin sales.

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I was wondering about a DA buy button, and that's good to know, but didn't mean to ask about that here.

jlasman said:

I'm guessing that the reason most webhosting companies don't want to offer you an affiliate link because they haven't signed up with an affiliate program, and only use whatever is built into their billing program.

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Affiliate links are simple enough. They are usually a link to the affiliate program with a unique number letter combination that is different for each affiliate. If one person's affiliate id is 625, the next one can be 626. Or sometimes each person can pick out their own affiliate link as long as no one else has it already.

The reason being given by the hosting companies is that they only give an affiliate link to people who are customers of theirs. This is just a policy and doesn't seem to be a very good one, but it is very easy to change, no programming needed. All that would be needed is to allow people who aren't customers already, to sign up to the existing affiliate program.

Every host I contacted has an affiliate program. It was just this policy that I'm objecting to. Hostgator as an example goes completely the other way. They let anyone sign up for an affiliate link. So far it really seems like DA hosts don't want to do this, and CP hosts are the ones who are doing it. It is a marketing advantage to do this.

jlasman said:

Another issue I can see is I don't know how you could manage more than one affiliate link unless you were in a system that rotated ads, and that's only going to work for hosts signed up with an affiliate program.

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Most hosting review type of pages have an affiliate link for each host reviewed. If you look at the source code, the anchor text displayed might be hostgator.com, but the actual link will include the affiliate id after that part.

They will have a discussion about the host with the strong points and the weak points, maybe basic information like the price range.

It's just a joke to me because that's not the way I work, but often the hosting review page will give the recommendations out in the same order as the amount of the commission. If HG pays $70, they will get the top billing, the top recommendation, and 'this host is really good' comments. A company that only pays a $2 affiliate commission will get a 'passable' rating. Review pages are a bit infamous for that sort of stuff, but there are plenty of them out there that are honest.

So thanks for your comments. This communication stuff isn't easy, and maybe that makes things clearer.

It's a bit sad to me. DA is much better than CP, but in general the hosting companies with CP are much better at marketing than the ones hosting with the DA control panel. I happen to think that can be turned around. Mac has had its market share climb lately. It went from very small to a bit more substantial. The difference in quality between DA and CP is a lot more than the difference between the quality of a Mac and a PC.

In fact I'm a bit excited about it. It's probably going to be a month before I get a site up about it. If anyone else feels like they might benefit from any kind of publicity and would like to join in, please email or pm. There are a lot of ways we could cooperate, like up votes on social bookmarking links.

best wishes

It appears from your post above that you're willing to review sites that don't offer affiliate links, and that you're willing to rate them highly even if their affiliate link doesn't offer a lot money.

I guess that's called honesty.

So why would I (for example) bother to give you an affiliate link if you're going to review me anyway?

I guess I just have problems understanding the entire concept.

I've decided this really isn't a discussion about DirectAdmin, but rather about behvior of hosters using DirectAdmin, so I've moved it to the Off-Topic Discussion subforum.

Jeff

Closed Office said:

DA clearly is about twice as good as cpanel

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Where exactly did you get this from?
Even the staffs of DA can't make such blunt statement.

It should be obvious that it's an opinion. Please don't troll on DirectAdmin forums. It wastes a lot of time for the rest of us, who are looking for serious discussion.

Thanks.

Jeff

uberguru said:

Where exactly did you get this from?
Even the staffs of DA can't make such blunt statement.

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Experience

As I mentioned, I started keeping a log of the CP muck ups that cost me time, patience or whatever. I'm still doing the writing and it is going to take awhile, but guess I'll post a link when it's done. It goes into the details of my experiences, and some examples of why I think that. Some of it is funny already.

And you're right. 'Twice' is just a round number, no attempt to be precise at all. And yes, it is a personal opinion.

The basic issue is really simple. Would DA and the companies using it to host want more buy buttons and more sales, or less?

I mentioned signing up with HG. If I remember right, I didn't even have to ask, let alone email, post in a forum, or beg. There was just an affiliates link somewhere on the site and I went through the form and the bot gave me the link.

Since then it has made me and HG money. Both of us are happy about that. (I certainly am, assume they are too.)

I once made a sale from a sales page that was nearly non existent. This wasn't hosting. I found out about the product early and put up a page about it, and it made a few sales. Not long after I had a disagreement with the vendor and took the information off the page. I just left a paragraph for the people who arrived to the site from outside links that were already all over the place. The paragraph was just a brief explanation about why the page was deleted, and an apology.

To my surprise, I got an $85 dollar sale from it a couple days later. The header on the page was still linked to the vendor's site, and the customer had clicked on it and bought an up sell.

More buy buttons, more sales, what's so obscure about that?

jlasman said:

It appears from your post above that you're willing to review sites that don't offer affiliate links,

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Not quite. That post does go a bit in that direction, but not nearly that far. My first post on the topic goes a more in the other direction. Here is the quote from it.

"Unfortunately I don't want to do it on a volunteer, charitable donation basis."

I am extremely busy. It's not like I'm bored, lonely and have absolutely nothing better to do.

I do quite a lot of work for my favorite charity, at tprf.org, including website work. (not on that site, but on related sites) But if a host is not even going to give me an affiliate link, I am not going to spend time, money and effort on it.

The main reason for this topic was to see if that affiliate link policy could be changed. DA hosting is really one of the better products around, and is very under appreciated. That could be turned around. It is something I would be a bit proud of promoting but as far as business goes, it would be better to stuff that pride and find something that can put bread on the table.

It's not like there is a shortage of affiliate links around the net.

best wishes

Closed Office said:

Not quite. That post does go a bit in that direction, but not nearly that far. My first post on the topic goes a more in the other direction. Here is the quote from it.

"Unfortunately I don't want to do it on a volunteer, charitable donation basis."

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So it sounds more as if you're creating a link farm than anything else.

But if a host is not even going to give me an affiliate link, I am not going to spend time, money and effort on it.

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Are you going to write about each host (at least appear to be a review site, though obviously not really one if you're only willing to review sites who offer you affiliate accounts), or just create a link farm?

The main reason for this topic was to see if that affiliate link policy could be changed.

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Whose affiliate link policy? There's no official DirectAdmin affiliate link policy and I don't see how there could be; it's up to each hosting company to create it's own affiliate policy.

Nor does your thread title appear to be on-topic, at least not in my opinion; we hosting companies aren't marketing DirectAdmin; we're marking our own respective businesses.

Jeff

jlasman said:

So it sounds more as if you're creating a link farm than anything else.

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That really does not follow at all. Just because I don't want to do it for free does not mean I am going to do anything at all trashy. And I am not. To me it seems like quite a large leap to take anything I've said and jump to that conclusion. It's a wrong conclusion.

jlasman said:

Are you going to write about each host (at least appear to be a review site, though obviously not really one if you're only willing to review sites who offer you affiliate accounts), or just create a link farm?

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Neither one actually, and what difference does it make to you? I didn't get a single question from HG about my morals, and with the number of affiliates they have, there must be some that are sleazy. If anyone goes too far it's simple enough to cancel their account. In fact I've never had this kind of cross exam from any affiliate company I've applied for.

This is a bit of a shock. I am suggesting something simple, that a bit of common sense could be added to the general affiliate marketing understanding of DA hosts. I might be mistaken in that or I might be wrong. In that case please point out the errors. I am always happy to learn. But to just assume it is for something evil is an odd combination of unpleasant and ridiculous. Personally I try to be really careful before making accusations like that.

jlasman said:

Whose affiliate link policy? There's no official DirectAdmin affiliate link policy and I don't see how there could be; it's up to each hosting company to create it's own affiliate policy.

Nor does your thread title appear to be on-topic, at least not in my opinion; we hosting companies aren't marketing DirectAdmin; we're marking our own respective businesses.

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It's good to know that there isn't a policy like that. It is so common among DA hosts that I was wondering.

The topic title might not be precise enough. Just suggest a better one and if I agree I'll be happy to edit it if I can on this forum. (Haven't used it enough to know yet.)

This board did seem like a good place to get in touch with DA hosts. If there is a better one, let me know. I thought it might be a useful place to have an open discussion, and I have already referred a DA host to this topic.

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And to just get back to the situation as I see it, it is really disappointing to see a quality product like DA (including DA hosting) getting less popular. CP seems to be getting more popular. A big difference seems to be the marketing.

Think there's anything we could learn from Hostgator about that? They handle the marketing extremely well. Just adapting some of their techniques might be enough to get a bit of a buzz going about DA that could benefit every DA host (and affiliate ).

I fail to understand how this would work, or what you're trying to do?
Where would these links be placed, on our sites? If so, how would this help DA? Our customers just want hosting, not a cheaper control panel.
Am I missing the point here?

Unless you offer VPSs and offer a % off a license? Do you men that way?

Hi Peter

Basically I'm talking about affiliate marketing and it doesn't involve hosting directly, except that most hosting companies have an affiliate program. The affiliate program benefits hosting companies directly from the sales it gets for them, and indirectly from all the positive comments affiliates tend to make about the company they are trying to get a sale for. They also result in traffic and links back to the host.

It seems you host and there isn't any point in an affiliate link on the site of the host. A host can make sales directly without any affiliates involved.

Here is the html for a hostpc.com affiliate link.


When you are reading the page on a website, the text of that link is just hostpc.com and it looks like any other link. But it connects to the hostpc affiliate program which keeps track of all the traffic that it gets from each affiliate link. In this case the 125 is the affiliate id. Each affiliate will have a unique id.

When someone clicks on the link and visits the hostpc site, they see the same site with the same info and prices, etc that anyone else sees if they just type in hostpc.com and hit enter. In the background however, the affiliate program has recorded the visit and it keeps track of how many visits it gets via each affiliate link. If the visitor purchases hosting the affiliate program keeps track of that too and the affiliate is entitled to be paid for that purchase.

The payment can be a lump sum or a percentage, or some other arrangement. One company, host4profit. (can't remember if it was .com or .something else) used to pay the affiliate 50% of everything the customer paid them, for life. I understand they aren't doing it anymore. I didn't like that business model anyway since commissions that high meant h4p had to have high charges for hosting.

While they were doing it when I first came on line, I'd run into pages all over the place recommending their hosting. When you check the source code, sure enough they were all affiliate links.

I happen to like affiliate hosting links. I have some high traffic pages, and a simple 'powered by hostpc.com' in the footer, or something like that, does send traffic to them. It is a chance to earn something back for what I spend on hosting. That type of link can be put in the footer of almost any page, even a site about acne or a favorite hobby.

I even have private 'noindex, nofollow' pages that are only for people I want to invite. They are not in the menu of the site. These pages don't have any other ads on them, but they do have that little 'powered by hostpc.com' affiliate link in the footer. It's quite discrete and doesn't look like an ad at all. Maybe it seems like general information to a visitor.

Affiliate links do produce traffic for the host and every visit is a chance for a sale. The extra links pointing back to the host are a major help in climbing up the search engine results.

If you don't have an affiliate program in place, you might be able to sell hosting via ClickBank. That gives you access to a lot of affiliates and it is a very well run program. It is probably more expensive than some of the others because they need a cut too. If I remember right (anybody can feel free to sort this out if I am wrong) they have around a million affiliates, with about 90,000 considered active. I believe active means they've made a sale and are at least still sending in traffic.

I haven't done a hosting related search of CB for years, but there always used to be companies offering it there.

I have seen questions from several marketers on my favorite internet marketing forum, about 'how can I attract more Clickbank affiliates to promote my product?' That seems like a natural question to ask. More affiliates means more money, fame, respect, appreciation from the wife, (finally! ) etc.

I have never seen anyone ask about blocking affiliates. That would seem a bit unnatural. I would expect the first reply to that topic would be 'why do you want to do that?' But it is what a lot of DA hosts do and it doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Maybe it is and there is just something I don't understand here, but so far no one has even suggested that.

I don't know much about hosting and don't expect there is any chance at all that I would get into that. It just isn't something I am interested in. I do find affiliate marketing interesting and was just thinking that maybe people here don't understand it, the way I wouldn't understand deep hosting talk. It did cross my mind a couple of times that maybe I should explain something more about it, but I was getting a bit discouraged about this thread.

So thanks for the lead in question. I tend to get into the tedious intricate details too much for most people, so I'll try to sum things up again another way.

Hostgator is extremely slick about marketing. They make very efficient use of their open affiliate program and probably host more sites than all the DA hosts combined. I might be way off on that, and feel completely free to sort me out if I am, but at least from the forums I read, that's the impression I get.

I think DA is a much better control panel than the 2 they use, but in spite of that they are clobbering DA in sales. I don't suppose an open affiliate program for DA hosts would turn things around, but it would be a nice start. A few more people would at least hear about DA.

In all of the internet marketing forum reading I've done in the last 10 years I've only seen DA mentioned about 10 times, and 4 or 5 of them were by me. If there are more affiliates for DA hosting, the host and DA both benefit, and a bit of a buzz might start.

Edit, just reread your post after I got this up. I'm not suggesting a cheaper offer for DA. That's actually a turn off for a lot of people. The 'you get what you pay for' philosophy is so prevalent that a higher price might be a better way to go, at least for a couple of DA hosting companies.

Man, you are in a forum where are almost competitors, not friends. Here are not DA selling people, here are DA using people, they fight for their customers, so what they would link against another? Crazy.

johannes said:

so what they would link against another? Crazy.

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I'm not suggesting anyone link against each other. I don't even understand how you could do that. I can understand a link to some site, but have never heard of a link against one. Crazy does sound about right for that.

Affiliate marketing can get a lot of links back to the vendor. If people do want to compete, that would be a good way to do it. Nothing wrong with competition.

Excuse me, I misunderstood that you mean DA and not the users. Sorry about that. But in this case - here in this board are the users, and not the DA-people. Maybe you should ask them directly. Whish you the best

I'm beginning to understand a bit better.

@Closed Office:

My definition of a link farm is probably very different than yours. If you're willing to join multiple affiliate programs and link to them, because they'll pay you, then I call that a link farm. If you're offering editorial content, I might still consider it a link farm, depending on whether the content is generic or specific.

I'm glad a few other readers have responded; it's not my intention to carry on a one-to-one conversation on DirectAdmin forums.

Is this what you want:

To bring attention to hosts using DirectAdmin that they should create open affiliate solutions, not limited to their own users?

If so, I'd say you've gone about as far as you can here. As already stated by johannes, we're generally competitors in that most of us are selling hosting of one sort or another, using DirectAdmin as our control panel. While we tend to ignore our competitive nature and help each other as much as we are able, here, with problems and issues with the DirectAdmin control panel, I think it's a bit much to expect us to tell all our competitors our marketing secrets .

Jeff

Wrong software...

DA is the control panel, It is the equivalent of cpanel, the difference is the billing portion is not part of the software, my company uses WHMCS which is the same as WHM for cpanel, this means that the affiliate programs, links and what have you are in this billing software and not the Direct Admin portion.
WHMCS does have a great affiliate script built in and a lot of DA users do offer links for their sites with some kick back to you.
As for DA offering a kick back for their software sales, the market is so specialized and their product is priced at a point where this would not be profitable for them or for yourself.

I couldn’t agree more with what you said regarding DA being twice fold better than CPanel. However, like you said, there has been a sudden drastic decline in the market share of DA’s recently. The reason is certainly with their staunch approach on providing affiliate links to none other than customers and other rules and regulations regarding sharing of affiliate links. This reason alone could compromise their status and pave way for the rise of CPanel.

Addison88 said:

However, like you said, there has been a sudden drastic decline in the market share of DA’s recently.

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And you know this how?

Jeff