Make more money from your customers via affiliate links and virus renewal?

[goldmercury]

Hello,

I've been repairing PCs for many years and have now went into full time business with it. Trying to increase my margin is key to sucsess I believe an have been playing aroud with a couple of ideas in my head. I'm looking for help though!

Anti-virus renewal commision - are there any good antivirus products where I can get a commsion a year down the line when the customer has to renew the license? At the moment I'm just selling Kaspersky however when the customer renews the license in 12 months time I do not see any ££$$.

Myshopgenie/affiliate links/cookie stuffer. I'm thinking of implementing some form of affiliate link mechanism into customer's PCs. If they buy a product online I will get commision from some form of affiliate scheme. Is anyone implementing this? I was thinking of changing there homepage to a google custom search page so if they click an Ad Words link I get some £$$. I've been asking in other forums and have been told maybe to change the hosts file so all traffic goes through an affilaite account however my skills in this area are limited. Of course this would be an opt-in on the customers behalf and would clearly be stated on my repair booking form.

 

[K007]

Hello,

I was thinking of changing there homepage to a google custom search page so if they click an Ad Words link I get some £$$. I've been asking in other forums and have been told maybe to change the hosts file so all traffic goes through an affilaite account however my skills in this area are limited. .

Wow!
Not a bad idea at all. I can already see the dollars pouring. Just kidding.
I don't know how legal this is, but the idea is brilliant.
It can be done with some script injection, but the script must be signed digitally in order to be allowed by the firewall/antivirus.
With script injection you don't need to change the custy's home page.
You can add buttons, toolbars, extra html and java script, you can modify all the pages he sees, but you can also be specific and only modify the pages for which you have affiliate schemes, like goole and ad-words for example.

Ok, my imagination is getting ahead of me.
I will stop here before I will give away the technique, after you have given away the idea

 

[goldmercury]

yeah it does seem ike a good idea and why not! If I state in my repair booking form if the customer agrees to the modification they'll get an xx% reduction on thier next repair/upgrade/sale. This works for both parties and ads something back into the local economy. PM me your thoughts on scripting - I lack knoweldge here and would really like a helping hand. Infact you could scale this script and sell it to almost everyone on this forum - of course you give me a free copy as I came up with the idea

 

[callthatgirl]

Eeks, I would not go for that. As I have said in the past, the clients are already leary of our virus tools/remote tools, to tell them that we are putting in a script that makes us money sounds way fishy and not very professional.

 

[K007]

Eeks, I would not go for that. As I have said in the past, the clients are already leary of our virus tools/remote tools, to tell them that we are putting in a script that makes us money sounds way fishy and not very professional.

Its similar with all the tracking cookies yourself got into the cookies folder on your computer.
Except, this is not hidden or saved into the PC without your knoledge.
Think of it like a toolbar, which it could very well be, but a toolbar is too intrusive, it shows up all the time, whereas a script injection will only show up on the search engines and will only modify the let's call it "adds section" by putting at the top the ones that you have affiliate partnership with.

Edit:
And yes, you, the maker of it, can fall into temptation and display the links as having the words the customer searched for, but the link points to your affiliate websites, making him click on it thinking it will take him to what he was searching for.
That would be not fair, and most likely illegal.

 

[loaner]

In this thread so far.....

callthatgirl is the only one i would let anywhere near my computer.

...goss

 

[K007]

and here is a demo of injecting script in google page.
http://www.videomeli.com/video/VaiWvftH_yA/google-javascript-injection.html

 

[K007]

In this thread so far.....

callthatgirl is the only one i would let anywhere near my computer.

...goss

Knowledge is power.
With power comes responsibility.
If you're not prepared to take the responsibility, don't seek knowledge.

 

[angry_geek]

In this thread so far.....

callthatgirl is the only one i would let anywhere near my computer.

...goss

Amen. There is no way I would consider doing this. It's even worse than those damn dealer badges they put all over my brand new car. It's like paying $30 for a t-shirt at Hollister's just to advertise their company. If a customer has come to me buy a machine or have one worked on, I probably already have their loyalty (assuming I did a good job). I don't need to alter their hosts file or install a browser hijacker or tracking cookie just to earn 1/10 of a cent on the chance they click a link, nor do I need to worry about the $5 I might make on antivirus software. How many years have we been telling customers to delete cookies, browser history, and toolbars? How many times a week do we fix fu**** up hosts files? Now you want to do it intentionally just to nickel and dime your customers?

I would say this is a bad idea. Definitely not the way to earn a customers respect and loyalty nor that of your peers.

 

[loaner]

ok...just an Update.....


callthatgirl and angry geek are the only ones i would let work on my computer...

...goss

 

[Rodrick]

My pride and professionalism is worth way more than you'd get with such a scheme.

I'm less concerned with a custom search page that you may get a few cents on but it would certainly have to add value to my customers not just be a money making scheme for me. (and I can't think of anything that you'd add to a custom search that'd be worth anything concrete to the customer). My customers trust me and come back because I don't play any games with them. Even so called 'harmless' changes. Like I've said before in other threads, I give my customers what I'd want and I dislike branded searches, toolbars and the like.

 

[goldmercury]

I completely agree with not having a toolbar or something in our face I hate that myself and would never do such a thing. However if I changed the host file or javascript injection to my affiliate link the only person that is getting ripped off is the website trying to push thier cookies on to a clients machine prior to a sale.

This happens anyway so why don't i just put in a my script and reep the commision instead? Even better idea give the customer a 50% cut on an annual basis of any revenue thier machine makes.

The only looser is the website pushing the cookie and those spammy websites are not a positive thing in th first place. Everyone is a winner.
Think my logic through before jumping to conclusions folks. There is real benifit to the customer and your business with this idea.

 

[cmonova]

I would pay to be there when you tell the customer:

If they buy a product online I will get commision from some form of affiliate scheme

Change the "they" to "you".....

 

[goldmercury]

hence the idea of the 50% to the customer I dont have to explain it - it will be in the small print with an opt-out tick box.

 

[callthatgirl]

Opt in box? Seriously? My clients don't even read my work order. I would love to see their faces after they find out that I'm making money off all their online stuff and for me to say "well, you didn't opt out"



This is one of those "bad idea threads" and I will keep coming back as I'm excited to see a 12 pager and an online trainwreck.

I also take notice that 2 of the big pushers are new to Technibble, I have to wonder if this is already in progress and these folks are trying to get us to push it on our clients. Just wondering, very suspicious stuff going on.

 

[goldmercury]

Call that girl - you have affilate links on your website to mozy.

If a visitor goes through your website to the affilaite linked products do you tell them your making money / more storage on thier clicks? Of course not and who's loosing out in this situation - no one.

I am genuine.

 

[callthatgirl]

GoldMercury,

When I am assisting clients, I show them the link and I always tell them that I have an affliation code and get $1 from it. None have refused. If someone randomly goes to my site and signs up, then great. But...I get many visitors a day at my site and I have not received a check from Mozy since March. So it's not something that is really making a lot of money.

 

[callthatgirl]

I certainly dont see the moral issue with having a custom Google homepage for your customers set with their permission which also includes updates and tips, most of my customers would love the idea of that.

I'm sure that if you verbally asked a client if you could put on software that tracks all their visits and you make money off each purchase, etc...and ran it through their google homepage, many would be skeptical, many would not care. I just would hope that if anyone did this, that you got the verbal OK.

 

[Psychoticus]

Sorry to be so harsh but this is the worst idea i have heard for a long time. Not only will your customers loose faith in you because you are just trying to sell them stuff and not looking after their interests but it just looks like the crap you get with dell or HP.

 

[vdub12]

Hello,

I've been repairing PCs for many years and have now went into full time business with it. Trying to increase my margin is key to sucsess I believe an have been playing aroud with a couple of ideas in my head. I'm looking for help though!

Anti-virus renewal commision - are there any good antivirus products where I can get a commsion a year down the line when the customer has to renew the license? At the moment I'm just selling Kaspersky however when the customer renews the license in 12 months time I do not see any ££$$.

Myshopgenie/affiliate links/cookie stuffer. I'm thinking of implementing some form of affiliate link mechanism into customer's PCs. If they buy a product online I will get commision from some form of affiliate scheme. Is anyone implementing this? I was thinking of changing there homepage to a google custom search page so if they click an Ad Words link I get some £$$. I've been asking in other forums and have been told maybe to change the hosts file so all traffic goes through an affilaite account however my skills in this area are limited. Of course this would be an opt-in on the customers behalf and would clearly be stated on my repair booking form.

I hope your joking because if your not you have no place working on computers.

First off its our job to get rid of this crap for the customer not add more. Customers pay us to clean there computers not tun them in to revenue earning machines for our own use. Not only are you messing up your own credibility but you are messing up the credibility of the entire industry. What happens when a customer comes to me after being helped by you. They are not going to trust a dam work I say.

Second before I was a tech I was a website owner and its bull crap like this that took all my profit away. Add blocking and add redirection is not fair to the people running the sites that your riping off.

I have to admit I am appalled that you would even come up with a hair brained idea like this and for those of you that support it all I have to say is it does not do anything for your credibility.