How to Fix Affiliate Programs for Freemium Products
Running an affiliate program on a freemium business is tricky.
A freemium model means you give a lot away for free, but you also offer an upgraded version, usually one or two plans that people can pay for. That's exactly how StockAnalysis.com works.
Up until now, our affiliate program has been simple. If someone upgrades to Pro or Unlimited through your link, you earn 60% commissions.
That's a really compelling offer compared to other providers in the space, and the program has done very well. A big reason why is that people love using our site and mobile app. We get over 50 million page views a month, and well over a thousand people sign up for free accounts every day. A small portion of them upgrade to Pro or Unlimited, and if an affiliate sent them our way within the last 90 days, that affiliate earns the commission.
But you can probably see the issue.
Bringing someone in doesn't always result in an upgrade. There's still a lot of value in that lead, but up until now, affiliates weren't earning anything for it.
I'd hear something like this from affiliates all the time: "I love your product and I love sharing it, but you give away so much for free that people don't always feel the need to upgrade, so I don't really earn."
Fair enough.
So now, for a small group of affiliates, we're paying $1 per lead.
Here's how it works:
- Someone clicks your affiliate link.
- Within 90 days, they make a free account. You earn $1.
- If they upgrade to Pro or Unlimited within those 90 days, you still earn 60% commissions.
It's both, not one or the other.
This is really compelling if you have a loyal audience. It's not hard to say, "Hey, I use Stock Analysis, it's great, you should make a free account and see if you find value in it." If they do, you earn. And if they find enough value to upgrade for the added features, you earn again.
Think about it like this. Let's say you have a YouTube channel with 30,000 subscribers who are super loyal, and every video gets hundreds of comments. A simple call to action like "I'm an Unlimited user, but I'd recommend signing up for a free account" can go a long way.
A couple of other things make this even better:
- With your affiliate ID, you can link to anything on our site. A specific ticker, a specific chart, whatever fits your content.
- The new affiliate URLs come with a pop-up to make a free account. Someone clicks your link, the pop-up shows up (once every 7 days), and while they can close out of it, a lot of them will sign up.
Now, this isn't something we can offer everyone.
It's a specific tier within our affiliate program. Some people spam their links all over the place, and when you pay per lead, there's a real risk of fake sign-ups under fake names. So we vet every affiliate we add to this tier by looking at their traffic, social following, presence online, and who their audience actually is. And we keep a close eye on them once they're in.
Done right, this brings a lot of value to affiliates and a lot of value to us. It finally solves the problem of running a successful affiliate program on a freemium model.
If you are already an affiliate and want to see if your audience can fit this model, feel free to reach out.
If you are looking to join our affiliate program, you can do so here.
And, because great affiliates know other great affiliates, feel free to send them this post.