Hi again! It appears that BTFE Marketplace is on average, giving approximately 50% of the commissions it receives from vendors to the school groups. I have cross-referenced the commissions BTFEM pays with the mainstream affiliate commission percentages (www.CJ.com
), and most come up at about 50%. I guess it's like grocery scrip; much cheaper directly from the company.
I'm still trying to get an answer on the cookie duration issue and will report back.
I'm with Tim on this one. Unless you have volunteers who can do all the work on your website and keep it up, probably too much effort.
The one exception might be for Amazon. I'd like to do their affiliate marketing program since they don't participate with Boxtops etal--the idea is to set up an Amazon bookstore and showcase some parenting resource books, stuff like that--maybe even have parents write book reviews. But even that is "pie in the sky" for us right now.
Also, you might want to check into iGive as another online shopping mall. They do a lot of those magazine subscription things. The percentages overall are lower than Boxtops etal, but there are a lot more vendors available.
Tim (and all): my thinking here is to provide a gateway to sites like the BTFE marketplace (to get the parents started), but also include some buying opportunites that benefit both the parent and the school (give something in return for visiting the site). The Magazine site I previously mentioned is one of them. I have no interest in continuing with a QSP-type program due to the high cost to the parent/buyer.
Also, does anyone know what the duration of the cookies are for escrip and BTFE Marketplace? If it's a one-shot cookie our school gets a cut ONLY if a purchase is made at that time. Otherwise, nothing; we're just providing customers to the site for free. I would prefer a cookie set at 30-180 days, so that repeat buys would earn commissions as well.
I am going to look and see if the commissions are substantially higher by going direct. I'm guessing they are like the different scrip companies - widely variable. I'll update as I learn. Thanks!
This is exactly the same concept as the Box Tops for Education Marketplace and Schoolcash.com and Schoolpop.com and the like.
You *can* set up direct relationships with all of the various online stores, but I don't think it would be worth the effort.
By going through the Box Tops Marketplace (or any one of the other online malls that work in this way), you do give up some of your percentage, but you gain in several ways:
1. They do all the work dealing with hundreds of different online stores and negotiating discounts (a big headache for one person);
2. They provide marketing and promotional materials to you for free;
3. They have professional Web designers who know how to encourage your supporters to help your school and make the shop-through experience easier.
4. Their tracking and reporting systems will make your life a lot easier. (Ex: one check vs. dozens of much smaller checks).
My two conclusions after watching these programs for a long time:
A. No matter which way you go, you're not going to break the bank here. Categorizing these with the "collecting" programs is about right.
B. I'd definitely recommend going through an established vendor rather than reinventing the wheel on your own.
(PS -- You can find several of these providers listed in our PTO Yellowpages. See link at left.)
Thank you for raising this subject! I've been doing some research and these appear to be no brainers. I'd look closely at the time it takes to get a check from these companies (I noticed some are up to 90 days and are only paid four times a year), what items they sell apply (for some it was only on selected merchadise), and if the profit percentage really makes sense to put much effort into it (at 1-5% of sales, it would take some big bucks to earn enough to be useful).
I have thought several times about creating an affiliate marketing program for our PTA (a nice nontaxable fundraiser)that would be operated thru our web page to suggest ways that parents could support the PTA w/o buying another catalog item they didn't need.
Someone asked in another thread about a book web site's FR program, so I promised to share this idea through a new thread.
Ever see the ads that are placed on all web pages these days? The owners of the web pages receive a percentage of the sales made by people that click on the ads (exactly like the Escrip programs, but without paying a % for them to run the program for you). A check is paid out monthly to the group, & would fall under the same FR idea as Campbell's labels and BTF Education.
Has anyone created a fundraising page like this in their PTA/PTO Website?? In addition to the Boxtops 4 Education site, escrip, and a few others that we've discussed in this site, there are hundreds of family-friendly companies that will pay for your group's sales. I especially like the Magazine Company that offers 100 different magazine subscriptions @ $3.95 each and pays a 17% commission; TONS Cheaper than QSP, no work and you get .50/subscription. They are legit - I have twice ordered gifts from them.
I just wanted to see if anyone has tried this yet before I suggest it to my group. BTW - it costs nothing to try!!
NOTE: I'm not selling anything here-I just like these ideas better than the backpack express!!
