Whenever a new plugin or product comes out, everyone and their dog jumps on it, and they only say positive things trying to get you to buy. I know this, because I’ve often purchased items without being informed about something that doesn’t quite work the way it should. I hate asking for refunds, but sometimes I do. I only ask for refunds when, after trying to use a product, it doesn’t do what I hoped it would. In the case of this particular plugin, I did ask for a refund. I know that telling you this means no affiliate sales for me, but it’s important for me to be honest with my readers.
You see, last week I was very excited to purchase a new plugin called, BonusPress. This is a plugin that is useful if you are an affiliate, and competing against a number of other affiliates promoting the same product at the same time. It allows you to add bonuses that customers get when they purchase through YOUR affiliate link, and not your competitor’s.
For the most part, I liked it. However, there is one thing that I was disappointed with, and I’ll discuss that below. However, there are ways to get around the part I don’t like if the plugin would still fit most of your uses….so keep reading.
Click here to see it in action, and a behind-the-scenes tour.
What I liked about the BonusPress plugin:
1. Easy to use – Some plugins are just plain confusing. This one isn’t. It comes with several instructional videos broken up into short step-by-step clips. So you can watch a short video, then set up a few things in your plugin, and then watch the next video.
2. It’s professional looking – Even if you have no special HTML/PHP/CSS knowledge, this plugin will make your affiliate offer and bonuses appear professional.
3. You can add a timer on your page – You can set a timer as to when your offer expires. The timer continues to count down until the expiry time and date. I didn’t try it, but I thought this plugin might even be useful to use when you have pages that you want to install a timer on (ex) if you have a webinar that will be pulled down forever after the time runs out.
4. You can customize the page – You can add a custom header, and make it look even more professional. You have a choice of several different colors (in the video, you’ll see that I chose one shade of blue). You can easily add graphics (you use a WYSIWYG editor similar to WordPress).
5. Money-back Guarantee – Mark Thompson (creator of BonusPress) refunded my money with no questions asked. I’m always impressed with business owners who follow through with promises, and he did.
What I don’t like about the BonusPress plugin:
1. Anyone can use any Paypal Transaction ID to claim the bonuses – I found this out by accident when testing out the plugin. When looking into this further, I realized that the developer does mention this would be impossible to set up for all the various payment systems that people use.
So what if this plugin interests you, but you want to avoid this problem?
My suggestion is that you do not send people straight to a download page (unless it doesn’t matter to you – for some people, it’s not going to be a big deal) where they can download your free offers without actual purchasing anything from you. Instead, you may want to provide an email address where customers can contact you to provide their transaction ID’s. That way, you have a chance to verify that a purchase did occur. Also be sure to integrate the plugin with your autoresponder, so that you can add these people to your list, and stay in contact with them afterwards.
One thing you should always keep in mind is that there is always the possibility that someone who purchases through your affiliate link will not actually result in a commission for you. This can happen when a customer is already “forever-cookied” to another affiliate. In that case, it is still good business to honor your promise of the free offers.
If the BonusPress plugin is something you might be able to use and you think it can save you some time over making a separate sales page, you can find out even more details about it here.
Personally, I think that it might be just as easy to save your money, and create a separate sales page with the affiliate link and bonuses right on that, but that’s just my opinion. On the other hand, you might find that it saves you a lot of hassle and time. If you have other ideas, I’d love to hear from you.
Stay tuned as I review other wordpress plugins in the future. (I’m always looking for ways to work SMARTER, and not harder, and if you are too, then I’ll keep you informed)