Reward Programs

[hyp]

It's not just about the money, it's about how good the overall service is:

Site should be reliable, stable
Servers being offline, crashing, losing files, etc is bad

Good file upload and transfer options
ability to move files easily from other hosts, FTP is important (at least for me) and not some buggy flash-uploader. Ability to easily upload multiple files. And reliable, see first note. I've tried a number of services and if I can't even reliably get a test batch of files uploaded I quickly abandon the host.

Well organized file manager
Easy to use, plenty of detail, support for folders/sub-directories

Accurate, detailed stats
Download counts, most/least recent, downloads that generate PPS, long-range stats & charting, etc

Decent free user support
It doesn't have to be blazing fast, just moderate speed that allows for completion and doesn't have nasty pop-ups and buried links. Throw free users a bone and hope that a clean, honest service will tempt them to go premium.

More
There are probably other things a good host could do to win my business, but those are the ones that came to mind quickly. If a service is good with nice features that make it easier to use I'll stick with it far longer than some bug-ridden piece of junk even if PPD/PPS is lower.

[FShoppe]

Hello Hyp,

Is no PPD a deal breaker?

[Houston]

FShoppe.

Why do not you let your server without affiliate program?

You could make money from advertisements, pop-ups and sales channels.

If you put 250Kbytes/sec as download speed without waiting time between a download and another,your server would be much better than others that is out there.

It is very hard to find a good server without affiliate program.

[FShoppe]

Hi Houston,

Are you referring to out servers specifically or in general?

If ours, indeed we could try and raise money through extensiv ads and popups which would hopfully pay for the cost of running high bandwidth allowance for free users. And although we do display ads, we are trying to keep these ads to a minimum to enhance the overall user experience. This also means we will not use pop-ups (at least not unless we start losing money from the sheer volume of free downloads).

If in general, why not. To each their own. It is simply a matter of image, and what kind of reuptation these service providers want.

It is very hard to find a good server without affiliate program.

We do not offer an affiliate program per se. In that we do not payout on a per 1000 download basis. We do not have/sell premium accounst so we do not have a PPS scheme either. But still, we would not mind rewarding others for helping our own site become a success :-).

[hyp]

Hello Hyp,

Is no PPD a deal breaker?

Everyone's different, but my preference is for mixed mode - partial credit for subs and partial for downloads. I also find that as services mature, PPS actvity declines, so PPD becomes more useful.

By offering three options 1. PPS, 2. Mixed PPS/PPD and 3. PPD, you can cover the whole field.

[FShoppe]

By offering three options 1. PPS, 2. Mixed PPS/PPD and 3. PPD, you can cover the whole field.

What do you mean the 'whole field'?

Do you think these three (technically 2) methods are the only ways to offer earning incentive for uploaders?

[hyp]

by "the whole field" I meant the majority of people interested in an affiliate program.

There are all sorts of ways you can offer incentives/affiliate programs. If you're setting up a new hosting service you have to decide what works best for you and what you can afford.

One challenge is that the richer you make your affiliate program the more you have to charge for premium memberships. This may cause fewer people to subscribe. I've noticed in the last year or so that services are charging more and more for premiums.

You might want to look at some of the services that have been around longer - Rapidshare, Sendspace, Depositfiles, etc. They've been through the hosting wars and have survived, so they probably know what they're doing.

[FShoppe]

Our services (FileShoppe) have been operating for around 8 months now. We have no interest in offering reward programs for 'free downloads' and offer no premium accounts.

Our services mainly revolve around selling your own digital goods at a price set by the uploader.

We offer a free file hosting service, mainly for 'advertising' purposes but since we do not offer premium accounts, a PPDL scheme based on a per 1K DL basis seems incompatible.

What we do instead is offer premium downloads of 'free' fies to get around the limitations imposed on all free downloads. We then offer 'free money' to spend on premium downloads, which we then redeem to PayPal and CarrotPay.

The purpose of this thread is to find other forms of promotions which may be compatible with our service so we may make some better offers to wouldbe content providers.

If you have any ideas, I would gladly consider them :-).


PS. We also give away $5 to all uploaders as a 'thank you for joining' bonus.