Myths & Facts about Moving Your Affiliate Program to SaaS

With the number of industry-specific SaaS sites, there are hardly any reasons for a solution from scratch. Think of all the time you spend designing an in-house solution when you can sign up for a SaaS platform and start growing your company right away.

But what about the people who run their company on in-house solutions?

Most vendors who run their company on in-house software systems must have started ten or more years ago. At that time, the market was not that saturated and finding a comprehensive SaaS provider may have been difficult. So we can imagine that it was a choice back then to build a solution from scratch.

Nowadays, you won’t see a startup preferring an in-house tech solution from a SaaS platform. Besides, users would have a significant comparison to make between similar SaaS items before making a final decision. But there are still some misunderstandings when it comes to SaaS tools, spread primarily by adherents of solutions from scratch. Not everybody is aware of the possibilities that SaaS platforms can bring.

We’ve prepared a list of the most popular illusions about SaaS platforms’ ability to dispel such misperceptions. Let’s see what the myth is and what the truth is.

1. SaaS lacks security solutions-Myth

Some people can claim that SaaS platforms use your data for their purposes and combine your offerings. You can’t completely believe it, therefore. Myth or the facts?

This is an unforgivable illusion. At present, no technology will have a chance to succeed unless it maintains absolute control of data privacy. All SaaS suppliers are responsible for preserving the data that customers share with them. It is, therefore, important to ensure the protection and confidentiality of customer data.

Myths and Reality of Transferring Your Affiliate Program to SaaS

Affiliate marketing systems often require monitoring loads of user information through various devices. SaaS systems, therefore, operate only as data processors and have no direct contact with end-users. They respect accountability and meet the responsibilities of the GDPR towards current customers and their employees. These obligations include the right to be informed, the right to data portability, legal requests to object or limit processing, the deletion of data containing end-user data or any personal data that the SaaS Partner Platform can store concerning its customer’s employees, affiliates, and advertisers.

Speaking on behalf of Scaleo, we have several years of experience in the design and production of partner marketing apps. This broad experience makes us aware of the key points of contact where data protection needs to be handled in an especially comprehensive manner. In particular, various laws, compliance with GDPR, and ePrivacyseal prove our trustworthiness.

2. In-house solutions are also cheaper, and you can foresee all costs-Myth.

Clearly, this is a myth.

In fact, you can’t predict all the costs unless you have a team that knows the industry inside out. This requires a team of diverse experts, from developers to market analysts, who can work together to create a forum for current needs and perspectives. Trends are evolving, and you still need to adapt your technology for a fast-moving industry.

Myths and Reality of Transferring Your Affiliate Program to SaaS

Developing in-house affiliate management software will cost you between $250,000 and $500,000. And this isn’t all yet. Add about $15,000 of the monthly costs to developers to maintain the platform’s server availability and costs. The final range of prices is vast. It all depends on the quantities you’re dealing with. A more precise price will only be made available after careful market assessments, for which you would still have to pay.

3. In-house systems are more powerful as you only create the features you need-Myth.

The majority doesn’t know what they need – a myth, of course.

Myths and Reality of Transferring Your Affiliate Program to SaaS

You may know which features you need right now, but you may be miscalculating when it comes to privacy or monitoring changes you need to change the platform for. You risk lagging behind only because of the implementation problems that will take some time to study on your side. On the other hand, far less will be needed from a particular SaaS industry vendor’s experience.

For example, you might not be aware of the problematic process of moving offers to a platform that needs a different tool, such as CPAPI. Or once the basic functionality is completed, it can take ages to create custom features, such as schedule deals, third party commission, traffic delivery, tag management, etc. The list could go on and on.

4. You cannot implement any custom integrations of your own on the SaaS-Myth platform.

It’s another common misconception.

And again, maybe it was a matter of ten or even more years ago, but we can’t say anything about it today.

In addition to offering a key business solution, all SaaS platforms are dedicated to helping users have a unique experience that guarantees a long LTV experience. To do this, they leave a lot of room for platform customization, which includes both design customizations and extra integrations. Users can thus represent their organization’s identity with a custom design, arrange settings in a convenient way for their business, and attach any tools they need.

Nowadays, several SaaS platforms are already integrated with the most requested services for different workflows. And even if you don’t have a specific tool or a dedicated solution, it can still be done through API integration.

Myths and Reality of Transferring Your Affiliate Program to SaaS

5. Within 24 hours, you can start working with SaaS. This is a reality!

Myths and Reality of Transferring Your Affiliate Program to SaaS

Too nice to be real, isn’t that? But in reality, you can start working within 24 hours!

There is, however, something that you should have in mind. It all depends on which platform you want and what stage your company is in. If you’re just starting out, you can launch your affiliate program at ease within 24 hours. However, if you migrate to your company, you will most likely need more time to move your offers.

And the deciding moment here is if the SaaS platform you are transitioning to provides some additional tool to help pull the advertisers and offers in bulk. Like CPAPI, for example, which links supply sources to the recipient system and pulls any number of offers to the tracking platform.

Let’s just wrap it up. Why don’t you think about switching to the SaaS affiliate marketing platform?

Although all SaaS, by definition, is available via subscription and is designed to deliver one of its users’ primary functions, you can add a range of options to the basic SaaS bundle.

Take a look at the key advantages provided by SaaS services:

  • 1-No IT-related issues – you’re just tracking. A significant benefit that we can’t help note is that not all IT problems are on your shoulders. Because a SaaS provider handles all patches, bug fixes, and launches, there is nothing that your company can do but track the results.
  • 2-Responsibility for HR capital. You don’t need to hire anybody, except maybe the account manager. Think just how high the advantage is! All expenses are already included in the month kit. You don’t measure workplace wages, taxes, and vacation time. Plus, you always have vendor-side experts to assist you.
  • 3-Versatile monitoring and experience in the management of affiliate services. Thanks to a wealth of expertise in affiliate marketing in a number of sectors, SaaS affiliate management tools understand the technology and functionality that clients require. Some platforms have features that are extremely common for managing particular verticals; you can use these features to make your work easier.
  • 4-Privacy of data. Nowadays, businesses are at risk of falling into trouble due to non-compliance with GDPR. With SaaS, you don’t need to worry; your cooperation contracts guarantee data security as they resolve data protection concerns accordingly.
  • 5 – Predictability of price. On the basis of the volume of traffic, you can easily determine how much you pay per month as the cost of volume and payment plans.

It sounds compelling, doesn’t it? We recommend that you see it for yourself!

Let us tell you more about the potential of managing a partner/affiliate program at Scaleo, the SaaS marketing platform.