Hello and Assalamo Alaikum,
I have been using Escrow.com integration from DomainNameSales.com for the past many sales but since few months I have stopped using it because I was not getting affiliate revenue and I used to think that my affiliate link was being used which wasn’t the actual case here. I checked with DNS team and they confirmed that I am not receiving any chunk of sale from Escrow and there was no way of changing to my needs.
I went ahead and turned off the Escrow.com integeration feature from DNS settings. Unless there are changes made at DNS to add my affiliate link, I am not going to use this feature which is really nice but since I am not getting the commission for each sale, I would prefer to use it manually.
So now whenever any deal occurs, I normally provide my affiliate link to the buyer in order to create account at Escrow.com after which I initiate the transaction once the buyer informs about the email ID which he used to open his account.
I thank Escrow.com representative Keith Gettle for informing me that I wasn’t making anything for the past many domain sales due which I stopped using this integration.
I suggest DNS to make some changes so that people can modify their Escrow.com links according to their needs.
Has anyone faced the same issue in the past? Any better suggestions?
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So is DomainNameSales sending it through their affiliate link and making additional revenue off of our domain sales?
That’s a good question and I think someone from DNS team would be good to answer it because I am unaware of this situation. If they are using it, surely they would be making good chunk of money 😀
I had talked with Escrow.com and they said for all my transactions started by broker using that integration when it was switched on, all the commission used to go with DNS as they started the transaction with that feature enabled.
In short, they are making additional revenue off of our domain sales but that’s their right and deserves it if one has enabled this integration by using their platform.
Hi, I am not sure you can get an escrow.com sale commission for your own transactions. In fact generally this goes against the spirit of affiliate programs who is to thanks a customer who bring new referrals or more business and is NOT a method to get a discount for your own transactions. This is why it’s ultra rare affiliate links can be use for self transactions on merchant sites. Imagine the following: There is a familiar merchant offering a lot of different products. But you never hear about one promoted on an affiliate site you are visiting. You like… Read more »
Thanks Francois for commenting 🙂 I clearly don’t have any issues if they are using their own affiliate link in order to generate some extra money as we domainers are using their platform so they deserve it and actually deserves more. But Escrow.com has *no* issues if I am using my own affiliate link for making my own sales through that. I can confirm that and has talked to them in the past and recent as well. So when I have the opportunity to use their affiliate link for making some extra money although that won’t make fortune for me… Read more »
As explained above, there is only one referral, if you get the escrow.com transaction’s commission then the affiliate will not get it, this means here eventually DNS.
Affiliate programs allowing the use of self affiliate links to generate a discount on his own purchases is not good for affiliates because this faciliate unethical use (explained above) and devalorize the program. Allowing this you do not motivate merchants to promote your affiliate program.
I fully understood your point and agree with it. But when Escrow.com and/or DNS don’t have any issues using my own affiliate link for my own sales so I don’t feel of doing something wrong here. Yes, if Escrow.com has the rule of not using our own affiliate link for our personal sales, surely I wouldn’t be using it.
You are a good person Abdul.
Thanks! 🙂
Why shouldn’t the buyer get a commission for bringing in a new buyer, I have brought hundreds of new buyers to escrow I wasn’t even aware they paid a commission.
You have to apply for their affiliate program and always use the affiliate ID whenever you create new transaction at Escrow.com for making commission for yourself.
Not sure it is fair relative to other programs. Sedo offers free in house escrow service when you sell through their platform. – DNS takes a cut of parking revenue, fair. – DNS takes the standard brokerage fee for buy it now or brokered domains, fair. – DNS sends you to an escrow service where you have to pay an additional fee, fair. – If they get a commission for sending transaction to Escrow.com, not really fair (relative to Sedo). They should give you back that fee to help offset the Escrow.com fee you need to pay. Honestly the buy… Read more »
Thanks for sharing your views Chris and I appreciate that 🙂 I have no problem if DNS is having the commission for sending transaction to Escrow.com as they are giving us the platform which is the most transaparent and has all the tools which a domainer requires. But when I have the option to switch off this feature and use my own affiliate link which both DNS and Escrow.com has no issue, than I feel pretty comfortable using it my own way. As far as BIN domains are concerned, I have always wondered why we have to pay commission to… Read more »
Abdul Basit,
your Symphony.com is giving tremors to established “Bloomberg” in financial markets.
At that time, I thought you got good price. But, now feeling opposite after seeing the companies behind it.
I have moved on since the sale of Symphony and that’s history for me. I have learned and made lots of new things after that and I still feel happy about the final price I got for that sale. It’s all about timing, research, endusers, buyer/seller financial position, a bit of luck, negotiation skills, etc. But thanks for sharing the current state of that company and I am happy to see their growth.
Do I just drink too much coffee or does the Abdul Basit blog logo look like Nespresso
Oh yeah! A bit similar but I wasn’t aware of their logo at all. Good catch though 😉
Abdul, Thank you for another great article, and thank you for your continued support/business. We use the affiliate revenue to help offset the additional expenses we incur by allowing users like yourself to benefit from our service. More importantly we use the API to insure your account inventory remains up to date. We have had many situations where sellers do not remove sold domains from their accounts and the Escrow.com API does just that. Nothing hurts our image more than offering domains for sale that are not available. As for the BIN service, each lead is assigned to a Broker… Read more »
Hi Jeffrey,
Thanks for commenting and clearing the doubts.
I fully understand and agree with the affiliate revenue but personally when Escrow.com didn’t had any issues so I thought to take advantage of using my own affiliate ID 😉
As always you guys are coming up with new stuff which is always great to see and keeps DNS and Uniregistry on top of every others who are in the same industry.
Wish you all the best 🙂
Thanks for the valuable information. I did read over the comments as well and understand both sides. Having the power to make that affiliate income definitely is awesome when you consistently sell domain names.
Abdul how often do you have to refer someone to escrow.com? I am just curious as to how many people have not even heard of escrow.com before.
-Will
Yeah, consistency matters the most because no one can make good chunk of money if he sells 2-4 domains a year. Although it depends on the final price of the domain which actually helps in calculating the commission. Normally I refer to most of the people who buy domain from me as they aren’t aware of Escrow.com. I think many of them are not familiar of escrow service and sometimes they ask about the procedure of the transfer and making payment. So far only one buyer didn’t trusted Escrow.com and wanted me to transfer the domain on 50% payment which… Read more »
We make all sales by escrow and most of our buyers are new to escrow.
So we get affiliate revenue for most of our sales like Abdul. We had no issues for Escrow affiliate
Thanks for your input. That would help others 🙂
Hi, my fellow friends, I need your advices. Please comment if it is right for Mr. Francois to change the fee rules of Ecop.com before my premium membership expires. Many thanks. Joe Here are the emails between Mr. Francois and me. ECOP.com info@ecop.com via cybertonic.com 6/18/13 Reply to me Hi, Yes for one or two months we had this incentive but this not attracted a lot of new customers plus… So now it’s free for anyone for sales under $500. It’s not possible to pursue this incentive as the code as been removed to handle this. But if you are… Read more »
Is Mr. Francois right or wrong?
When you come to a hotel with a regular price of $10/day, and a discount price of $365/year, and you pay the discount price of $365/year. And two months later, the manger come to you and say, ”We will now cancel the discount price, you need to move out, if you are not satisfied, I will refund the $365 you paid, but you need to pay me $600 for you have lived here for the past 60 days”.