We’ve quietly been piloting an affiliate program for a while now. The idea is that sites related to learning Japanese or Chinese characters in some way can put up Skritter ads and get a cut of the resulting revenue. It’s not a new or novel idea (Amazon.com’s had a successful affiliate program for years) but nevertheless we wanted to have a few months of experience (with our pilot partner MDBG) before we rolled it out.The way the program works is that a company or individual signs up at http://www.skritter.com/new_affiliates and is given a referral code and some ads they can place on their site or some physical coupons. When someone clicks on one of those ads or uses a coupon code and signs up for Skritter we give the affiliate the first USD $16.00 in revenue. Affiliates are paid through PayPal on a monthly basis with a minimum payout of USD $50.00 (so Scott doesn’t spent too much time every month). We will only pay once per channel, so if you are using both programs, the maximum value from one paid referral will remain USD $16.00.
We picture the affiliate system being used by two different groups. One is the small language school, say a centre for learning Chinese in Beijing, that would post a Skritter ad on its website and give students a free trial coupon code. The language school would help its students learn Chinese characters the write way (as our slogan goes) and they would get a bit more money to spend on textbooks, teacher’s salaries, or whatever they fancied (we would encourage our affiliates to be upfront that they get paid for referrals).
The second group we see using the affiliate system would be, say a popular Japanese culture blog that covered learning the language amongst other topics. The blogger could put Skritter ads around posts talking about learning the language and rotate ads around the rest of the site. The blogger gets an advertiser that he or she knows is related to the blog content with a decent payout and low minimum.
Like all affiliate programs (and like sales generally) we expect that a few will make quite a bit of money out of the program, a large number will enjoy a modest additional stream of income, and some will put Skritter ads on their auto detailing tips website and wonder why they aren’t making any revenue.
Like all blog posts, we welcome your feedback.
Edit 3/10/2011: We have decided to close the affiliate program for the time being. If you have a site that has a whole bunch of traffic and relates to learning Chinese and would still like to participate, you should email us and we can set up a custom arrangement!
