URL

http://www.befree.com/

Company:

Be Free Inc.

Software Type:

ASP (Commission)

Affiliate/Merchant Web Interface

Yes

Pricing:

$5,000 Set-up

Commission:

Each merchant negotiates its own fee per click or per sale (probably in the range of 2% to 3% of transaction for cost-per-sale model), $3,000 minimum per month. For a larger monthly minimum enhanced services are available either bundled or ala carte. Outsourced program manager level has the merchant's affiliate program run by Be Free staff. 

Affiliate Marketing & Recruitment:

Yes. Be Free is a private-branded model, not a network pool of affiliates. Be Free has an affiliate recruiter program, and marketing relationships, but no official legal relationship with affiliates. Affiliates belong to the merchant. Be Free requires that they are the exclusive affiliate program service provider during the duration of their contract with the merchant. As a private branded model, allows merchant to put an investment into building their channel and make it successful.

Tracks:

Impressions, click-throughs, sales, and returns

Two-Tier:

Optional feature, if selected by merchant

Customize individual payment rate:

Yes

Carts that support:

?

Payment Systems

N/A

Writes checks to Affiliates:

Optional

Data Export:

Reports available through a custom application that allows merchants to run their affiliate programs from their desktop -- not a web application, but a desktop application. Merchants are able to run more than 70 reports on traffic, sales, revenue, partner earnings, and more and then export that information easily into a variety of data formats.

Affiliate ID generation:

Yes

Banner/graphic management:

Yes

E-mail to affiliate after each order

No

Send e-mail to affiliates:

Yes, or groups of affiliates

Affiliate sign-up:

Automatic or manual screening (optionally, Be Free will do screening for the merchant)

Redirects to particular pages:

Product-specific links

Average Survey Rating:

7.8

Number of Respondents:

4

Positives:

Automatic link generation, reports are good and useful, user interface is pretty intuitive, you can pay Be Free to cut checks to your affiliates for you

It is flexible with types of links I can offer (especially the ability to provide HTML documents with affiliate links to affiliates. The system for targeted e-mailing to affiliates is very useful. I find the ability to download the reporting to Excel a big plus. There are a lot of very useful reports, including an "Inactive Affiliates" report, which allows me to target sites that have signed up, but not yet promoted our site through their affiliate links. Private label: Tech support is prompt.

BFast is very flexible and customizable. It allows the affiliate manager to get any information and to configure the system according to the needs.

Admin features

Negatives:

Slow performance, 8,000 affiliates but only about 100-150 TRUE active affiliates -- many just sign up & never get impressions or sales

Very slow from mid-day to evening on weekdays (NYC time). Some affiliates will not work with us because they do not like reporting.net.

It's pretty complex and takes some time until you learn how to use. Not really for everybody.

Cost

Purchase Again?

We've actually just cancelled our relationship because the sales we were getting weren't enough to cover the administrative fee. But we did not pay enough attention to Be Free and the affiliate program to make it successful -- our people just got tied up with other projects. Be Free is decent software if you have the time to dedicate to your affiliate program -- it doesn't run itself.

Yes -- I've been happy with the performance, and the tools available with the software have enabled me to create a robust program. The only significant liability I see with Be Free is their exclusivity clause.

Sure. It helps a lot to have something that gives you total control of the affiliate program and such a great customer service.

No, way too expensive

Other comments: