• Amsterdam.
• Austin.
• Belfast.
• Dublin.
• Halifax.
• Santa Barbara.

FastSpring has been represented by an in-person sales team in Singapore for almost two years, and that team has quickly grown FastSpring’s presence while embedded in the local technology community. 

Growing demand for FastSpring’s merchant of record services in the dynamic and thriving Asia-Pacific region has led to the subsequent growth of our Singapore team, which will now be able to serve our APAC customers even better from a dedicated workspace. 

Leo Ng [foreground] takes a selfie with [background, left to
right] Tengxiong Yao, Jay Jia, and Jeslyn Ong.

The Singapore team now has a private office space within the bustling WeWork coworking location at 60 Anson Rd, Singapore 079914, Unit #17-135.

Related: FastSpring recently won the 2025 Golden Sail Award for Outstanding Global Expansion Ecosystem Service at GICC, one of China’s most recognized global business summits.

FastSpring remains focused on deep, local integration with tech communities all over the world to ensure we remain in touch and in tune with the customers we serve in the SaaS, software, video games, mobile apps, AI, eLearning, and other digital goods spaces. 

FastSpring powers global payments for software companies, video game publishers, and other digital goods businesses. As a merchant of record, FastSpring provides a fully managed payment solution including checkout, fraud mitigation, comprehensive sales tax and VAT compliance, and more. Founded in 2005, FastSpring is a privately owned company headquartered in the U.S., with offices in Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, Singapore, and the U.K.

Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

To view our homepage in simplified Chinese, click here.
若想浏览 FastSpring 中文官网，请点击此处。

To sign up for a personalized demo using a form in simplified Chinese, click here.
若希望使用中文提交表单并预约产品演示，请点击此处。

The post FastSpring Expands APAC Presence and Brings Together Singapore Team With New Office Location appeared first on FastSpring.

For digital-first businesses, the easiest way to manage all aspects of billing is to choose a solution that acts as your merchant of record (MoR). A billing solution that acts as your MoR gives you access to multiple payment processors (which lets you accept more payment methods and is useful when accepting payments globally, as we explain below) while taking on the liability of all transactions for you. An MoR also takes the lead on chargebacks, fraud prevention, tax audits, legal compliance, and more.

When selling physical goods and services (online or in person), various Stripe alternatives built for physical goods payments (such as Amazon Pay, Square, etc.) can provide payment processing, order fulfillment, financing options, and more. (It’s worth noting that most of these solutions can also be used by SaaS, software, video game, and other digital goods companies; however, none of them is a complete payment solution.)

In this guide, we compare eight of the best Stripe alternatives in each of these categories. Since our expertise is in providing MoR services to digital-first companies, we’ll start with an in-depth review of our solution, FastSpring.

Table of Contents

• MoRs for digital goods companies:
  • FastSpring: International payment solution for SaaS, software, video game, mobile app, AI, eLearning, and other digital product businesses.
  • Paddle: Payment infrastructure platform.
  • Verifone: Formerly 2Checkout.
• Billing software for selling physical goods and services:
  • Square: Popular payment platform for startups.
  • PayPal for Business: Available on major ecommerce platforms.
  • Authorize.net: For merchants and small businesses.
  • Adyen: Robust financial technology platform.
  • Amazon: Payment service and order fulfillment.

Note: Information in this article was validated at time of publishing and is subject to change.

If you’re looking for a Stripe alternative to help you grow your business internationally, we can help. FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, video games, mobile apps, and other digital products businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. Interested? Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

All-In-One Payment Solutions (MoRs) for Digital-First Businesses

Most companies using Stripe (or something similar to Stripe) know it’s more than just a payment processing platform — but that there are challenges to making the system work for a global SaaS company. It can require tons of add-ons, a complicated pricing structure, and additional fees — and still lack or limit some key features.

For example, Stripe advertises subscription management features as part of the Stripe Billing package; however, many companies end up integrating with another service like Chargebee or Recurly to get the subscription management features and ease of use they need.

Often, digital goods businesses end up with a payment tech stack of over a dozen tools for:

• Calculating and remitting international taxes.
• Accessing additional subscription management features.
• Covering fraud protection.
• Handling chargebacks.
• Implementing a checkout.
• Getting higher authorization rates in other countries.
• And more.

Making it all work together puts a massive strain on the development team.

Plus, you’ll need to maintain a large team of tax and legal experts to stay up to date on regional regulations and maintain global compliance (because solutions like Stripe don’t usually help with legalities). For example, while it’s true that historically, SaaS and ecommerce companies haven’t always needed to pay VAT or sales tax, that’s no longer the case. If you don’t collect and remit the right amount of tax in each jurisdiction where you sell, you could face hefty fines — or even be banned from selling in that region in the future.

Choosing a payment processing solution that also acts as your MoR solves all these problems. 

A merchant of record (MoR) takes care of the entire digital goods billing process for you, including collecting and remitting local and international taxes (such as VAT and local sales tax), staying compliant with local laws and regulations, online payment processing, chargebacks, and much more.

FastSpring Is an International Payment Solution

FastSpring has been acting as an MoR for global software and video game companies for over 20 years, so we know what it takes to expand globally almost overnight. Here are some examples of how FastSpring helped other SaaS and software companies expand globally and increase revenue:

• Mailbird achieved over 100% growth by switching to FastSpring. They previously experimented with platforms like Stripe and PayPal. Read the Mailbird case study here.
• Capture One increased their conversion rate by 40% by switching from an in-house solution to FastSpring to help them with global payments. FastSpring offered them localized checkout experiences that automatically display accurate pricing, language, currency, and taxes around the world. Plus, it was clear that FastSpring is an invested partner with the scalability to grow with their business needs as Capture One expanded their global reach. Read the Capture One case study here.
• SocialBee doubled its monthly recurring revenue and managed tax compliance by switching from Braintree to FastSpring. Read the SocialBee case study here.

Next, we’ll take a deep dive into a few of FastSpring’s billing solutions. 

Note: The following solutions are also offered to digital-first businesses selling downloadable software, video games, app subscriptions, and other digital products. 

Leverage Multiple Payment Processors to Increase Revenue

Many digital-first companies and founding teams initially think they just need one payment processor to accept payments. However, most of those companies eventually end up needing more in order to:

• Accept more payment methods: Customers are more likely to complete a purchase if they can use their preferred payment method. However, not every payment processor supports the same list of payment methods. Working with multiple payment processors lets you accept more local payment methods and, therefore, increase revenue.
• Increase authorization rates for international transactions: Card networks are more likely to authorize transactions when the payment processor is in the same country as the buyer. Some payment processors will establish a legal entity in multiple locations; however, most companies still need to work with multiple payment processors in order to process all payments locally. 
• Accept payments from more countries: Some payment processors only support payments from select countries or regions. Working with multiple payment processors lets you reach customers in more locations.
• Minimize failed payments: Working with multiple payment processors can also solve connectivity issues or system failures. If one payment processor is experiencing a network failure, you can reroute the transaction to a payment processor that’s fully operational. 

With FastSpring, you’ll be supported by multiple payment processors that specialize in global transactions and accept the most common payment options around the world — including but not limited to Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH bank transfers, SEPA, Amazon Pay, Pix, AliPay, UPI, and more (with more added all the time).

Click here to see the full list of payment methods accepted by FastSpring.

FastSpring connects with multiple international payment gateways, and our platform uses intelligent payment routing to send each payment to the gateway with the highest authorization rates for that payment method and location. Then, if a transaction fails, we automatically retry the transaction using a secondary payment processor.

Related: Top 10 International Payment Gateways: An In-Depth Guide

Prevent Fraudulent Transactions Without Blocking Valid Transactions 

The right fraud protection can help you increase authorization rates, decrease chargebacks, and protect your company from attacks. However, if legitimate transactions get marked as fraud, you’ll lose revenue.

FastSpring takes the lead on fraud and risk activities by partnering with Sift for advanced risk analysis and fraud protection. Sift uses machine learning and AI to analyze millions of global transactions each month to identify risky transactions with higher accuracy. This means your fraud protection is constantly evolving to provide better security and improve approval rates.

FastSpring can also block transactions from countries and jurisdictions where companies are currently not allowed to do business. 

Note: You also have the option to block transactions from certain regions or limit products in each region.

If one of your customers does initiate a chargeback, or there’s an issue with fraud, FastSpring takes the lead to resolve it for you.

Discover more and read FAQs about FastSpring’s GDPR and PCI compliance, how FastSpring helps protect against high-risk transactions, and more.

Avoid High Fines and Penalties by Letting FastSpring Handle Local Legal Compliance for You

Even if all legitimate transactions go through, you could face hefty fines or be prevented from transacting in that region if the transactions don’t comply with local laws and regulations. (For example, the Reserve Bank of India limits automatic recurring payments to ₹15,000 INR, or approximately US$170; transaction attempts above that amount simply won’t go through.) 

Most companies need a full compliance department of legal professionals to keep up to date with all the laws and regulations of each jurisdiction they do business in. 

You can also face fines or penalties if you don’t file consumption tax. SaaS companies didn’t always have to pay tax, but tax regulations for digital sales are changing and being increasingly enforced.

Companies that use Stripe (or another point solution) must handle tax on their own. While Stripe will help gather sales tax, you’ll need other software to collect VAT, GST, and other forms of consumption tax. Plus, you’ll need a staff of tax experts to remit the tax at the end of each tax period. 

FastSpring handles the whole process of calculating, collecting, and remitting global sales and consumption taxes for you by: 

• Collecting all consumption tax (including GST, VAT, SST, etc.) and remitting it at the appropriate times.
• Taking the lead on legal compliance (including audits).

FastSpring collects and files taxes in more than 55 countries, 13 provinces, and all 45 U.S. states with sales tax (the other five states don’t collect sales tax). We even handle tax-exempt transactions in the U.S. and B2B reverse charges (when and where allowed) internationally.

FastSpring is fully compliant with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Additionally, we renew our level one certification — which is the highest level possible — with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) every year. FastSpring also participates in the Data Privacy Framework (DPF) for international data transfers. Learn more at our Trust Center.

We build and maintain relationships worldwide with tax law specialists who keep us aware and up to date on laws and regulations as they change.

Manage Everything From Checkout to Subscriptions in One Platform

Instead of building and onboarding a payment stack of over a dozen different solutions to help you manage subscriptions, checkout experiences, reporting, analytics, and more, FastSpring lets companies streamline and manage all aspects of digital goods billing directly from their FastSpring dashboard. 

Below is a brief overview of these features. For a complete list of features (including digital invoicing and interactive quotes) visit FastSpring’s product overview page.

Custom, Localized, and Optimized Checkout Experience

FastSpring gives you full control over your checkout process with our Store Builder Library (SBL). You can customize your checkout, and our team will offer personalized customer support along the way.

We also offer three pre-built experiences. With minimal code, you can embed the FastSpring checkout into a web page or insert a pop-up checkout. Or, if you want to outsource the entire checkout process, you can choose the web storefront option to send customers to a secure web storefront managed entirely by FastSpring. You can also customize the storefront to match the visual branding of your website.

Whichever checkout experience you choose, FastSpring can automatically localize your checkout based on the customer’s location, including translation into 21+ languages and price conversion to many local currencies. You can also set your own language, currency, and price for each region or opt to let your customers choose for themselves.

Related: International Recurring Payments (How We Handle It for You)

Subscription Management

FastSpring lets you create a variety of custom trial and recurring billing models without writing a line of code. You can set up:

• Automatic weekly, monthly, yearly, or custom recurring billing.
• Prorated billing to accommodate upgrades — and downgrades — mid cycle.
• Free or paid trials of any length.
• Trials with or without collecting payment details.
• Automatic or manual renewal.
• Upsells, cross-sells, one-time add-ons, and discounts.
• Automatic failure handling, notifications, and retries to reduce churn.
• B2B digital invoicing.
• And much more.

You‘ll also have access to FastSpring’s developer-friendly API and webhooks library to build more complex custom subscription logic and integrations.

If you want to see how FastSpring compares to Chargebee, read this article. 

Dunning Management

FastSpring handles all failed payments and customer notifications for you — simply choose how you want it handled, and we take care of the rest. Our platform offers flexible dunning management options, which include: 

• Proactive reminders when payment information needs updating. Automatically send flexible, custom email reminders to your customers before a debit or credit card expires. We offer a pre-made email template — or you can customize your own email and set it to send two, five, seven, 14, or 21 days after a payment failure.
• Automatically retry failed payments. FastSpring retries the original payment method multiple times, including before sending each reminder email.
• Flexible failed payment logic. Continue (or pause) service until the last notification has been sent out. Pause (or cancel) the service once all notifications have been sent out and the payment is still getting declined.

With FastSpring, your customers will also have an easy-to-access and intuitive self-serve Customer Account Portal where they can view their order history, update payment information, and manage their subscriptions. The portal is managed by FastSpring but matches the branding of your checkout for a cohesive customer experience.

Reporting and Analytics

While Stripe does offer revenue recognition tools for accounting purposes, many SaaS companies using Stripe end up adding a reporting and customer analytics tool to give them more insight into stats such as MRR, churn rate, new customers by product type or geography, and more. 

FastSpring’s Reporting and Analytics, on the other hand, is a robust suite built for digital products businesses. You can view key performance indicators (KPI) for your customer base and subscription models to better understand:

• How each product contributes to your bottom line. 
• When customers are most likely to drop off.
• What coupons or promotions are working.
• Which subscription models generate the most revenue.
• Where your customers are located.
• What currencies and payment methods customers prefer.
• Chargeback rates by customer segment.
• Chargeback rates by product line.
• The status of your active webhooks.
• And much more.

Our platform features several dashboards, which include:

• Revenue Overview.
• Subscription Overview.
• Revenue Recognition.
• Chargeback Overview.
• Webhook Status.

If you don’t see exactly what you need, you can create and save your own custom reports. You can also reach out to our team for help finding or building the report you need. Export and share reports as a CSV, PNG, or XLSX file. 

For a complete list of features — including Digital Invoicing and Interactive Quotes — visit our website.

One Simple Pricing Model; All the Benefits

Most payment processors (like Stripe) typically charge a low processing fee; however, they’ll charge extra for features such as subscription management, additional payment method support, tax collection, and more. 

They’ll also usually pass along transaction fees such as network/scheme downgrade fees.

Plus, you’ll have to pay for any additional software needed for a complete billing solution — and the staff to manage the entire process. 

For most companies, what starts as seemingly low, flat-rate pricing ends up being an expensive route to take.

On the other hand, FastSpring manages your entire digital goods billing process for one flat rate. You’ll get access to our whole platform — including every feature and all services — in a single comprehensive package. 

Our team works with you to find an affordable monthly fee based on your transaction volume (and you’ll only be charged for successful transactions). Plus, you won’t need any additional software or headcount since we’re liable for transactions and take the lead on sales tax and VAT.

If you’re looking for a Stripe alternative to help you grow your business internationally, we can help. FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, video games, mobile apps, and other digital products businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. Interested? Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

Paddle: Payment Infrastructure Platform

Paddle is another Stripe alternative that acts as an MoR for SaaS and software companies. Paddle has features such as: 

• Multiple payment gateways.
• Secure checkout.
• Recurring billing management.
• A robust payments toolkit.
• Fraud protection.
• Transaction and subscription reporting.
• Invoicing. 
• And more.

Learn more about Paddle alternatives.

Verifone: Formerly 2Checkout

Verifone is a Stripe alternative that can act as your MoR or just as a payment service provider. This gives them the flexibility to support small- to medium-sized companies in different industries offering both in-person and online goods or services (e.g., retail and hospitality). 

Verifone functionalities include:

• Integrated point-of-sale (POS).
• Kiosks.
• Subscription management.
• Hosted checkout.
• Partner sales channel management.
• And more.

Some of these features are included with Verifone packages, while others are add-ons with their own additional fees.

With over 20 years of experience serving international software companies, FastSpring is one of the longest-standing MoRs for SaaS, software, video games, mobile apps, and other digital products companies. Use our expertise to help grow your business quickly. To learn more, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

Stripe Alternative Billing Software for Selling Physical Goods and Services

While digital product companies can use almost any billing solution to sell their product (although some will be more effective than others), not every solution will be effective for companies selling physical goods or services. Companies selling physical goods and services need solutions that can manage both online and in-person transactions. 

When selling physical goods or services, most companies end up using two or more software solutions to build a complete billing solution. However, there are ways to minimize how many you need and how much it will cost you. The best place to start is to carefully consider your current needs (e.g., are you selling in person and online?) and plan for your future needs (e.g., are you a new business owner who might want to start selling online in the future?). 

Then, you can evaluate each billing solution by asking a few key questions: 

• How many aspects of billing does the software cover? Is each offering truly sufficient for your current needs (e.g., maybe they offer a subscription billing solution but don’t support the business model you need)? Do the features leave room for your company to grow?
• Does their pricing model allow you to get all features for one price, or will you have to pay extra for the features you need? Will the price be sustainably cost effective long term, as your company grows?
• Does the software offer seamless integration with other software you use?
• Is the software user friendly? 

Next, we cover five Stripe competitors for companies selling physical goods and services to help you get started with your search. 

Square: Popular Payment Platform for Startups

Square is a popular point-of-sale solution for companies of all sizes. With Square, you can accept payments from your online store, in-person, or via social media. Beyond payment processing, Square also offers solutions for: 

• Virtual terminals (so you can accept credit card payments using your computer).
• Business management.
• Customer engagement.
• Banking (including merchant accounts, savings accounts, and loans).
• Team management (including payroll, time off, etc.).
• And more.

PayPal for Business: Available on Major Ecommerce Platforms 

PayPal is a well-known digital wallet for personal online payments; however, they also offer payment processing for both online and brick-and-mortar businesses. PayPal supports debit card and credit card processing in store or from your online business.

(Digital-first businesses using FastSpring can also process payments using PayPal.)

PayPal for Business also includes: 

• QR code and POS systems.
• Donation tools.
• Built-in integrations with major ecommerce shopping carts (e.g., Shopify, WooCommerce, and more).
• Risk management and chargeback protection.
• Mass payouts.
• And more.

Note: PayPal also has a payments option called PayPal Enterprise Payments (formerly Braintree) that offers your own merchant account.

Authorize.net: For Merchants and Small Businesses

Authorize.net (a Visa solution) is a payment service provider that supports mobile payments, phone payments, and ACH. They also provide a card reader for in-person payments and support online purchases. 

Other features offered by Authorize.net include: 

• Simple checkout button.
• Recurring payments.
• Digital invoicing.
• Advanced fraud detection.
• Optional merchant account bundle.
• And more.

Adyen: Robust Financial Technology Platform

Adyen is an end-to-end solution for payment processing, data, and financial management. In addition to payment processing, Adyen offers features such as: 

• Virtual and physical card creation.
• Tools to optimize traffic in real time.
• Fraud detection.
• Automated dunning.
• Business bank accounts for your users.
• And more.

Amazon Pay: Payment Service and Order Fulfillment

Amazon Pay lets your customers use the payment information already stored in their Amazon account on your website. You can use Amazon Pay as a stand-alone payment solution without becoming an Amazon Marketplaces seller — or you can easily use Amazon Pay on your own website and become an Amazon merchant (which gives you the option for fulfillment by Amazon).

Amazon Pay includes: 

• Optimized checkout flow (modeled after Amazon’s own).
• Co-marketing campaigns.
• Self-service reporting dashboard.
• Fraud protection.
• Easy integration tools.
• And more.

Note: With FastSpring, your customers can pay using Amazon Pay and many other payment methods. 

Need a Stripe Alternative for Your SaaS, Software, Video Game, Mobile App, or Other Digital Product?

Let FastSpring help!

FastSpring lets you manage every aspect of global payments from one platform — without managing tons of different software solutions. We shoulder the liability for online transactions and take the lead on VAT and sales tax management, regulatory compliance across the globe, and much more for you. 

If you’re looking for a Stripe alternative to help you grow your business internationally, we can help. FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, video games, mobile apps, and other digital products businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. Interested? Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

This post was originally published in January 2023 and has been updated.

The post Stripe Alternatives for 2025: In-Depth Guide and 8 Options appeared first on FastSpring.

However, taking advantage of this shift means that you become responsible for everything that comes with selling games in whatever jurisdictions you sell them in — including setting up an online store and displaying products, having a way to accept and process payments, and especially, taxes. 

In this article, we focus on how selling mobile apps and games D2C via web shops can affect your indirect taxes (sales tax and VAT) and what developers need to consider as they start diversifying game monetization.

Whether you want to start big or start small with the D2C model, it’s important for developers and publishers to understand the sales tax and VAT implications of selling D2C via web shops.

Payments Options for Selling Games D2C

When game companies decide to sell D2C, they typically choose between two key service models: using a merchant of record (MOR) model, or by leveraging a payment service provider (PSP). Each model comes with distinct tax responsibilities.

Merchants of Record

A merchant of record is a comprehensive payments and taxes service that becomes the legal entity selling the product. That means the MoR becomes responsible for worrying about the regulatory and sales tax and VAT implications of accepting payments from any of the countries where it sells the product — instead of the software maker or game publisher.

Payment Services Providers

A payment services provider can help businesses sell a product, but it only bridges the gap between the seller and the specialized payments services and networks needed to accept payments, such as payment gateways, payment processors, and a merchant account. 

So a PSP simplifies the process of accepting payments, but that’s usually all it does. A PSP will not worry about international taxes and regulations (some PSPs may have add-on services to help with taxes, but those costs can pile up as the package of services becomes more complex). 

The Tax Implications of Selling D2C With a PSP or MoR

Payment Service Providers and Taxes: Missing Pieces

A PSP facilitates payment processing but leaves most sales tax and VAT related duties to the game publisher.

Here are a few of the tax responsibilities that PSPs won’t take care of:

• Tax Registration: Registering in U.S. states or international countries where the developer has sales tax and VAT nexus.
• Tax Calculation and Collection: Ensuring that sales tax and VAT is calculated, collected, and remitted accurately.
• Liability Management: Bearing full responsibility for sales tax and VAT related issues, including audits.
• Compliance and Audit Costs: Covering the expenses of in-house or outsourced sales tax and VAT compliance services and audit related fees. 
• Invoice Disclosures: Providing correct sales tax and VAT disclosures on invoices.
• E-Invoicing: Issuing e-invoices in countries requiring them.
• Legal Representation: Appointing legal representatives where required.

Merchants of Records and Taxes: Handled for You

An MoR assumes full responsibility of sales tax and VAT compliance because it’s the entity actually selling the product, allowing developers to focus on what matters: game development.

The many benefits of using an MOR include:

• The MoR takes care of all the bulleted points above that a PSP won’t.
• Reduced Legal Exposure: Developers are shielded from direct interactions with tax authorities.
  • For example, when one of our customers faced aggressive sales tax and VAT inquiries, FastSpring’s tax team intervened, providing expert representation and achieving a favorable resolution (read more here). Without the kind of tax support an MoR provides, a regular inquiry could lead to a full audit if these taxes are handled in house.
• Expert Tax Support: A dedicated tax team ensures developers stay compliant and can resolve disputes with sales tax and VAT authorities effectively.

Why Choose FastSpring as Your MOR? 

FastSpring is how gaming publishers sell in more places around the world. For nearly two decades, FastSpring has been a trusted payment provider you can use to sell games or in-game items on your website, web shop, or embedded directly into your game with fully customizable and branded checkouts just for you. 

To further invest in our commitment to supporting game developers, FastSpring hired Chip Thurston as our Head of Gaming. Read the press release here. 

FastSpring allows you to offload the complexity of global payments, sales tax and VAT compliance, player payments support, and many other aspects of payments management. Choose A Partner You Can Trust With Your Players™ and spend less time managing your payments and compliance and more time making great games! To learn more about how FastSpring supports game developers, visit fastspring.gg.

Ready to get started? Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

The post The Tax Implications of Selling Games D2C via Your Own Web Shop appeared first on FastSpring.

Today, oeksound is a global software company in the audio and video space, with their plugins used by some hugely recognizable names in the music industry.

To learn more about how they did it, listen for the full insights into:

• How oeksound’s pricing and trial options make their products more accessible to more users.
• Why the user experience and user feedback is so important for improving and marketing plugins.
• Why a frictionless purchase process is such a key focus for oeksound to continue expanding their sales.

To hear all this and more about oeksound’s experience with taking their plugin business global, listen or watch now!

Jump to video.  |  Jump to transcript.

Podcast Full Interview: Audio

Listen online or find it on more podcast services.

Podcast Full Interview: Video

The post EP30: How oeksound Took Their Audio Plugins Business Global appeared first on FastSpring.

Need more information on any of the steps below? Visit our FastSpring Docs developer hub.

Step 1: Integration Setup

To automate follow-up emails for abandoned carts, integrate your FastSpring Checkout with an email marketing service like Mailchimp. This integration ensures that cart abandonment data is seamlessly communicated to your email service.

Step 2: Email Collection

During the checkout process, make sure to collect the consumer’s email address. This is a critical step, as it enables you to send follow-up emails to encourage cart recovery. You can also add an optional checkbox for consumers to subscribe to your mailing list. 

To force email address capture during the checkout process, you can configure the settings to ensure that the email address is collected. This can be done by enabling the “Get updates about our products and offerings” checkbox in the checkout process. This checkbox must be checked for the email addresses and cart data to be communicated to your email marketing platform, such as Mailchimp.

Here’s how you can configure this setting:

1. In the application, select Checkouts, then click the Settings button on the applicable Checkout..
2. Under Customer Information, there is a drop-down labeled Newsletter Subscription Checkbox.
   • Choose Show, Checked to include the checkbox for subscription emails and leave it selected by default.

This setup ensures that customers are prompted to provide their email addresses, which can then be used for marketing and communication purposes.

Stay current with FastSpring Checkout settings by viewing the Customer Information section in our Checkout settings documentation page.

Step 3: Identify Abandoned Carts

FastSpring considers a cart abandoned if no activity occurs for 30 minutes after the email address is recorded. The system flags the session as abandoned, creating a data point for follow-up. This Abandon point cant be recorded and tracked utilizing the webhook mailingListEntry.abandoned.

Step 4: Communicate Data

Once a cart is flagged as abandoned, FastSpring communicates the consumer’s email address and cart data to your email marketing service. This automated communication is essential for timely follow-up.

Step 5: Automate Follow-Up Emails

Set up automated email campaigns in your email marketing service to target consumers with abandoned carts. These emails should include:

• A reminder of the items left in their cart.
• Personalized messaging to re-engage the customer.
• Incentives such as discount codes or free shipping to encourage purchase completion.

Step 6: Verify the Integration

Ensure the integration is functioning correctly by checking your audience list in your email marketing service. Abandoned cart email addresses should populate this list, ready for follow-up campaigns.

Using FastSpring Webhooks for Advanced Tracking

FastSpring offers webhooks to provide real-time updates about cart activity. Here are three key webhooks to incorporate into your workflow:

• mailingListEntry.removed: Triggered when a customer unsubscribes and their email address is removed from your mailing list.
• mailingListEntry.updated: Triggered when a new email address is added to your mailing list, such as when a customer opts in during checkout.
• mailingListEntry.abandoned: Triggered when a customer enters their email address but does not complete the purchase.

These webhooks allow you to:

• Maintain an up-to-date mailing list.
• Monitor abandoned cart activity in real-time.
• Trigger personalized follow-up actions based on customer behavior.

To learn more about all of FastSpring’s developer tools — such as webhooks, REST API, and JavaScript libraries, visit our Developer Tools page.

Tips for Successful Abandoned Cart Emails

• Timing: Send the first email within an hour of abandonment to capitalize on immediate interest.
• Clarity: Include clear visuals of the abandoned items and a prominent call-to-action (CTA) button.
• Incentives: Offer discounts or free shipping to entice customers to complete their purchase.
• Testing: Test A/B test subject lines, email designs, and incentives to find the most effective strategy.

FAQs

• Why focus on cart abandonment? Reducing cart abandonment boosts revenue, enhances customer experience, and recovers potential lost sales.
• Must I use Mailchimp with FastSpring’s integration? No, you can use any email marketing platform, but Mailchimp is pre-integrated for seamless setup.

Boost Your Conversion Rates Today

By integrating FastSpring with an email marketing service and utilizing webhooks, you can effectively track and address cart abandonment. These tools not only help you recover lost sales but also enhance the overall shopping experience for your customers. Start implementing these strategies today to drive higher conversions and grow your business!

FastSpring is how SaaS, software, digital products, and video game companies sell online in more places around the world. We handle every payment need — from subscription management to tax collection, remittance, and more — so your business can go farther, faster. Set up a demo or try it out for yourself. 

The post How to Track and Address Cart Abandonment With FastSpring appeared first on FastSpring.

But if you’ve decided to use merchant of record FastSpring to help you monetize your video game or mobile game directly to consumers (D2C), we’re here to make it as easy as possible.

That’s why we’ve released a new guide to implementing D2C sales for video games using FastSpring.

This technical integration guide provides a recap of current industry trends, an overview of FastSpring’s solution for video game monetization as a merchant of record, technical details for implementing FastSpring with your game, and stories from other happy game devs and studios who are already succeeding on FastSpring. 

Click here to download How to Implement Direct to Consumer Sales for Video Games With FastSpring.

FastSpring is how gaming publishers sell in more places around the world. For nearly two decades, FastSpring has been a trusted payment provider you can use to sell games or in-game items on your website, web shop, or embedded directly into your game with fully customizable and branded checkouts just for you. FastSpring allows you to offload the complexity of global payments, sales tax and VAT compliance, player payments support, and many other aspects of payments management. Spend less time managing your payments and compliance and more time making great games! To learn more about how FastSpring supports game developers, visit fastspring.gg.

Related Reading

• Why FastSpring Is a Great Complementary Solution for Your Existing Video Game MoR Integration
• 4 Best Xsolla Competitors in 2024
• How to Sell a Mobile App or Game Outside App Stores
• Marketing Your Video Game Outside of Game Marketplaces & App Stores
• Digital River Alternatives for 2024
• Is What Epic Wants for App Stores What Other Game Developers Actually Want?
• Merchant of Record for Mobile Games: What It Is and Why You Need One
• Videos: D2C Web Shops for Mobile Games at Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki
• Using a Gaming Payment Gateway to Monetize Your Game’s Web Shop

Find more video games industry ideas and news here.

The post New Guide: How to Implement Direct to Consumer Sales for Video Games With FastSpring appeared first on FastSpring.

On this episode of Growth Stage, we interview Jay Jia, FastSpring Senior Account Executive, about his insights into:

• Tips on expanding a digital goods company in Asia.
• Current market trends in Asia that can affect expansion and the challenges associated with those market trends.
• The payments landscape and how it affects businesses trying to grow in Asia.

If you’re not sure how to kickstart growth for your digital products or software business in Asia, listen or watch now!

Jump to video.  |  Jump to transcript.

Podcast Full Interview: Audio

Listen online or find it on more podcast services.

Podcast Full Interview: Video

Transcript

Jesse Paliotto (00:04)

Hello everyone and welcome to the Growth Stage, a podcast by FastSpring where we discuss how digital product companies grow revenue, build meaningful products, and increase the value of their business. I’m your host today, Jesse Paliotto. I support the digital product community as part of my role with FastSpring and we love to bring the best of the community to you here on the Growth Stage podcast.

We’re going to talk today about growing a digital goods company in Asia, some of the challenges, opportunities and insights. And we have Jay Jia with us and we’re going to get Jay’s insights on expanding a digital goods company in Asia, particularly like looking at current market trends, some of those associated challenges, the payments landscape there. And then if you’re a company based in the APAC area and expanding into other regions, what are maybe some common challenges or questions you might face?

So Jay, really great to have you here today. Looking forward to chatting. Jay, can you just tell us briefly about FastSpring and what you do there?

Jay Jia (01:06)

Thanks for having me, Jesse. Hi everyone, this is Jay and I take care of the APAC region here at FastSpring. For those that might not be familiar, FastSpring is a merchant of record platform that combines all the essential tools you need to scale a digital goods business. In simple terms, we handle everything from payments to fraud management, to custom support and tax compliance, so that sellers can focus on growing their business. Before joining FastSpring, I spent quite a number of years within the payments industry.

with companies like GrabPay and Stripe helping businesses navigate the complexities of global expansion. And today I’m excited to share more insights with the APAC market, especially from a payments and digital goods perspective.

Jesse Paliotto (01:48)

That’s awesome. I’m very grateful that I’ve had the chance to work with you in kind of your capacity there and work together on how we can serve the market in the Asia area. I’m curious what trends are you seeing in China and sort of the overall Asia Pacific region right now?

Jay Jia (02:10)

So as we know, the APAC region is incredibly diverse with each sub region having its unique characteristics. China remains a global economic powerhouse with it its innovative e commerce market and super app ecosystems like WeChat and Alipay, while Southeast Asia with countries like Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand is rapidly developing, driven by a young mobile first population and growing e -commerce landscape while, you know,

India is another fast growing market with booming tech sector and a strong focus on mobile commerce as well. For Japan and Korea, they’re mature markets known for their advanced technology adoption and high consumer expectations, while Australia and New Zealand serve a stable, well -developed markets with a strong digital penetration. In the recent years, we’ve seen the cross -border e -commerce market, especially in China, facing saturation due to intense competition from large platforms like Temu .com.

However, the Digital Good space, particularly in SaaS and general entertainment, actually presents new opportunities with higher margins and a huge greenfield potential.

Jesse Paliotto (03:18)

So when we look at the digital product growth or the companies that sell digital products that are growing, does it line up with those that you just said, those regions and the growth trends that you see there?

Jay Jia (03:29)

Exactly, exactly. The digital goods market in APAC is actually expanding extremely rapidly, particularly in two major areas. Number one, in terms of the utility -based software, and number two, in terms of general entertainment. So utility -based software includes SaaS companies that operate very often on recurring business models, while general entertainment covers use cases like gaming, social platforms, and IP -driven content, such as short films.

So one of the most exciting developments is actually the rise of AIGC, which refers to the AI generated content, especially with Chinese companies leading the global innovation, right? This technology is creating new opportunities in text generation, image generation, video, music, and audio generation, and they’re growing at an unprecedented pace. However, this growth actually comes with challenges, particularly around compliance with content regulations.

and to be able to maintain a stable payment channel, that is where FastSpring can provide critical support. With the ambiguity of regulations around such a new set of technologies, stability becomes a really huge challenge for AIGC sellers, especially when treading into image and video generative content. And this is because their tools and technologies might be abused by end customers for non -compliant content. So without the right checks and balances in place,

AIGC sellers can often find themselves in a compromising situation where their payment accounts get potentially shut down by the providers. And that is where working with an experienced MOR like FastSpring becomes extremely vital because we’re not only able to provide a stable and reliable payment processing channel, but more than that, we’re willing to provide guidance, support on the latest regulatory frameworks with our commitment to drive towards sustainable, compliant business models.

Jesse Paliotto (05:22)

Yeah, that’s interesting. So the AI generated content companies are facing, basically they’re a riskier company, so to speak. And so getting a reputable MoR who can represent them in markets is a way for them to kind of counteract that risk is to say, no, we’re working with somebody who’s going to be processing our payments and handling all of our interactions and payment methods with our customers. And so that’s a way they can offset that risk is working with somebody reputable is what you’re saying.

Jay Jia (05:51)

Exactly, exactly.

Jesse Paliotto (05:53)

Can you talk a little bit about the payments landscape in Asia Pacific area?

Jay Jia (06:00)

For sure. The payments landscape in APAC is as diverse as the region itself. In mature markets like Singapore and Malaysia, credit and debit cards dominate the market, while for the rest of Southeast Asia, for example, e -wallets like GoPay and Ovo are surging in popularity, driven by a large unbanked, under -served, under -banked population.

Jesse Paliotto (06:06)

Yeah.

Jay Jia (06:24)

Real -time bank transfers are also common in countries like Thailand and Malaysia with PromPay and FBX respectively, while Buy Now Pay Later, BNPL options are gaining traction amongst younger consumers. So each payment method has evolved to meet local needs, making it essential for global sellers to actually adopt a multi -channel payment strategy. And the key to success in APAC is to understand and cater to these diverse payment preferences.

Jesse Paliotto (06:50)

Yeah, I know we’ve talked about this and we’ve talked about it in the business that.

serving, you know, one of the, one of the FastSpring’s – values that, we can provide is that going into certain regions, you have to offer the local payment methods that the audience wants and prefers to use. But the first thing you said really resonates with me that it’s a very diverse set of countries and payment and currency and all those types of things. So there’s a lot to handle there and do you know, doing that on your own as a company that’s trying to expand. How do you do that?

Jay Jia (07:27)

I think when it comes to selling into APAC, this actually demands deep localization and understanding of each individual market with its own set of unique challenges. For example, Japan is famous for its widespread adoption of konbini payments, where customers actually purchase products online but head down physically to a convenience store to complete payments in person with cards or cash.

And this showcases a unique blend of omnichannel payment experiences. On the flip side, in India, recurring payments are complicated by the e -mandate system requiring customers to authenticate each individual transaction, which is critical awareness for SaaS companies that value optimization in recurring revenue. And similarly, in Southeast Asia’s largely unbanked population, this will also require tailored approaches, especially from a mobile first and a local payment method perspective.

So one prime example of successful localization is how Grab and Didi, who are sort of local versions of Uber, actually outmaneuver Uber in Southeast Asia and China respectively. Both companies adapted their strategies to local preferences, regulatory environments, and cultural nuances, and ultimately leading to their dominance in these markets, right? For example, Grab adapted their local preferences by allowing cash payments and launching Grab Pay, addressing the region’s unbanked population and tailored services like Grab Bike in Vietnam and Grab Tribe.

in Philippines to meet specific market needs. And similarly, Didi partnered with Chinese tech giants like Tencent and Alibaba, leveraging on their platforms to reach millions of users in a short time frame. So in summary, in order to succeed in APAC, sellers really have to understand the unique and diverse dynamics of each individual market.

Jesse Paliotto (09:15)

That’s funny coming from a marketing, I come from a marketing background for those who won’t know me on the show. I work with marketing here at FastSpring and the word omni -channel is sort of a long time used phrase for marketing where you’re encountering your audience in a lot of different ways and coordinating those encounters so that there’s a cohesive brand and a cohesive experience. I love your use of it though for omni -channel payments that people are.

physically in a store, they’re on their phone, they’re dealing with cash. There’s this kind of multiple channel approach that you have to be able to do in order to successfully sell into that market or to that audience. I think that’s very, very insightful. Can I turn it around a little bit? If you are a company that’s currently in Asia Pacific area, in China or in the Asia Pacific region, and you’re trying to expand out of your local market,

Can you talk about any challenges or opportunities that a company in that position should be thinking about?

Jay Jia (10:20)

Mm -hmm, for sure. So, expanding globally from APAC comes with its own set of unique challenges as well, particularly around, for example, compliance, right? In the form of, for example, tax compliance, data compliance, and on top of that, fraud management as well. So, as we know, each market has a different tax regulation. For example, in the U .S., every state has a different policy and threshold. And imagine the complexity of dealing with transactions from hundreds of countries.

Jesse Paliotto (10:32)

Thank

Jay Jia (10:49)

having to calculate, collect, and remit taxes to local tax authorities. And this is a really common use case that we observe because many digital good sellers like SaaS companies, they’re actually global from day one and they don’t restrict themselves to any particular geography. On top of that, non -compliance can lead to severe penalties ranging from massive fines to potentially impact fundraising in the long term for high growth startups due to non -compliance. And similarly,

Jesse Paliotto (11:05)

Mm

Jay Jia (11:18)

Adhering to data compliance such as GDPR in Europe is extremely challenging as well because it requires businesses to navigate complex region -specific regulations to protect personal data. And to this requires significant changes to data handling practices and systems to avoid hefty fines and reputational damage. On the other hand, a major challenge is managing credit card fraud, which can really drain resources and impact revenue.

In 2024, global losses from the credit card fraud are projected to continue on an extremely upward trend, with losses reaching approximately more than 30 billion in 2022 and expected to grow even further, potentially hitting 43 billion by 2028. And this rise in fraud is largely driven by C &P or card not present transactions, which account for a significant proportion of fraud cases across online shopping and digital payments.

Jesse Paliotto (12:02)

Mm

Jay Jia (12:15)

Additionally, emerging threats such as identity fraud and the use of generative AI for deep fake related scams are complicating the landscape, making it increasingly challenging for businesses to protect themselves against these sophisticated fraud techniques. But fortunately, this is exactly where Fastbring’s MoR model shines, because we’re not only able to offer localized payment processing, which helps to open up access to certain markets.

But on top of that, we have invested a lot in the infrastructure to ensure 100 % compliance in both like a data and taxation perspective so that sellers can leverage on our already optimized custom rule sets based on various industries to consistently combat fraud, reducing fraudulent transactions while letting the genuine transactions through, which in turn maximizes revenue for our sellers.

Jesse Paliotto (13:10)

That’s interesting. There’s a couple, let me make sure I kind of capture, because I felt like there was two very thematic pieces to what you just said. One being that as a company expands in these different markets, complying with the regulations in those local markets gets increasingly complex.

And so the need to handle all the requirements that, gosh, I just, especially with digital product companies and what you started to say a few minutes ago that the growth trends in the Asia Pacific region include a lot of areas that are growing in their digital product sales. And digital product sales are easy to do cross border because you just click on the link on the website or in the app and you buy and you could be in Korea, you could be in Japan, you could be in Vietnam. But the risk that comes back to the company is,

Am I compliant with selling in Vietnam? Am I meeting any tax requirements in Japan? And so offsetting that set of sort of compliance risks was one thing I heard you say. And then the other one was just straight up fraud, that fraud is on the rise in these different regions. And so rather than handle that as a company taking sort of the direct hit and responsibility for that, letting a merchant of record like FastSpring be the intermediary to…

both detect fraud and hopefully filter it out or deal with it when it’s present. Does that capture that fairly well?

Jay Jia (14:35)

Exactly, exactly. As we know, like each market is extremely diverse and you know, every single market has their unique kind of regulations, be it from like a data and taxation perspective. And many of the payment providers out there, they’re really, they have a lot of expertise from like a payments optimization perspective. But unfortunately from like a compliance angle, this is something that sellers themselves typically have to born or they have to learn to kind of overcome.

But fortunately with the kind of MOR model, it is built for the businesses that are high growing and yet they want to direct their resources and time towards things that matter the most, which is essentially product development as well as revenue growth. Because by partnering with an MOR, they’ve effectively allowing the MOR to help them offset all these kind of complexities with a pre -built strong infrastructure that’s already solving for these pain points.

Jesse Paliotto (15:30)

Can you clarify, I think you said it a couple of minutes ago, but just can you say it one more time, like what does the merchant record do on behalf of the seller

Jay Jia (15:38)

Right, for sure. So one of the key differences between a merchant of record model versus like a payment gateway slash PSP model is that a merchant of record is not exactly a payment gateway, but instead a merchant of record is a platform that connects to multiple payment gateways in the backend. And we basically create MIDs or merchant IDs across multiple gateways with our own entities. And we act as the official seller within the transaction, right?

So essentially, MOR is the official entity that is legally liable to manage refunds, disputes, data compliance, tax compliance. Because as the official seller, we actually own the transaction itself, which is why sellers that adopt MOR technologies don’t really have to deal with it. Because the MOR entity will actually basically service the entire end -to -end portion of that.

Jesse Paliotto (16:32)

You talked a lot about payment methods and about the different regions. Is there any challenges or opportunities with the fact that going into different countries that have a of different currencies? How do people handle that on their own without somebody like FastSpring? How does FastSpring solve that for them?

Jay Jia (16:46)

Mm

So I think typically, I think this varies from country to country. But firstly, a lot of payment providers, don’t offer localized currency settlement, or maybe perhaps they’re restricted to some of the major currencies out there like USD, Euro, example.

And the biggest issue with that is actually having a localized pricing strategy. So for example, there’s actually different ways they can go about with an MWR setup.

One way is you can choose a universal pricing with USD and have that pricing to automatically be converted into a local currency. This is something that, for example, FastSpring offers. But lot of sellers also want to have a unique pricing for each individual market due to different levels of willingness to pay and also purchasing power.

This is also something that’s really important when it comes to a pricing strategy for a global business. This is a case where there’s a one size fits all, but it really depends on the stage of the business, of the target market, whether they’re more price sensitive or not, and what are the priorities of the seller at the moment. Are they looking to really go deep into each individual market from a sales and marketing perspective?

or they just want to scale really quickly because demand is already there and they’re running more of like a self -serve model. I think, you know, you know, this really depends. And ultimately this boils down to the partnership between the seller as well as the payments platform, because an experienced payments platform will not only be able to provide the call payment processing technology, but also provide insights on how best to scale the business, be it from like a currency perspective, a pricing strategy perspective, or even like how to best set up your…

recurring payments, how to maximize conversion, how to combat fraud, et cetera, and the whole suite along with that.

Jesse Paliotto (18:46)

Yeah, that’s very cool. Yeah, and I can see both paths where you want to just let somebody like FastSpring auto convert the base currency into all the local pricing. It’s automatic. It’s kept up in real time. That’s super helpful. Or where you would want to manually adjust it because you know that you need different pricing in a certain region. Yeah, that totally makes sense. I guess that’s a consideration, but it’s an opportunity for you to fine tune your business to really kind of meet your audience as best as possible.

Jay Jia (19:05)

Exactly.

No, for sure.

Jesse Paliotto (19:17)

Well, before we wrap up, any final thoughts, anything you didn’t get to share, Jay, or anything that got triggered that we didn’t get to yet before I wrap this up here?

Jay Jia (19:26)

Yeah. think one interesting thing that I wanted to highlight, which also ties in specifically to the APAC market, is some of the unique challenges around accessibility. One of the most significant challenges in APAC is actually the lack of accessibility to advance payment technologies and services. Because unlike EMEA in North America, where global payment providers are well established in APAC markets, apart from the mature ones like Singapore and Australia,

most countries struggle with connecting to global payment networks. Local payment service providers, they can excel in processing local payments, but they often fail to with international transactions due to limited infrastructure and partnerships. So for example, I used to work with a local Malaysian office under one of the top global logistic platforms, and they were actually facing significant challenges in processing international payments with one of the local leading PSPs.

and they were only attaining a mere 40 % authorization rate, which was crippling their e -commerce operations. And to overcome this, many businesses in Southeast Asia and China, they set up entities in more business -friendly locations like Singapore and Hong Kong to facilitate global sales. But however, this approach adds complexities and lot of cost and also diverts resources from the core product management as well as revenue generation.

And the easiest way, honestly, for a business that is looking to solve for this complexity is to connect to an MOR. So in this way, APAC businesses can basically reduce the gap towards scalability by simply offloading all the complexity to the payment platform.

Jesse Paliotto (21:10)

I’m glad I asked if you had anything else, because that’s an amazing point. The obstacle that a company may face in accessing, like you said, in Singapore and Australia, these companies will have access to sort of the…

full abilities in payment processing and such, but in other places they won’t. Are the obstacles mainly technical or are they government restrictions or what is it that keeps companies, why do they have to set up in a different country in order to get access to dependable payment facility?

Jay Jia (21:37)

Mm

Right.

For sure. So I think the fundamental challenge is with infrastructure. So for example, in countries like Singapore, Australia, from a regulation perspective, from a legal perspective, everything is fairly mature and the government basically has a set of rules set in black and white where businesses can trust and rely on. However, in countries in, for example, Vietnam,

laws and regulations, they could be changing on like a daily basis. So it’s actually extremely high risk and extremely challenging to be able to build up, you know, payments infrastructure in those countries, which is why many global payment providers, they have been taking a lot of time to figure out what’s the best way to approach these markets, right? So in the meantime, the sort of easy way to hack it for businesses or sellers is to simply open up entities in other markets, which is why in my past life as well,

A lot of my sort of referral partners are actually business entity creation agencies where they will give you an all -in -one service from advisory, from an accounting angle, legal angle, or even to help you open business accounts or bank accounts, which is extremely challenging in markets like Hong Kong or Singapore. So it’s sort of like a quick fix. And we don’t really see any kind of near -term opportunity to be able to build payment infrastructure in these developing markets.

Jesse Paliotto (22:55)

Mm

Jay Jia (23:07)

due to the volatility of the markets itself. So this is where, at least for the next three, five, or maybe even 10 years possibly, depending on how the markets develop, having access to an MRO partner is gonna be incredibly impactful and powerful for these sellers.

Jesse Paliotto (23:24)

Anything else we didn’t get to? I’m glad I asked last time. I’m going to ask it again. Anything else that was on your mind that we didn’t get to get to?

Jay Jia (23:24)

Absolutely.

Mm -hmm.

No, I think we’ve covered most of the fronts and I guess in summary, in order to successfully expand in and out of the APAC region, sellers really need to have a deep understanding of the local market dynamics and consumer preferences. Localization is key, whether it’s in terms of payment methods, marketing strategies, or even customer service.

And here at FastSpring we’re dedicated to simplifying payments and compliance, enabling our sellers to focus on growth. Instead of doing everything yourself, we do it for you as your merchant of record. And we allow sellers to focus on the things that really matter, like product development and revenue growth.

Jesse Paliotto (24:12)

That’s excellent. Thank you so much for sharing today, Jay. Really love talking. If you would like to learn more about what Jay is up to, you can look him up on LinkedIn or WeChat. Thank you everyone for joining us on the Growth Stage podcast. I’m your host today, Jesse Paliotto, I support the digital product community as part of my role here at FastSpring, and we love bringing the best of the community here on the Growth Stage by FastSpring podcast to you. So have a great day or evening, and I look forward to talking and connecting with you soon. Goodbye everybody.

The post EP25: Growing a Digital Goods Company in Asia: Challenges, Opportunities, and Insights appeared first on FastSpring.

After Apple was charged in June by EU antitrust regulators for not complying with the DMA, Apple released updates to their StoreLink External Purchase Link Entitlement on August 8, 2024. 

The highlights are outlined in six bullet points on Apple’s News and Updates page, with readers invited to click through to a more detailed guide to the changes in their developer documentation. 

The highlights include mentions of promoting “offers for purchases available at a destination of their choice,” developers being able to “use an actionable link that can be tapped, clicked, or scanned, to take users to their destination,” and that “Updated business terms for apps with the External Purchase Link Entitlement are being introduced to align with the changes to these capabilities.”

These changes are supposed to take effect “this fall” (no more specific start date appears to have been provided).

‘Nearly Endless 20 Percent Fee for Developers’

Per the article from The Verge, “Apple adds nearly endless 20 percent fee for developers in latest EU update,” the updates appear to give developers more freedom regarding linking to purchase options outside of the App Store. 

However, the fees associated with the new feature are so steep and restrictive that “it’s hard to imagine any developer using it.” 

That’s because, for developer who opt into the StoreKit External Purchase Link Entitlement (EU) Addendum, the associated fees include a 5% Initial acquisition fee, plus a 20% Store services fee that applies to “sales of digital goods and services, made on any platform, that occur within a fixed 12-month period from the date of an install, including app updates and reinstalls.” 

The Verge points out that app updates or reinstalls by the user reset the clock back to 12 months left for the ongoing store services fee. Various other programs and mechanisms can lower the fees, including adding support for third-party mobile app stores, charging for qualifying auto-renew subscriptions, and being a developer in Apple’s small business program. But the 12-month ongoing fees resetting at updates or reinstalls is what makes them potentially “endless.” 

A recent TechCrunch article, “Apple revises DMA compliance for App Store link-outs, applying fewer restrictions and a new fee structure,” further clarifies some of the differences between Apple’s various terms and their associated fees, both existing and new. For example, the “Store Services Fee” will be “a 10% standard commission fee or a 5% discounted commission (e.g., for developers enrolled in the App Store’s small business program) under Apple’s new business terms; or 20% standard and 7% discount under Apple’s existing terms.”

Details on fees for both the Alternative Terms Addendum for Apps in the EU and the StoreKit External Purchase Link Entitlement (EU) Addendum can be viewed in the Commissions section of this Apple support page.

This is similar to a situation in the U.S. in which a federal judge questioned whether Apple had truly complied with the order to allow app developers to “steer” users to third-party payment options outside of the native App Store.

Related Reading 

• News: Apple First to Be Charged With Violating EU DMA by Not Fully Allowing Steering (July 2024)
• News: Japan Enacts Regulatory Law Targeting Apple and Google Smartphone Marketplace Dominance (June 2024)
• News: U.S. Federal Judge and Epic Games Challenge Whether Apple Has Complied With Order to Allow Payment Steering (May 2024) 
• Is What Epic Wants for App Stores What Other Game Developers Actually Want? (December 2023)
• News: Potential Apple App Store Policy Changes Due to EU’s Digital Markets Act (November 2023) 
• FastSpring CEO David Nachman participated in Epic’s antitrust case against Google. Read FastSpring’s press release on the December 11, 2023 ruling in the case. “This is a win for gamers and studios.”
• Get tips on How to Sell a Mobile App or Game Outside App Stores.
• Already using a merchant of record to monetize your game directly to consumers? Here are seven great reasons to use FastSpring as an additional D2C solution.

About FastSpring

FastSpring is how gaming studios sell in more places around the world. For nearly two decades, FastSpring has been a payment provider you can use to sell games or in-game items on your website, web shop, or embedded directly into your game with fully customizable and branded checkouts just for you. FastSpring allows you to offload the complexity of global payments, sales tax and VAT compliance, player payments support, and many other aspects of payments management. Spend less time managing your payments and compliance and more time making great games!

Visit FastSpring’s game monetization page to learn more about how FastSpring supports game developers.

The post News: Apple Revises App Store Link-Out Rules per EU DMA, but New Fees Still High appeared first on FastSpring.

A good ecommerce website should be structured in a way that successfully communicates product features, value proposition, and market placement while eliminating distractions in order to reduce the time for the visitor to make up their mind.

The goal is to reduce friction in order to make it easy — or easier — to purchase. There are a few simple ways to help make this happen.

6 Tips to Increase Conversion Rates

1. Appearance and User Experience of Your Website

Websites should be easy to navigate, featuring user-friendly, branded color schemes and fonts. They should balance text, images and illustrations, and empty spaces. We recommend following industry and product-specific design trends while keeping your branding in mind.

2. Menu and Pricing Page

Your website menu should be easily identifiable, with a direct link to a product page and a pricing page. 

The pricing page is a key element to the ease of purchase. For SaaS companies, most pricing pages will offer different tiers. Each tier should clarify what features are included.

The goal is to drive customers not just to purchase, but to purchase the most suitable product, which is why sellers should also highlight a “top pick.”

Pricing pages are also where sellers can highlight testimonials, link to FAQ and cancellation policy pages, and display other elements strategic to the purchase. 

Need more pricing page recommendations and examples? Check out our blog for Pricing Strategies to Combat Stagflation or Best-in-Class SaaS Pricing Pages: 2022 Report.

3. Purchase Clicks

Reducing the number of clicks needed to complete a purchase is important for simplifying the buying process. This minimizes the time visitors take to decide by providing a seamless buying journey. 

Some sources say that the fewer clicks, the better. However, this may vary depending on your business. Experts recommend using heatmaps to understand how your audience is interacting with your website and making decisions based on that. 

4. Checkout Process

The checkout process should be simple while also increasing the buyer’s confidence in the purchase. FastSpring offers three customizable checkout options: the web storefront, the popup storefront, and our latest and more native checkout type, the embedded storefront. All checkouts allow you to add a logo, specify the amount of customer information required, and much more.

We process payments securely on your behalf, giving your buyers access to a wide range of payment options to choose from, which are displayed based on their location.

5. CTAs

Clear and strategically placed calls to action (CTAs) are also important. These buttons need to provide a clear indication of the action they will trigger when clicked. 

Single buttons are preferable to multiple buttons. For example, the most successful designs don’t include a “Go back” option but only allow users to move forward in the process.

The placement of buttons depends on what you want the user to see first. Since left-to-right reading people generally read in an F-shaped pattern, and since most users are right-handed, the button should be placed in the bottom right corner if it needs to be at the end of a section.

We recommend encouraging the buyer to make a purchase whenever feasible. Having a Buy button on the homepage — and potentially on every page — is a great way to enhance conversions.

6. Website Localization

Website localization is very important when it comes to targeting a larger audience and increasing the confidence and trust of visitors. 

• Language Localization: Most sellers will simply route their customers to the localized website based on their IP address. Others will have a menu with the option to select a different language or region. FastSpring allows merchants to customize the checkout language (as well as the language used for buyer emails) in order to provide a localized experience. 
• Currency Localization: It is important to rely on a partner like FastSpring that will localize the payment experience for your buyers, both on the pricing page (using our Store Builder Library options) and on the checkout (by offering the local currency and relevant payment methods options). 

You can discover more about our language and currency localization options here. 

Ongoing Conversion Rate Optimization

Once a customer arrives on your website, maximizing conversion chances is crucial. An effective ecommerce site clearly communicates product features and value propositions while minimizing distractions. By simplifying navigation, using clear CTAs, and optimizing the checkout process, you create a seamless experience that encourages quick and confident purchases. This approach enhances user satisfaction and boosts conversion rates, contributing to sustained business growth. 

Each business and customer is unique, so continuously A/B test website changes and analyze data to find the best solutions for you.

Not yet benefiting from the award-winning support FastSpring provides for software companies and their customers? FastSpring handles the entire payment process, from checkout to remitting end-of-year taxes for SaaS companies. To learn more about how FastSpring can help you scale quickly, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

The post 6 Essential Strategies for Maximizing Conversion Rates appeared first on FastSpring.

In this episode of Growth Stage, we interview Sahil Patel of Spiralyze about his thoughts on: 

• Special considerations for B2B CRO.
• The best way to think about your B2B test data approach.
• Winning strategies Sahil has found helping clients like BambooHR, Okta, and Harvest with their B2B CRO. 

If you’re scratching your head wondering what you’ll test next with your B2B CRO strategy, don’t miss this episode!

Jump to video.  |  Jump to transcript.

Podcast Full Interview: Audio

Listen online or find it on more podcast services.

Podcast Full Interview: Video

Transcript

David Vogelpohl (00:04)

Hello everyone and welcome to the Growth Stage podcast by FastSpring, where we discuss how digital product companies can grow revenue, build meaningful products, and increase the value of their business. I’m your host, David Vogelpohl. I support the digital product community here in my role at FastSpring. And I love to bring the best of the community to you here on Growth Stage. In this episode, we’re talking about a topic that I’m really excited about: proven AB testing winners for B2B CRO, and joining us for that conversation is Mr. Sahil Patel. Sahil, welcome to Fast — I’m sorry, welcome to Growth Stage.

Sahil Patel (00:42)

David, really glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

David Vogelpohl (00:45)

Excellent. Well, thanks for bearing with me while I stumbled over your name there a little bit in the beginning; with a last name like Vogelpohl I should be better at that. But thank you for joining. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. And so for those watching and listening, what I wanted to share with you is kind of what we’re going to talk about today, which is Sahil’s thoughts on the special considerations for B2B CRO (what’s different about B2B versus B2C),

Sahil Patel (00:54)

Hey, we’re here. It’s good.

David Vogelpohl (01:12)

the best way to think about your testing data when you’re doing B2B CRO, and winning strategies Sahil has seen with clients like Bamboo, Okta, and Harvest. And so those are some really meaty B2B puzzles, Sahil. And so I’m really curious about what you’ve seen there. So I’m going to kick it off by asking you the first question I’ve asked every guest, which is, what is the first thing you bought online?

Sahil Patel (01:41)

What a great question. I’m gonna age myself a little bit. Probably it was in the 90s.

Buying stuff was not super common…

It probably was some kind of Star Wars related collectible on eBay.

David Vogelpohl (02:04)

Nice, do you still collect Star Wars collectibles?

Sahil Patel (02:08)

I do, yeah, but I have a decent amount. So there’s like a household cap on adding new Star Wars stuff.

David Vogelpohl (02:16)

I like it. I like it. Is it like one in one out the kind of thing at this point or have you hit the cap?

Sahil Patel (02:21)

Well, it’s pretty close. My kids are into it now, which gives me a little bit of leeway, which means I can get things that are for them, but aren’t really for me.

David Vogelpohl (02:32)

Nice, nice. I like it. Well, that’s a great first thing you bought online story. Thanks for sharing.

Sahil Patel (02:37)

What about you, David? What was the first thing you bought online?

David Vogelpohl (02:39)

The first thing I bought online was a product called Zanfel. It was designed, it is still sold today, but it’s a poison ivy cure. So I was at the end of like a three or four day stint of just being miserable with poison ivy. And I Googled a cure for poison ivy. Zanfel came up and it actually did work for me. It doesn’t necessarily work for everybody, but it was like a magic cure for me. So, late nineties. So yeah.

Sahil Patel (03:03)

And when was this? How early days internet was this? Yeah.

David Vogelpohl (03:09)

I might have done something before that, but that was the first one I remember. All right, cool. Well, let’s switch gears a little bit, kind of get get closer to the topic at hand. Could you quickly tell me about what Spiralyze does and what you do there?

Sahil Patel (03:26)

Yeah, thanks. I’m the CEO of Spiralyze. We’re an A-B testing company. There are 34,000 websites that run A-B tests somewhere on their website. We scrape all of them. We find the best A-B tests in the entire internet, then we run those for our clients.

David Vogelpohl (03:43)

Nice. So you’re detecting the sites that are running those tests. And then how do you know the ones that are best from sites you don’t control? I’m just kind of curious about this.

Sahil Patel (03:52)

Yeah, great question. How do we know which ones are best? Because all we can see is that they run a test and which version of the page, the A or the B, they chose at the end of the test. The first thing. No, go ahead, please, David.

David Vogelpohl (04:06)

So you’re, go ahead. I was gonna say, so you basically detect a test that’s happening and then when you figure out which one won in the end, you mark that as like that was the better one.

Sahil Patel (04:18)

Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. We’re doing those things digitally, but that’s a really nice way to describe it. If we.

David Vogelpohl (04:20)

very cool.

Nice, nice. I like the very simple explanation I needed to understand sometimes.

Sahil Patel (04:31)

We do this thousands of times a day. So what we’re looking for is not kind of one company running one test. If they do it, so what? It’s an anecdote, I’m not running out, tell them, I gotta say, you should go run this test. But for example, if we see 10 companies all run the same test and they converge on an answer, it’s what we call a proven winner. Those are the kind of tests that we like to run for our clients.

David Vogelpohl (04:59)

Right, because things are so specific to a specific company, I guess. So if you can look at multiple data points across multiple companies and find that common factor, you could identify something that would be, kind of in a sense, universally applicable to lots and lots of companies. Is that the gist?

Sahil Patel (05:15)

That’s right. That’s right. And you don’t have to look far to find one. I’ll give you an example of something that’s actionable for everyone listening at home if they say, well, hey, I’d love to try one of these. What have you learned that I could do right away? A great one to try is to show— But here’s the context. We’re talking about B2B SaaS companies.

And the problem many of them have is go to the home page. They have a picture of a happy person at the top of the page. Marketers call this the hero section of the page. This happy person costs you a ton of conversions. It doesn’t tell you anything about the product. It’s boring. And when someone is looking at your website, they’re there to buy software, which is to be really clear. They’re there to feel good about themselves.

They’re looking for product, and they’re somewhere on their buying journey. Some are early, some are ready to buy. That’s where they are. And the answer is, the A-B test I would run is, instead of showing a picture of a happy person in the variant, I would show a screenshot of your product.

And then run that test. Our data shows that just doing that can get you about 12 % more conversions from your website, from the traffic you already get, which is the beauty of conversion rate optimization, CRO. Take the traffic you already have, you run a split test, and you have the data to show whether it works for you or not. And you’re not blindly copying. You’re running the test. You’re not just doing it. But we’ve now seen this test run hundreds of times and has a high, high likelihood of

outperforming the picture of the happy person, that stock imagery of the person with a nice looking shirt looking or peering at a laptop looking at me. Who are all these happy people, by the way? Like what makes them so happy? I guess it’s better than sad people, but happy people don’t really convert that well. Pictures of your product convert much better.

David Vogelpohl (07:23)

Yeah, this debate actually is raging and FastSpring right now, which is like, okay, do we favor product images or people images and what degrees do we do that? Which one’s in the hero? Which one’s not like that kind of thing.

Sahil Patel (07:35)

And what’s the debate? I love that you’re sharing that, because my guess is people who are listening to this podcast are probably inclined to show the product. They get it. They maybe hear some this, this anecdote for me that there’s data behind it. But the reality, the messy reality is they have to then go convince some people internally. They may not be able to unilaterally run this AB test or just make the change. So what’s that? What’s that debate like internally? What’s the other side for the people that are.

in favor of showing more people on the website.

David Vogelpohl (08:08)

I think it connects to what I’ve seen is a shift in marketers mentality around CRO relative to optimizing favoring for emotion versus optimizing favoring for information. I heard this recently at Winter Games, but folks were talking about like people are there to buy products and features, not necessarily the outcome.

And so the outcome to me is an example of an emotion, right? Rest easy, do good at your job because of our product, hit your targets because we’re going to help you do that versus I need an ad network. I need an analytics platform. And so I think internally, what I think is at the root of the debates and many of these debates I’ve been in in the past is the blend between.

optimizing for emotion versus optimizing for information. So that’s my off the cuff version. How do you think about that, Sahil?

Sahil Patel (09:10)

Well, so first of all, thank you for sharing, because I think this is the messy reality of conversion rate optimization. So we don’t operate in a vacuum of a pristine laboratory where the only thing that matters is there’s a data set that tells us you should run this test. We’re human beings with, we come with baggage, good baggage, bad baggage, prior experience, a perspective.

And changing anything in an organization is hard. You have to do the work of selling it. Here’s a couple of ways I might sell it. One is through an analogy. I think the second is putting yourself in the point of view of your audience. And both of them are helpful. The first one I would say is this is sometimes if you want to actually make an emotional win the argument or persuade people through an emotional argument, I’d say this.

Think about, and I’ll ask David, I’ll post it to you. Let’s pretend that I was on one side of this, you were on the other. And I was saying, we need to show more product. And you’re saying, no, we’re giving you motion. I ask you this. Can you think of the last car commercial you saw? What was it? And I’m asking for real. What was it?

David Vogelpohl (10:25)

You’re asking the wrong person. I probably haven’t seen a commercial in like two years.

Sahil Patel (10:28)

Okay, well, think back two years. What was the last car commercial you saw? Okay, Ford. Can you picture the commercial in your mind? Like what was happening?

David Vogelpohl (10:32)

Let’s just say Ford.

It primarily pictures images of the truck that I saw.

Sahil Patel (10:42)

Yeah, if it was an F -150, it shows the truck driving up a mountain, probably going over some water and rocks. Maybe the people are putting their stuff, their camping gear. There’s probably some emotion. Maybe it shows them doing some happy activity that they’re only able to do because the Ford truck got them there. Fair? Is that?

David Vogelpohl (11:02)

But the person is often obfuscated, which you could argue is like that gives you room to be the person in the truck basically. Yeah.

Sahil Patel (11:10)

Yep, that’s right. That’s right. Now, if you reran that commercial and you digitally erased the truck, just think about what that commercial would look like. What would it be? What would you see?

David Vogelpohl (11:25)

smiling people at the beach enjoying their outcome of a trip and a hard to reach place because they had their trucks, something like that.

Sahil Patel (11:32)

Yeah, and you get the scenery, right? You see the camera panning, the bridge, the rocks, the mountain. Now, the little subtitle at the bottom says, closed course, do not try this at home, would make absolutely no sense. And the commercial wouldn’t work. You’d be like, what is this? Is this for a camping? And the emotion is there, but people buy a car. They buy it for a lot of reasons.

functional reasons, emotional reasons, value reasons. And you don’t know on any one day who is going to watch that commercial, just like you don’t know on any one day who’s coming to your home page. But if you wouldn’t run a car ad, I mean, no one in their right mind would run a car ad without showing the car. I don’t know why anyone would, when you put it that way, would anyone do a home page for a B2B SaaS company, not show the product? So that’s the analogy.

David Vogelpohl (12:26)

Yeah.

Yeah, if I was making a web page for a truck, I’d have a picture of the truck in the hero, not a picture of a smiling person. Yeah.

Sahil Patel (12:34)

There you go. Number two, this is the more, I would say, trying to be a pragmatist. Put yourself in the perspective of the random person that comes to your website. You’ve got about one second to convince them to stay. That’s the job of the hero section of the home page. It’s not to sell the product.

It’s not to explain the value of the product. It’s not even to convince them to read and educate, much less convert. Convert here means they maybe click, see a demo.

just to get them to stay. You’ve got about a second. So it can’t be complicated. It can’t be nuanced. And it has to cut through the noise. Your brain processes images faster than words. If you just ask yourself, does the happy person, which, by the way, could appear on any website on Earth, is it going to convince someone to stay? My guess is that FastSpring, you have competitors. Every company does. It’s got to be something that’s going to be to be

I always assume that they’ve looked at five competitors before they get to my home page. There’s got to be something in under a second that tells them, OK, let’s stay.

David Vogelpohl (13:56)

And this is intuitive and it’s interesting to hear how you’re looking at multiple tests, including those you’re not personally running to determine like who’s running these kinds of tests and what is like this universal signal. And that’s interesting to hear about featuring products over people. To dial it in a little bit on the B2B side of the CRO equation, what does that mean to you? Like, what are you optimizing? What are you trying to drive when you…

run a B2B CRO test?

Sahil Patel (14:27)

What I’m optimizing, great question, is can I get more people from the traffic you already get to turn into a sales prospect?

full stop.

Now, let’s unpack what a sales prospect means. But let’s be real simple, crisp definition. Traffic you already have, get more people to turn into a sales prospect.

Sales prospect if you’re a product -led growth company it can be that sign up for that 10 -day free trial If you’re a sales led company it’s Get a demo talk to sales get a quote some variation of it that’s for your highest intent audience. It’s the most valuable audience. That’s what everyone craves. It’s the hand raisers that go Hey, I may not be ready to buy but I’m ready to move towards the purchase

David Vogelpohl (15:20)

Thanks.

Sahil Patel (15:26)

That’s what I focus on. That’s what most of my clients, that’s where the value is, it’s what moves the needle. If you fully optimize that, then you start moving higher up the funnel for things like downloading a white paper, signing up for a webinar, reading some content. You should do all those, by the way. But you should start with the highest value, highest intent conversion on your website. And B2B SaaS, it’s a good idea.

Get a demo slash talk to sales or start your free trial. It’s almost always one of those two things.

David Vogelpohl (16:03)

I’m assuming for those metrics you’re excluding disqualifieds and things like that. Like it’s obviously more than just a form fill. When you think of quote prospect.

Sahil Patel (16:09)

Yeah.

Yeah. You should rate your lift based on the quality of the lift. Getting more lift, I don’t want to say it’s easy because nothing in life is easy, but you can do parlor tricks to just get more form fill. Cut out all the fields. Make it a single field. Sure, you should get garbage. You should track first. Did you get more of your traffic to fill out the form fill? Because if you can’t do that, none of the other stuff matters.

David Vogelpohl (16:40)

You didn’t –

Sahil Patel (16:40)

Once you do that, then say how, go ahead, David, sorry, please, you’re about to ask a question.

David Vogelpohl (16:44)

I was going to say what I didn’t hear you say is like your initial thing you’re optimizing for the primary thing is the softer leads, like the webinar, ebook download type stuff. A lot of folks place a lot of value in that one. We’ll even mention that as the primary thing they’ll optimize for, for B2B CRO. Why didn’t that make your cut for your top KPI?

Sahil Patel (17:07)

It doesn’t make my cut for two reasons. I’m going to put my CEO hat on.

I’ve got a revenue and a profit target I gotta hit. That target is on my back and I wake up every day thinking about it.

demo requests, free trial starts, or account sign -ups is what gets me to my target as soon as possible. It’s the highest intent, highest value, closest to revenue conversion you have on your website. Now, if you fully optimize that and you’re hitting diminishing returns on your A-B testing efforts, by all means, work on those softer, lower intent. Use some marketing speak.

top of the funnel or tofu type of leads. Sure, you should do it. I’m not saying there’s not value. You shouldn’t do that. But always, always, always start with your most valuable, highest intent conversion.

David Vogelpohl (18:04)

Yeah, it makes sense. Like they’re the most likely to emerge as pipeline and bookings. And so even if you’re optimizing those top of the funnel leads, you’re trying to get them to spit out the pipeline and bookings eventually. And if you’re putting too much value on the top of the funnel leads, then you may not even be representing real pipeline and bookings basically. Is that kind of the gist of how you think about it?

Sahil Patel (18:29)

100%, 100%. Let’s also go back to something I love that you raised at the beginning, just a few minutes ago, which is you’re having this internal debate about showing the product versus showing the people. I think if you have to sell people on just running the test, then you have to sell them on the outcome. Like here’s the results of the test.

I think if you are a CRO person, whatever your title is or function, you’re an agency or an in -house, you’re VP of digital, you’re an analyst, at some point you have to go to the senior people and say, we ran this test, here’s the outcome. And we got.

20 % more qualified sales leads. I validated them with the sales VP or the chief revenue officer and she’s thrilled.

Her pipeline is bigger, right? Yeah. Now, no, no, no, please go ahead.

David Vogelpohl (19:20)

So validating the quality of those as well. Right, because if I’m, go ahead.

If I’m only optimizing for raw qualified leads, but they don’t, they’re not quality as the sales team sees them. Cause qualified leads typically follow like a data pattern, right? Or a DQ from a rep. But then behind that, there’s still like a quality layer. And so what you’re saying is that by having the sales leaders validate those leads even further, it can help strengthen the case for why you should go with X or Y variant.

Sahil Patel (19:40)

That’s right.

It’s a, I’ve seen it happen and it’s a cautionary tale. You’re someone that works in marketing. You take a victory lap because you had this huge lift and then the sales leader goes, yeah, but they’re sh*t leads.

takes all the air out of the balloon. It’s not a fun moment.

David Vogelpohl (20:14)

Yeah, so take, so.

Yeah, I have fun in those moments because I learned something I learned. We didn’t work so try the next thing, but I know there’s like that sunk cost fallacy thing. People feel like when they spend a bunch of time testing something and it doesn’t work like all my ideas are bad or my execution was bad. Maybe, but like sometimes it just doesn’t work and like knowing that it’s valuable.

Sahil Patel (20:26)

Of course, of course.

So that’s the first thing. The second thing is.

really your sales team, your revenue team, whatever you want to call them, ought to be the biggest proponents of conversion rate optimization for the website. They are the biggest beneficiaries. In fact, they should be not just willing, but asking to ante up and put their budget towards CRO because they’re the main benefits. What salesperson wouldn’t want 20 % more qualified leads inbound?

Now let’s go ahead, please.

David Vogelpohl (21:18)

Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. Yeah.

Sahil Patel (21:23)

If we contrast that with you, I’m going back to the root question. Why do these type of conversions versus webinar signups? Because I think if you go to the sales leader and say, hey, we got you 20 % more webinar signups, I think he or she first goes, well, great, you got me from 30 people on an average webinar to 20 to 25. I’m not super excited about that. Also, if they say, well, what was the quality of that? Well, it’s going to be.

three months because we know from webinar sign up to drip campaign to nurture to sales demo takes three months and we know like one out of 50 actually turn into an opportunity. Just who’s going to get that excited about it? You got to do it. That’s an important part of the equation. It’s just not where I would start.

David Vogelpohl (22:12)

Earlier you said that sales leaders and salespeople should be the biggest advocates of CRO. I can think of a situation where it makes them very nervous and that is where you’re optimizing around lead gen.

Versus self -serve. Like I worked at a company called WP Engine We had like self -serve signups on the website and then like, you know schedule or demo or get a quote for like bigger services and If you want to you’re gonna test the the heartiness of your team start that debate around how you should change your pricing and packaging page with the blend of self -serve versus Lead forms and that the company was great. Everybody worked with is awesome

But obviously, this creates tension. So how do you think about that? How do you think about that blend in a B2B scenario where you have both the PLG self -serve motion and the sales -led motion?

Sahil Patel (23:07)

Ooh, you’re stepping. You’re opening a door. That’s tough to walk through, but it’s a really good one. Glad you asked it.

And let’s just assume for a moment that’s the right strategy for any particular company. You want to offer both. It fits your business model. I think the first thing is, I think you run different tests on both of those. And here’s why. They have very different down funnel conversion rates.

Because what you’re trying to do most of the time with PLG is make it as easy as possible to sign up and then give people really rewarding, fulfilling experience when they’re trialing your product. And industry average, what I read is somewhere between 8%, 10 % of free trials turn into a paying customer. And if you’re in that 15 to 20, you’re an all star. And I’ve seen some companies that are in like 3 % to 5%.

That’s a very different game versus the sales motion, which trying to do is just get people to talk to sales, but you don’t want to waste the sales team’s time. And you want to be a little bit more discerning with, hey, if you’re Sahil’s laundromat, why are you signing up for this enterprise software package? You’re going to waste my sales team’s time. So very different set of tasks. The first one is almost primarily about removing friction, getting people.

into that free trial as quickly as possible. And on the sales motion, I often run tests that are much more about improving the quality of the conversions so that the sales team goes, hey, my dance card is full of great prospects, real prospects. They’re in our ICP. They want to talk to me. They’re the kind of people I want to talk to. They have the headcount. They’ve got the revenue. They’ve got the problems that we can solve for.

David Vogelpohl (25:15)

If you separate your tasks on a page like that, obviously what’s good for self -serve and what’s good for sales assisted could be two totally different things, right? The best thing for sales assisted is to just delete the self -serve tiles. And the best thing for self -service is also to do that. The other way.

Sahil Patel (25:25)

Yes.

That’s a different strategy. That’s probably outside of CR conversion rate optimization.

David Vogelpohl (25:37)

Well, I mean, I really love extreme examples in business because it shows the tension. And so then obviously the answer is in the middle, right? And so I’m just curious, like if you have seen anything in the clients you’ve worked with or had any observations, it would be helpful about how to think about that tension. Like the way I’ve approached it in the past is, well, look, it’s all a revenue game. How much revenue did the A or the B shoot out? And…

Who cares about the mix of self -serve and sales assisted? So that’s one way I’ve approached it. I’m just curious like how you’ve seen it then.

Sahil Patel (26:15)

Is the question, David, like, how do you decide whether to hide one or the other? I think I lost you there.

David Vogelpohl (26:22)

I think the question is, if you’re a CRO in a scenario where you have both self -serve and sales assisted, what are some ways to deal with your test to get the most value for the company?

Sahil Patel (26:34)

to get the most value for the company.

David Vogelpohl (26:41)

I mean, how do you make the call? How do you know which one won or lost? If you tank the sales team’s leads with a B, that increased the total revenue, do you call that test? Yeah.

Sahil Patel (26:53)

I would. I would. Now, let me say, so let’s take that use case. You run an A-B test, and it shows why you’re getting fewer conversions. The conversions you do get are higher quality. Higher quality mean they fit the ICP, and the sales team says a higher percentage of these are turning into sales accepted or sales qualified leads. I think that’s the scenario you’re talking about. Is that right? Yeah. So first of all, I think most companies will take that all day long.

David Vogelpohl (27:17)

Yeah, basically.

Sahil Patel (27:22)

and I would call it a win.

Now the answer is there’s a trade -off that you have to measure. Is 10 % fewer leads for 10 % more qualified leads better? Most salespeople will take that.

David Vogelpohl (27:40)

What if you got 10 % less everything for sales, but total revenue went up? These are the types of decisions that I feel CROs have to make. And obviously, if you tank the leads for the sales team, that probably means somebody is going to get laid off somewhere along the way. So that’s a bad thing for the business. And then if you increase revenue but decrease the number of people signing up,

Sahil Patel (27:41)

There’s some extreme though that’s not. Go ahead, please.

Yeah.

David Vogelpohl (28:06)

then your total addressable market will start going down. And so these are the pressures I felt in similar roles in the past. I’m just curious, like, if you, how you think about it. We can keep going too. I was just curious.

Sahil Patel (28:16)

That’s a good one. It’s a good one. Here, I’ll answer this one. Let’s keep going. Let’s assume you mean you can actually attribute the change in revenue to that particular AB test. Is that right? That’s what you’re saying? OK. Yeah. I mean, first of all, I would tell everyone to throw just a word of caution. The further you get from the whatever activity you measured in your CRO test, you should take it with a bigger grain of salt. So.

David Vogelpohl (28:28)

Yeah, let’s assume that I get how tricky that yeah.

Sahil Patel (28:46)

you know, the form fill total, I think 100 % attribution, the impact on sales acceptedly pretty strong. Sales qualified lead also pretty strong. Opportunity, yeah, I’d put a lot of stock in that. Now, you know, kind of the value of the deal.

the whether it closed or not and the rate at which it closed, I would want to see a really big effect size before I drew a conclusion. Like a small nudge.

David Vogelpohl (29:15)

And the further you get.

Sahil Patel (29:19)

I would be hesitant to then claim a big conclusion about the impact. Because there’s so many other things that could have affected it. Do a trade show. You got a bunch of better leads. There’s some seasonal affect, all kinds of things.

David Vogelpohl (29:26)

Yeah, that’s a real…

Yeah, it’s a really good point, especially as you get further down the funnel in those metrics. And of course, those metrics get smaller and smaller. So it makes it, yeah.

Sahil Patel (29:44)

Yeah, your n is smaller. Yeah, I mean, a word of gosh, verily is like, don’t take your statistical significance on your conversion, like the form fill, and just assume that that’s true all the way down the funnel. It’s usually not.

David Vogelpohl (30:00)

Yeah, it definitely gets tricky, especially if you have like wildly different pipeline amounts or something per deal, like average deal size is like some whale will come in and you’re like our B1 and you’re like, well, not really. Just look at the op. You just got lucky. Yeah. So,

Sahil Patel (30:12)

is heavily tilted by this one. Yeah. Great point.

David Vogelpohl (30:19)

So that kind of brings up my next question, which what are the benefits or drawbacks of actually using pipeline and bookings? Like if I go to our CEO and ask about some test, he’s always like, well, how much pipeline and bookings sped out the other side of it? And rightfully so. But like, what are some other drawbacks and benefits to using those down funnel metrics?

Sahil Patel (30:38)

Well, I think that the main benefit is it gets the attention of the C -suite and it increases the likelihood that they will invest in CRO activities on an ongoing basis. That’s, I think, the most important thing and the best reason for using what CRO people call down funnel metrics. The impact not just on the form fill, but on sales, qualified lead, activation, account sign -up, whatever those things are, eventually revenue.

And you got to do it, and you should do it, and you shouldn’t shy away from it. I would lead with it, number one. And number two, the more you talk about it, the more you present it, the more space you have to then put caveats and just say, hey, let’s be realistic about what we know and what we think we know is the impact. And some of this is we have to speculate.

or we have to make a lot of assumptions for these realistic assumptions. But I would not shy away from it. When we do, I’ll say when I work with my clients, the impact on pipeline and on revenue is one of the first things we show them.

David Vogelpohl (31:53)

Yeah, it’s so important because there’s the politics of getting your testing invested in, getting the resources you need, the attention you need. And then as you pointed out earlier, kind of selling the results internally. And if your CEO or other leaders are asking about pipeline or bookings, it’s great to lead with that. I like that. Kind of reminds me of the trick of using Google’s PageSpeed Insights to convince your boss your website should be faster. See, Google thinks it’s slow. Yeah.

Sahil Patel (32:19)

Yes.

It’s good. It’s objective. It’s good. And I think that maybe the lesson learned, the actual insight I would tell everyone is spend a lot of time, maybe more than you think you need to, on testing the assumptions behind your estimated impact of an experiment on pipeline and revenue.

David Vogelpohl (32:44)

So earlier, you had mentioned that in your tests you’ve done and the kind of analysis you do of the 30 ,000 sites doing A-B testing, that product images are beating people images. You tend to. Yeah, I get it’s not absolute. Thank you for that clarification. What are a couple of other winning tactics you’ve detected that people could write down and go try on their own?

Sahil Patel (32:58)

They tend to, yes. They tend to.

Yeah, great question. Let’s do some actionable insights that people can take away. The second one I would do is, this is a great one to do on a home page or a landing page, is a quantitative bold claim headline.

I’ll give you an example. We’re in a client’s landing page, and it said something like this. Next gen.

financial reporting software.

It was just so bland. What does next gen mean? It says what it is. There’s no hook. There’s no benefit. It’s soft. I don’t think it persuades anyone. Just as bad as, you know, the number one financial reporting software. Just number one at what to whom? And no one 10x better than everyone else. No one believes that. It’s just not credible. There’s no benefit.

Now a better headline might be like, close your books 20 % faster than with spreadsheets.

I’m talking about this financial reporting software package. It’s specific, it’s quantitative, and it’s believable because it’s clear it’s 20 % better than what. Maybe it’s 20 % faster than using SAP, if you’re allowed to say it. You may not be allowed to say that. This is a great test to run, one, because it doesn’t require a heavy investment to run the test. You don’t have to do a lot of software development or designers or fancy graphics.

And you can run these tests very quickly at a low cost. Number two, it forces you to really articulate what is the value of our product? What is the hook that gets someone to stop scrolling and say, hey, this is the value to me. It’s not the emotion. It’s the benefit. So that’s number one. Number two.

is go on your website and find anything that’s more than two lines, like two line breaks. Turn it into bullet points. We call that skimmability.

David Vogelpohl (35:26)

is the benefit that you feel there? Like I feel like, I guess you’ve seen this in test results, that there’s different schools of thought on this. One thought is there’s skimmers and there’s readers and long form content is good for the readers and bulleted bold content is good for the skimmers. And there’s tension here too, when you create a landing page, cause you’re like, well, wait a minute, some.

Sahil Patel (35:32)

Mm -hmm.

David Vogelpohl (35:52)

I know our technical buyers, they like to read, you know, things like that. How do you how do you think about that? Like that’s that’s a bold claim even even in and of itself.

Sahil Patel (36:02)

So I’ll put some context around it first. I’m talking about a landing page, a home page, product page, not a blog, which is a blog should feel a little bit more conversational, a little bit more prose. You’re trying to get some people to think. But I think for everything else, home page, pricing page, demo request page, solution page, landing page especially.

No one is reading. Exactly 0 % of your audience wants to read. They’re all skimmers. And if you have any doubt about it, just go to YouTube. Go to TikTok. There’s a place for long -form content. It’s very valuable, high engagement. That’s why they call it long -form content. That is not what people are doing on your website. You’re fooling yourself if you think that’s what people want to do. Now.

David Vogelpohl (36:56)

So it’s.

Sahil Patel (36:56)

If you want to put that, I’ll just add a part. If you want someone to skim, and they like, and they want more, then take them to a place with more detail. Put that below the fold. Find a link. Read more here. You take them to your blog page or your detail page. Yeah, there’s a part of your audience that wants that when they’re ready for it. But don’t start there. No one wants a wall of text.

David Vogelpohl (37:20)

So it seems like you’re kind of positioning, and I’m going to paraphrase a little bit, that your home page and pages like that kind of have two jobs, to give you the gist and to point you in the right direction, where.

Sahil Patel (37:31)

Actually, I might change that a little bit. Your home page is there to get people to stop scrolling.

Full stop.

Once you’ve done that, then you do those other two things.

David Vogelpohl (37:48)

Ooh, I like that variation. And then my other follow -up question real quick on your bold claim one, I thought it was interesting the way you described that, you know, close your books 20 % faster. I feel like most people think of bold claims as like representing their scale, you know, over 2 million businesses trust whoever, you know, like that kind of thing over like an outcome oriented bold stat. Did you choose that example like that on purpose or do you think, okay.

Sahil Patel (38:13)

I did. I did. Bolt claims should be a direct benefit to the user. You then support that claim with the copywriting on the page. One of those points can be social proof.

Our data shows bold claim, especially when it’s quantitative and specific, with support. And one of those support things is social proof, like 2 million happy customers, whatever, quadrant leader according to Gartner, five stars on Capterra. Those help people believe the bold claim. But the reverse is not as effective. If you lead with a,

you know, four stars on Capterra and then the sub bullet is close the books 20 % faster. It doesn’t perform as well. Yeah.

David Vogelpohl (39:05)

It doesn’t make sense as a story, even. Yeah. All right, that’s cool. Last question. If someone wants to get in touch or see what you’re up to, how should they do that?

Sahil Patel (39:17)

The best place is on LinkedIn. I post every Tuesday and Wednesday at 7 .30 AM Eastern.

David Vogelpohl (39:25)

Ooh, very scheduled there. I like it. Sounds like you.

Sahil Patel (39:28)

It is, and I try to keep everything short, sweet. You can get something from it in about 60 seconds.

David Vogelpohl (39:37)

Excellent, excellent. Well, thanks so much for joining and sharing today, Sahil. So glad to have you here.

Sahil Patel (39:43)

David, thank you for having me. This is a lot of fun.

David Vogelpohl (39:46)

If you’d like to learn more about what Sahil is up to, you can also visit spiralyze.com. Thanks everyone for joining us on the Growth Stage Podcast. Again, I’m your host David Vogelpohl. I support the digital product community here at FastSpring, and I love to bring the best of the community to you here on the Growth Stage Podcast. Thanks everybody.

The post EP22: Proven A/B Test Winners for B2B CRO appeared first on FastSpring.

In this episode of Growth Stage, we interview affiliate marketing veteran and attribution animal Adam Riemer of Adam Riemer Marketing about his thoughts on: 

• What proper affiliate marketing looks like.
• How to weed out fraudsters & shady attribution affiliates.
• How to go about recruiting the RIGHT affiliates to help drive meaningful growth in your business.

If you’ve set up an affiliate program and don’t know what to do next, or you’re looking for tips on how to tame your existing affiliate program, don’t miss this episode of Growth Stage. Listen or watch now!

Are you looking for a merchant of record that will help you grow your subscription software business? FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, video game, and other digital goods businesses, including software management, VAT and sales tax management, global payments, and consumer support. Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

Jump to video.  |  Jump to transcript.

Podcast Full Interview: Audio

Listen online or find it on more podcast services.

Podcast Full Interview: Video

Transcript

David Vogelpohl (00:04)

Hello everyone and welcome to Growth Stage, a podcast by FastSpring where we discuss how digital product companies grow revenue, build meaningful products, and increase the value of their business. I’m your host, David Vogelpohl. I support the digital product community as part of my role at FastSpring. And I love to bring the best of the community to you here on the Growth Stage podcast. In today’s episode, I’m really excited for this topic.

It was a bit of conversation in a Slack community I’m part of and really wanted to bring this topic live here on the podcast. We’re going to be talking about advanced affiliate marketing for SaaS software and digital product companies specifically and joining us for that conversation. I’m proud to bring to Growth Stage Mr. Adam Riemer. Adam, welcome to Growth Stage.

Adam Riemer (00:56)

Hey Dave, thanks for having me.

David Vogelpohl (00:58)

Awesome. So glad to have you here. And of course, I’ve known you for forever and a day and really looking forward to picking your brain here to talk about advanced strategies for digital product companies. And for those watching and listening, Adam is a digital marketing and affiliate marketing veteran. He’s an attribution animal. He’s really well known for proper attribution models and putting value in commissions where value are due.

and he’s going to share his thoughts on what proper affiliate marketing looks like, how to weed out fraudsters and shady affiliates and how to go about recruiting the right affiliates to help drive meaningful growth in your business. So Adam, I know these are topics that a lot of folks are interested in. And so I’m really excited to have you here. So Adam, I’m going to ask you the first question I ask every guest on Growth Stage.

What was the first thing you bought online?

Adam Riemer (02:01)

I remember. So it was in, I think, 1999 or 2000. I heard a record at a nightclub in Pittsburgh that I really liked and I’d already started DJing. And they told me it was only available from one store. And that store happened to be in the Netherlands called Dance Grooves. And so I had to order the LP to be shipped overseas, like…

I think I was still on an AOL connection and I actually ordered the first thing I purchased was a vinyl record to spin Adorave from Dance Grooves. I thought I was going to be a CD but no, that was the first purchase I had ever actually made.

David Vogelpohl (02:45)

It’s actually been a bit of a theme of people have answered this question as I’ve asked it, is it like that extreme need for something and only being able to get it online? That sounds really interesting. So how long was it after that roughly before you bought music directly, like a digital song?

Adam Riemer (03:08)

I didn’t really have digital back then because iPods weren’t out yet and neither were the… iPod was the first one, yeah, and then it became the iPhone. So yeah, it was a long time before. I was still burning CDs and everything. The first digital product I bought probably wasn’t until the last 15 years.

David Vogelpohl (03:21)

Nice.

Okay, makes sense.

Adam Riemer (03:30)

I just, I really like holding books. I really like, I don’t know, I liked having the movie collection. Now I’ve switched. I prefer my movies to just be a couple of clicks away, but I still love books. Like I don’t find the same pleasure out of an reader that I do holding the actual book, flipping the page, going into the bookstore. I love that. I do shop for books online a lot, especially if I’m on the road and I rip through one, I need the next one delivered. It makes it easier to go online, but I really like holding books.

David Vogelpohl (03:59)

Nice. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about Adam Riemer Marketing and what you do there. And I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you’re the owner and CEO or something like that. Is that right, Adam?

Adam Riemer (04:12)

Yeah, at least for now.

I need to find somebody that can actually manage it for me so I can do the things that I love, which is the marketing and working with my team where I fall flat is working with the clients because I, as you said, I tend to be a little bit hard headed and I get a bit passionate and that’s not always a good thing. It’s a good thing that I’m passionate about the work, but not always for the clients. So what we specialize in what our strengths are is conversion rate optimization, top funnel and value adding affiliate programs.

SEO work as well as content marketing and strategy. We do help companies with their lifecycle marketing which includes email and win back and at different stages in the customer journey what are their needs now and how do you develop and that includes consumer products as well as B2B, lead gen and the service space.

David Vogelpohl (05:03)

Excellent. So kind of a full service digital marketing agency, if you will. And I heard you mentioned as part of that value added affiliate marketing. And so this is kind of a nice segue into my first question on the topic of this podcast, which is what does value added or proper affiliate marketing mean to you? What defines that?

Adam Riemer (05:29)

So the way that we define value adding is would the sale have occurred without the affiliate touch point? Did the affiliate touch point actually have some form of financial gain or does it create a financial loss or is it a neutral financial touch point?

So an example of that would be if all of the sales are happening at the very end of the sale and the transaction, somebody’s just looking for a coupon code, if you removed them from the affiliate program, would that consumer still come through and would they be coming through your funnel and converting at the same rate? If the answer is yes, which most of the time it turns out to be yes, it’s a no value affiliate and you’re probably taking a financial hit.

if that same affiliate also has top funnel traffic suppose you sell t -shirts or suppose you’re a CRM software company and you are showing up from an influencer that does show up for the coupon phrase but also has a lot of traffic coming in from their YouTube channel around the best CRM systems how to optimize your sales funnels and they’re funneling off of that traffic that you cannot reach on your own at that point you have to test is the top

funnel more profitable than the bottom funnel and by allowing that bottom funnel and am I chasing away smaller partners that know they’re going to lose some sales to that.

So it’s a really fine tuned game of cat and mouse, but it’s easy to track. The one thing you’re going to run into is nobody has your best interests in mind as a business owner or as a marketing team. The networks make money off of the actual touch point and conversions that come through their network by allowing this to happen and saying, well, it’s part of the customer journey. They make more money. So they’re going to be encouraging you to work with some of these bad behaviors, use your data and understand how it goes.

One other touch point is a review.

A review does add value and a review can help convince a customer to convert with you over another, same with comparisons. But what happens if you would use an ambassador instead of an affiliate and you would help that ambassador optimize for your terms? That ambassador now shows up for your brand press review. You have to pay a one -time fee and a one -time fee only. You no longer pay commissions every single time a customer’s in the review. You have to pay an upfront cost.

But in the long run, you save a lot of money because you’re no longer paying commissions over and over and over. And now you have the chance for a full value add in top funnel affiliate program.

David Vogelpohl (08:03)

So as I think of folks that are running digital product businesses like SaaS and software, it’s a lot of companies that are 50-, 100-person teams or less. And so they look at affiliate marketing from the outside, and they see this complexity, and they see this need for audits and this need to be picky with who they partner with. And I really like how you simplified it in that statement when you said,

Would the sale have occurred without the affiliate touch point? And you gave a variety of examples there, and I love extremes for a minute. So a really bad affiliate would be maybe someone with malware that’s stuffing cookies in browsers. So that would, that sale would have occurred if that bad actor had not have done that. So that’s an example of someone doing something really bad. And then you were talking about some gray zones a little bit where.

You had maybe a coupon site that was primarily, you know, getting their sales at the end of the sale. And then you were talking, I think about comparison and review sites a little bit where maybe it’s a little bit more in the middle of the decision process. But I like that litmus test of would the sale have occurred without the affiliate touch point. And I guess where your point is, is if the answer is no, then this is where it falls outside the realm of proper.

But when the answer is yes or maybe, how do you think about that blended value? Is it like all commissions are none or do you think about splitting it up or maybe weighting it based on the level of value that you think affiliate’s driving?

Adam Riemer (09:44)

I’d definitely lower the commission if it’s a lower value touch point. And that’s a proper thing to do. It’s the same as when you’re going with lifetime commissions on recurring. What if the person promoted you for a year and then decided to stop should they still be getting paid six and seven years later when they’re promoting competitors. That’s up to you to update your program terms and conditions and make it very clear.

you could add in a clause that says if you stop promoting us and haven’t driven new customers within a year, we’re going to turn off the lifetime commissions.

we’re looking for long term relationships and stability, not one and done referrals to friends where you make money forever. This is a partnership relationship. So it’s up to you to determine. You could set up attribution lines where if there’s a top funnel click and a mid funnel click, you give the top funnel 75% in the mid funnel 25% of the sale and that’s going to split it nicely for you. But if that top funnel has room to grow and someone else comes along and offers them more money and has an

equal average order value and has an equal type of commission, they’re going to be more profitable. So you’re going to lose that top funnel partner. So you have to tread lightly. You have to make exceptions. If it’s a no value, low value, I just say kick them out. Why lose money? You could be actually profitable with your PPC campaigns. For example, there’s a keyword that’s sometimes profitable, sometimes not. Track the low value conversions to see if there’s a PPC click too. We just had this happen.

Turned out if we remove those low value and no value partners, PPC became profitable and we could reinvest that money into the profitable keywords.

David Vogelpohl (11:23)

Okay, so really focusing both on the attractiveness to the right affiliates and then leveraging your budget where it’s most profitable for you relative to the affiliates, especially you’re spending your time on. So again, if I’m a smaller company operating an affiliate program, I guess I’m gonna wanna be really choosy about who I let into it and think about their role in the funnel.

and how much I want to reward that. And then you also kind of brought up, well, there’s other people trying to get those rankings or the spots on those affiliates web pages as well. And so I got to think about that competitive aspect of it. Okay, so we’ve talked about affiliates that can cause problems, affiliates that do very bad things like cookie stuffing or affiliates that just don’t provide a lot of value. So what type of affiliates do you like focusing on recruiting?

Which ones do you want to sign up for your program or which ones do you help your clients actively reach out to recruit?

Adam Riemer (12:27)

So we go after the evergreen ones first, ones that have the ability to show up inside a YouTube search result, inside a Google search result, or a long-term social media channel with a relevant audience. By that I mean Pinterest has a different audience than TikTok, than Facebook, than Instagram. And so if your audience isn’t there, who cares if they have a million followers, you’re not going to reach them. So we go after the ones that have the long-term reach.

a webpage or a YouTube video has the opportunity to drive traffic for a few years versus an Instagram post which might last for a few days. By building the program first with evergreen copy or recruiting insights that are topically relevant and able to show up for those phrases, we’re building a nice foundation. After that, we go after the short-term boosts.

So that would be your influencers, your Instagramers, your LinkedIn people, because a LinkedIn post with a new algorithm could last for a few months. We recruit them and we line up posts about the right times a year, like right before busy season, during busy season, or at slow seasons where they may be able to influence a boost in sales. And that way we can constantly try to hit our numbers. It takes a long time to do because you have to recruit, then you have to get them to sign up, then you have to get them to agree.

Once the content’s created, for example, with the evergreen, you have to then hope it actually shows up in the search engines. Once it does, you have to hope the readers click to your link and then you have to apply your conversion rate. So after all of that, if you have a 5 % conversion rate, you have to wait till 20 unique visitors have clicked through to even have the chance at a first sale. So it’s a very, very long-term thing.

David Vogelpohl (14:08)

Makes sense on the long game. If I boil that down, thinking about the types of affiliates you were talking about going after, it really sounded like it boiled down to people publishing content. And obviously, people publishing content that’s relevant to a recommendation for a particular type of product.

The word affiliate is a big word. Matter of fact, in a lot of affiliate networks, they’re called publishers. But affiliates can take different flavors. With SaaS software and digital product companies, do you find that there are technology partners that use affiliate marketing to refer customers for products that might be symbiotic? Like maybe I have an SEO product that I’m going to recommend some email marketing product as part of my flow. Is that the other, do you look at?

recruiting those types of affiliates as well.

Adam Riemer (15:04)

Yes, anyone that has a relevant audience could be an affiliate. So I’ll give you a few examples. Some of our B2B clients have perks portals and you’ll find affiliate links in there. Other times when I’m speaking of conferences, I’ll disclose that this is an affiliate link and I’ll put up a QR code or a URL on the screen so people can do it and they can follow, people can click,

start a trial and have an experience because the tool or the software is relevant to the presentation or the workshop I’m giving and the way to get that exposure is to have me as a customer and as an affiliate. Others do a loyalty and rewards program with a cross promotion so there’s a lot of different ways you can do it. There’s also email blasts with complimentary companies. You just want to make sure that open rates are a very skewed and incorrect metric. You want the actual click -throughs and conversion rates.

just like an influencer. They only have influence if people are taking actions. The action you’re most interested in as an affiliate is taking out their wallets.

David Vogelpohl (16:01)

I like it. I like it. One of my favorite sayings is sort by conversions. And it sounds like you share that sentiment on some level. So when we talk about recruiting, I think there’s like the idea of like, where do you get a list to recruit from? And how do you go about that? One of my favorite approaches whenever I take over an affiliate program is to look at the short tail keywords that we’re bidding on and search and just see who ranks for them for like a list.

But what do you recommend? How do people start to build a list of affiliates to recruit? And then how do they go about organizing and pulling all that off? They’re using CRM’s help me understand how you like to approach that.

Adam Riemer (16:46)

So what we do is we will use that same PPC data and SEO data because if you already have the top ranking, what are the rankings below you? Anyone that’s a publisher is a potential affiliate and we know that the conversion rate is high. That gives us the ability to create a forecast. If you add us in here, the potential income you could be making over your CPM ads on the publisher site is X, Y, and Z per month and at that point,

we’ve made a strong case for why they should include our client within that post and the money they could be making.

We use BuzzStream that’s our preferred tool for recruitment and it doesn’t actually do the recruitment on its own although I believe they have something in beta right now but it does give our team own ability to share the messages what’s working what’s not working yes we’ve already reached out to this person so don’t touch them I’m already on it or you can reassign it hey this is better suited to David’s needs and David’s skill set so I’m going to tag and pass it over to them it’s just a really nice funnel and system to cross

remote and track your recruitment efforts.

David Vogelpohl (17:50)

So this sounds like, I mean, it’s effectively a sales process. It’s just what you’re effectively selling as a partnership for the revenue for the affiliate, revenue share of the affiliate commissions. Is that a good way to think about affiliate recruiting? Is that it’s very similar to a sales process with like an account management backend or how do you think about that?

Adam Riemer (18:10)

Yeah, unlike a backlink for SEO where you just need the link to your website, with affiliate, you have to get that link and you have to get revenue from it. So it’s all about the relationship. It’s about building trust. It’s about ensuring there’s some form of gain for both companies. It has to be mutually beneficial to work and be copacetic.

David Vogelpohl (18:31)

You know, thinking about using SEO and targeted keyword data to discover affiliates, are there any other, like do you use like Ahrefs looking for like backlinks or how do you, what are some other discovery methods for like affiliate recruiting lists?

Adam Riemer (18:45)

So I personally don’t use Ahrefs, it’s a good tool. The services that they offered, they canceled, they lost their license or something. So I closed my account down years ago, but I know a lot of people that love them and I have a couple of clients that love them. So I wouldn’t count them out. I actually use SEMrush, which is their biggest competitor,

for a lot of tracking and data and discovery. But if you want for specifically SEO style at— affiliates, Majestic is going to be your good one to go to. And I don’t use Majestic, but I do highly recommend them for this. And what you can do with Majestic is you can plug in your competitors affiliate link style, as long as the merchant ID is first in the path. And you can actually find out exactly who’s promoting you and generate a list because it’s the same thing as a backlink profile.

David Vogelpohl (19:16)

Yeah

Adam Riemer (19:34)

which is just all of the links that the database can find and Majestic has the largest in the world.

You can also go in and find citations, mentions of the competitor’s name and then you can do is this on an .edu site, is this on a major media site, and you can funnel through there and figure out where they’re being mentioned with a direct backlink that helps their SEO. By replacing those backlinks with affiliate links, one you’re causing damage to your competitor’s SEO making it easier for you to climb and replace them in the search engines, AND you’re taking the traffic they were getting for free and

you are now getting that traffic. The benefit to the person that was featuring them is they can make money whereas they were losing money previously by sending the traffic for free. So it’s a really compelling place and it crosses multiple channels. If you do get onto the major media and you haven’t been featured before there’s a chance you can now feature that logo in your PR bar which is a trust builder for consumers and may help increase your conversion rates. So affiliate has an impact on multiple channels as long as you’re doing it smart.

David Vogelpohl (20:42)

Awesome. That sounds like some good recruitment and list building tips. I know that that’s a deep well to draw from, and it’s interesting how many opportunities there are to surface when you’re going deep on affiliate recruitment. You talked before about types of affiliates that you like to keep out of the program, those that don’t add a lot of, you know,

I guess value at the bottom of the funnel or to the transaction, would it happen without their presence kind of thing? So if you put yourself in the shoes of, you know, an SMB technology company and they wanted to keep it lean and mean in the beginning, what sort of affiliates would you recommend they say, you know, no, or not now to?

Adam Riemer (21:33)

I would avoid the review sites first and I would look at the types. I would go for complimentary companies. That’s the first one. Number two, look for the people in that space that have email lists and try to get a quarterly blast or a feature. You may have to start with a media buy at first and then when you see the conversions that come through, like look, if you became an affiliate, you would have had this many conversions.

Now you have to remember one thing, an email list is the same email list. It’s constantly growing, which is good, but these people had already seen your business before, so the results may be smaller each time you do it. At the same time, there’s a certain amount of touch points that have to happen in between. So that would be a really good one. And then look at the YouTubers, especially in the SMB and SaaS space, because they have the opportunity to rank in Google search as well as on YouTube. And a lot of people are looking for solutions and a visual and verbal queue

is a really good way to learn how to do something whether it’s a B2B software system enterprise or small business or even fixing something in your house. Having that visual builds the trust and shows you what it’s going to be like to use if it’s going to be adoptable and adaptable to your clients teams and then if you are the one being demonstrated in the video it builds the trust that your software really is a solution.

David Vogelpohl (22:53)

Adam in that response you had mentioned avoiding review sites in the beginning and I feel like many of the technology product companies I’ve worked with over the years. It’s like one of the biggest sort affiliates in their niche is like. I don’t know “top 10 X service” in their review sites, but they’re they’re ranking for like

“top provider does X types of queries.” Do you recommend folks avoid that or are you thinking avoid it where they say like I have a review of your brand? The latter?

Adam Riemer (23:28)

 was your company, David, I would say avoid letting people and going after sites that say FastSpring reviews. This is just your own customers. This is just your own traffic that they’re intercepting. If it’s the best software to do X, Y, and Z, that’s something that adds value. It doesn’t have your brand, but it features your brand as a solution. So that’s a touch point that’s going to bring someone to you.

if they also have a review after but that review is maybe 20% of the traffic coming through and that other 80% has a really strong conversion rate then I would say both are fine and keep them just make sure there’s advertising disclosures on the top of each page.

David Vogelpohl (24:08)

Now, yeah, I was going to say on the disclosure side, so like when you when you have these affiliates that are running review sites about your brand and you’re paying commissions and really in any case, you need disclosures that it’s a paid ad, but in particular when you have these types of reviews or assessments, do you have anything else to add on that front? I’m guessing that’s pretty important.

Adam Riemer (24:33)

It’s, I’m not a lawyer. I’m not licensed to give any legal advice in any way, shape or form. So what I’ve been told by different clients and each client has different policies is to just make sure it’s clear, concise, visible, and states exactly what happens. So if the list and if the rankings on the list are based on how much the affiliates making, well,

David Vogelpohl (24:35)

Right here, yeah.

Adam Riemer (24:58)

they need to disclose that. It needs to say the amount we make influences the review and where they are in our list. Just like they have to say, I’m getting paid to feature you. If they were just featuring you on that list out of the kindness of their heart, they weren’t going to make any money in commissions, probably don’t need a disclosure because there’s no compensation. They just genuinely think you’re a good service. But if there’s money, whether it’s free product, a review, a year subscription or a trial account,

that has to be disclosed and before the brand is exposed to the consumer.

David Vogelpohl (25:31)

Yes, so if I if I really like a product and I write a review about it, but I want to make money from the review and I use an affiliate link, I can do that as long as I disclose it effectively on the affiliate side. And then you were also referencing other types of sites where the ranking is based on the revenue. Now, I think a lot of people think that means the commissions that they’re paid by the affiliates. I’m going to pay you $100 to sign up. My competitor is going to pay you $50 to sign up or $200 to sign up.

But it’s more than that, right? It’s it’s like the number they sell and the total amount of commissions they make, not just the amount per unit is, I mean, is this a factor in how they’ll rank the revenue from these review listings?

Adam Riemer (26:17)

Yes, exactly. So most of those listicle sites and most of the media companies, they have an internal EPC, earnings per click, which is separate from a network EPC, which is also a flawed and fake metric. And what happens with their internal earnings per click? They’re taking the amount of money they make, which is a combination of the total people that have clicked through. So if everyone at your company is clicking on those links, you’ve just lowered the earnings per click.

David Vogelpohl (26:30)

Haha.

Adam Riemer (26:44)

if they’re getting one click in a sale each time because it’s a review or a coupon the earnings per click is going to be massively high. So that’s why they break it down by page and if that page is generating a high EPC the algorithm and some of them are now automating this you may see in the morning you’re in the fifth position and in the afternoon you’re in the second position and at night you’re in the tenth position that’s because their algorithm is automatically updating the template and moving these around to where and when they’re most profitable.

And now there’s actually some affordable software out there. I think they’re called a Affilimate. They came across my radar about a year ago and they built one of those tools that the major media companies use for consumers, or not for consumers, but for some of the smaller publishing houses and affiliates. And I was blown away and that takes a lot. I’ve been doing this for 20 years. So they are building something pretty cool and special.

David Vogelpohl (27:14)

So it’s a.

So if you want to get listed, and whether they use that tool or something else, but if you want to get listed on one of these sites, it’s a game, right? It’s your price point, how much in commissions you’re willing to pay, your ability to convert those users, and all of that together results in an amount of money for them. So you might have higher commissions by three times as much, but if you convert less than three times as often, you’ll have a worse deal with somebody paying lower commissions. And so…

Adam Riemer (28:08)

Correct and use, sorry, you said something interesting there which is your price point. Having the lowest price point means lowest commission if you’re not doing flat fee. So having a medium or a competitive price point or being the brand and having really strong branding and a brand presence could cause a similar conversion rate and because you have a higher price point even with an equal commission, if the conversion rate’s the same, you generate a higher EPC for the affiliate.

David Vogelpohl (28:10)

Yeah, go ahead.

Adam Riemer (28:37)

But as a founder and an owner, you have to remember your baby’s not that special and it’s not the prettiest baby out there. So you have to think of it from a consumer standpoint. Does the consumer understand the brand value? And if not, you need to work with your marketing team and your branding team to say, here’s what we could be saying. How do we get the consumers to understand this better? And sometimes it’s to remove the branding and focus on the selling points and the value, which means getting rid of all the fluff and all the buzzwords. That’s something very hard for founders to let go of.

David Vogelpohl (29:08)

Yeah, it’s a good point. Like, “What do you do?” is a pretty simple question that we answer in very complex ways. My last question for you here today is we’ve talked about what running a proper affiliate program looks like. We talked about recruiting, building lists, reaching out.

What when I have an affiliate and they’re part of my program, how do you think about getting them to keep referring customers or to refer more customers? Like how do you think about the management of those relationships?

Adam Riemer (29:43)

I keep notes on every single affiliate inside their affiliate accounts. That way if something ever happens to me or if I stop managing and I have a team member take over, they’ll see exactly what happened and one of those notes is motivators for that partner.

We have some partners that are making 10 and $30 ,000 a month and they don’t care about the money they’re making enough even though a higher commission is always going to be attractive. Sometimes they just want like a nice food treat and that’s when Gold Belly comes in and I’ll ship them something really cool or something fun like there’s one of my favorite gifts to send is the not fried chicken ice cream. It looks like a piece of fried chicken but it’s actually a really good ice cream and the bone inside the chicken drumstick is like a Kit Kat type of

candy. And so things like that. It keeps us in front of them It keeps the goodwill going and then other people are impacted by money. So what you’ll do is you’ll run cash incentives, you’ll run bonuses if you can hit this goal over last year what you did, then we’ll pay you this type of bonus. Some people want recognition and I’ve sent trophies and plaques for them to hang on the wall if they’re a consultant and they— like a divorce lawyer, for example

and they’re sending people in for housing and to get a new house and real estate leads. What we’ll do is we’ll put a top XYZ company partner plaque for them to put on the wall, which builds trust in the brand. And the person may actually start filling it out from their office through their affiliate link. Everyone’s motivated differently and keep track of their motivators cater to those. It’s not a one size fits all, especially in the B2B space.

David Vogelpohl (31:13)

I like it. What a great point to end on. Adam, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been really educational. And as always, I love nerding out with you about affiliate marketing. Of course, of course. If you’d like to learn more about what Adam is up to, you can check him out on LinkedIn or visit adamriemer.me, R-I-E-M-E-R is how you spell Riemer. Thanks everyone for listening to the Growth Stage Podcast.

Adam Riemer (31:24)

Thank you for having me, David.

David Vogelpohl (31:41)

If you’d like to learn more about FastSpring, you can check us out at FastSpring.com. Thanks everybody and have a great day.

The post EP21: Advanced Affiliate Marketing for Saas, Software, and Digital Products appeared first on FastSpring.

Austin is already home to some of FastSpring’s key team members, including our Chief Revenue Officer Mark Kole and Chief Marketing Officer David Vogelpohl. They are joined by essential members of our product, engineering, and sales teams. This established presence has paved the way for a more considerable expansion in the region.

Our new location will be a dedicated office space within the vibrant Industrious coworking location at 301 Congress Avenue. This location places FastSpring’s team at the heart of Austin’s thriving technology community. By embedding ourselves within this dynamic environment, we aim to foster closer connections with our customers and immerse ourselves fully in Austin technology.

FastSpring CRO Mark Kole says, “I’m proud to have contributed to the Austin technology community for over 15 years, and I’m thrilled to expand FastSpring’s presence here. Our presence in Austin will allow us to take advantage of a great talent pool, a vibrant local startup scene, and industry-defining events like SXSW.”

As FastSpring continues to grow, our focus remains on integrating deeply with technology communities around the world, ensuring that we stay in tune with the customers we serve. Our Austin expansion is just the latest step in our ongoing global journey of Powering the Digital Economy®.

FastSpring is a merchant of record that provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, video games, and other digital products businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

The post FastSpring Opens Austin Office, Strengthening Global Footprint appeared first on FastSpring.