vWorker Site Improvements (and Bug Fixes) Blog: Rollout 2011-04-20 Part 2

1) New Affiliate program:

a) Enhancement: The affiliate program was updated to increase the payouts dramatically and give it the best long-term payout in the industry. Formerly (in version 1) the affiliate program paid only for the first project and for employers only. The new affiliate program (version 2) pays for:

i) Both employers and workers

ii) Pays over and over again (for the customer’s life-time).

This allows affiliates to easily build an ever increasing income stream!

(Note: all referrals referred as of today will automatically be in the new (more generously paying) version 2.) Also, the affiliate program links, tracking and reporting have all been improved (as described below).

iii) The affiliate help page was changed to show full info on the new program. This includes all the payout information:

and a comparison between the program and other programs in the industry:

iv) Clicking on “More” on any of the 7 year totals, shows how they break down over time:

b) Affiliate registration (new “referral welcome message” feature):

i) A new screen appears after payment information, where the affiliate can specify a message to show referrals:

ii) This is how it looks to the new referral:

This not only lets the affiliate put a custom message to the referrals, but also lets them verify that their affiliate links are correct (and working). If they see their own welcome message, then they know they are correct.

1) An affiliate can also access the above screen after signup, by using the new option in the affiliate menu:

2) Note: a pre-existing bug in the affiliate menu was fixed.

Bug: click on the payment option (for example ‘paypal’) in the menu, sent the user through the worker signup screens, rather than the affiliate screens.

Fix: this was fixed.

c. Improved affiliate linking (Under ‘my account’, ‘my affiliate links’):

i) Custom links tool: The tool’s user interface was completely revamped to allow easier creation of any of the best converting (profitable) links to the site:

ii) New Feature: “Track referrals with a campaign name”:
The affiliate can now track multiple campaigns with a campaign name, to determine which are the most profitable to them. They can embed the campaign in their link using the tool:

Then, when the referral clicks on the link, the campaign shows up in the affiliate’s ‘my pipeline’ report:

Information on this was added to the affiliate FAQ as well:

iii. Project Ad

1. New features have been added to the project ad to allow the affiliate to choose different ad types (newest project, highest paying project, most popular project, random project) and to optionally filter the ads by category id:

The help icon shows additional information, including a popup link that gives the affiliate all the id #’s for the different categories:

iv. New: Hire me badge:

1. This new feature lets the affiliate create a badge for their website that lets users hire them, as well as display their vWorker record easily.

a. This new option is displayed on the “my affiliate links” page:

b. The affiliate can choose from a number of options to customize the look of the badge:

c. Then after clicking “generate badge” they can see the badge and copy the HTML code for inclusion on their site:

v. New: Raw data Feeds:

1. New link on affiliate links page shows affiliate how to create a mash-up or custom application using the RSS Feeds:

d. Improved affiliate reporting

i. Employer and worker profiles: To increase the visibility of the process to affiliates tracking their pipeline, the affiliate referrer is now shown on all profiles.