So here we go.

You've always been able to run all your sites from a single installation of SmartDD if you wanted to. But it's also fine if you want to install it on each site, and that's what I tended to do myself so I suppose things weren't quite right for using it on a single site and managing all your other sites through it.

But with v3 we've made it so that it's really to your advantage to do so. Now you can keep all your customer details and all your order details in one big database, and easily export the data into a spreadsheet to do some analysis. (Well, just customers for now, but I've made a note to add orders too.)

There's now not one but FOUR ways to get customers and orders into SmartDD.

#1 – PayPal
#2 – ClickBank
#3 – Free sign up to a mailing list
#4 – Manually

That means you can have one site (or eBay) selling goods by PayPal, another by ClickBank, and another where you can give products away in return for an email address. (You ALWAYS use double opt-in right? Let's be responsible folks.)

It also means you can easily give your products to your Joint Venture partners *securely* by manually creating an order. It takes about 30 seconds or less to add a customer (depending on how fast you can type or copy and paste), and then a few seconds more to create an order and tell SmartDD to send out an email to them.

You also have a choice of two different affiliate schemes you can run.

#1 – PayPal email address
#2 – ClickBank

Up until the introduction of the PayPal email address method with the release of the 7 Dollar Script, I'd only ever seen something called "split pay" using PayPal. The split pay method is a nightmare and involved your customer making TWO payments, one to your affiliate and one to you before they got your product. There were too many things that could go wrong (refunds – erk!), and needless to say, no-one was happy with that and it wasn't long before PayPal said no more.

But the 7 Dollar Method was a good 'un and works on the principle of rotating the full amount of the payment between the site owner and the affiliate. It all averages out over a few sales.

Your affiliates simply create a URL that looks like this:-

http://www.domain.com/?e=PayPalEmailAddress

and then depending on the percentage commission being paid, they get some of the sales paid directly into their PayPal account. If a refund is required and it happens to be the affiliate who received that payment, it's tough, but they're the ones who have to refund it – PayPal is quite definite about that. They're not going to chase someone who hasn't received any money, they're going to chase the person who did.

Since then there have been a few scripts that use this method, and we introduced it into SmartDD v3, with a slight modification. Even if the commission payment is set to 100%, the admin gets all of the first payment, and the affiliate gets all the rest. We did that to stop people from getting a product for free by buying from their own business account with their personal account.

Using ClickBank is even easier. First you copy and paste the return code from SmartDD into your ClickBank sellers account(s).

Then all you need do is create the publisher name in SmartDD and add the secret key that ClickBank supply you with. Next, go to the saleable items panel in SmartDD and create or amend an item, select the publisher and enter the number of the product you're selling via ClickBank – usually number 1.

Lastly, go to the code generator for that item, and generate the code to add to your sales button on your sales page.

Easy.

Your affiliates then use a normal CB hoplink and get paid by ClickBank as usual a couple of weeks after the sale.

At sale time, ClickBank sends SmartDD the transaction details and SmartDD generates an order. On your customers return from ClickBank (via the return code you pasted into your sellers account), SmartDD redirects them to the download page and also sends them an email with the transaction details and a link to the download page for future reference.

Job done.

The download pages in all cases can be on your single site installation of SmartDD, with the payment buttons etc being on all your satellite sites. The download pages themselves are all held within the SmartDD database, and can be created to look just like your original sales page on the satellite site.

All you need to do is create the download page with an HTML editor (I prefer Dreamweaver) using your satellite site template and make sure that all the links to objects such as graphics and CSS files are direct URLs rather than relative one. So you *wouldn't* use:-

/images/header.jpg

to refer to your header graphic, you'd use:-

http://www.satellite-domain.com/images/header.jpg

That way the main site with SmartDD installed on it would be able to display the graphics correctly from your satellite site. And of course the same applies for the CSS files.

Once that download template is created in SmartDD, it doesn't matter where the order has come from, the generated download page will work perfectly.

As you can see, we've put a lot of thought into making SmartDD as flexible as possible, and we've got some more goodies to come.

Let's not forget the existing eBay functionality too, and of course Kunaki integration.

The next minor release of SmartDD will contain membership abilities and subscriptions support.

Then we'll be able to truly say that SmartDD is a cross between the Butterfly Marketing script, JV Manager / Fantasos, the 7 Dollar Script, RAPS, Auction Acrobat and Disc Mojo all rolled into one, and all usable from a single site.

Is that good value for money or what?

Is it? Then go promote it as such.

-Frank Haywood

We think most people using TicketDesk Pro won't have fallen foul of it as only two people spotted it, pretty much at the same time, but it's a good idea to grab the update. I'm not sure if I've also mentioned there's a German language file included too. This was kindly donated by Sebastian Schertel of http://www.perfect-marketing.de/.

Also, I've decided to scrap the use of JV Manager to handle the sales process of my products and I'll be using SmartDD for everything instead.

It makes sense for a number of reasons. SmartDD now supports ClickBank as well as PayPal and is a lot simpler to use. The functionality of SmartDD is also very similar to JVM, but more logical.

And of course SmartDD is in active development. Did I mention we're working on membership functionality within SmartDD? Paul tells me it's 2/3rds done, so that's something to look forward to. It will be a minor v3.x release, so you'll get that upgrade for free if you've already purchased v3.

The main reason I've dropped JV Manager is because I monitor the flow through my sites. When I flipped the TicketDesk Pro site over to JVM, I saw a huge increase in abandonment on the pages where the customer / prospect is asked to enter their email address. And also on the following page where the customer / prospect is asked to enter their name, address etc. details.

I spent a good few hours searching for the code that forces that, tried a few things to remove it, tried some other stuff like changing the fields to say "optional", but it made no difference. Eventually I decided enough was enough – I'd spent far too much time fiddling with it – and since I'd first installed it, we'd released SmartDD v3 which now handles ClickBank sales and has a simple affiliate scheme for PayPal.

So that was that.

In case you were wondering, the correct process is to only ask for a name and email address if you're giving something away. If you're selling, make the sale FIRST, then gather their details afterwards, and give your customers a choice of whether or not they join the mailing list.

Now I'm using a single installation of SmartDD on one site and letting that handle the sales process of all my other products. Eventually I'll also flip the SmartDD site over to it as well (currently running on the Butterfly Marketing script), but not until memberships are working. It will take a while as there are something like 15,000 members now. Even with a bit of custom migration code, it will still take a while to get right, but will all be worth it in the long run.

Hmm, I can feel a bit of discussion about the abilities of SmartDD v3 coming on, so let's save that for another post.

-Frank Haywood

This one explains how to use SmartDD with Aweber to both sign up your new prospect to your mailing list and also generate a customer record and an order within SmartDD so that your prospect gets a secure download.

This functionality has been one of the top three asked for features to be put into SmartDD.  It seems there are plenty of SmartDD users who want to give their normally paid-for products away, without allowing global free access.

Well now you can do it.

Although this example uses Aweber (the service I currently use), you should be able to adapt it to any autoresponder service or self-hosted script with a little thought.  If you use another service such as Get Response or Email Aces, and can't work out how to integrate the form code, then please raise a support ticket and we'll see if we can't help you sort it out.

The video can be found here:-

http://www.smartdd.com/videos/free-sign-ups-with-smartdd/

and if you need to you can raise a support ticket here:-

http://www.vendiva.com/support/

-Frank Haywood

I apologise for the delay in doing this, it was because of some reported bugs that it now looks like we've completely cleared (so far).  Those bugs were:-

#1 – A foreach() error on the Inventory page for some server configurations.
#2 – No records on the Customer Search page.
#3 – The free sign up form was broken for some reason – we spotted that one.

So, onto the new videos.  Two so far on using Kunaki and ClickBank with SmartDD, and you can find links to them on the videos page on the SmartDD.com site, or you can just go to them directly here:-

http://www.smartdd.com/videos/using-kunaki-with-smartdd/

http://www.smartdd.com/videos/using-clickbank-with-smartdd/

More to follow tomorrow.

-Frank Haywood

We've fixed the two reported now, and also spotted a third which has also been fixed.  Answering the support tickets and duplicating the circumstances that have caused the bugs has taken quite a while, and so I had to put the videos and docs back a few days while we sorted everything else out.

You can probably appreciate it's been *very* time consuming and I think Paul is probably fed up of me by now.  And maybe you are too.

You can grab the hotfix for the FULL version here:-

http://www.smartdd.com/v3_hotfix/smartdd-hotfix-v3-01.zip

Just unzip to your hard drive retaining the folder structure within the zip, then FTP all the files up to your v3 installation, overwriting the existing files.  FileZilla will do a perfect job of it for you.

If you've already downloaded but not installed v3, delete it and grab a new copy from the members area.  It's been updated with all the changes in the hotfix above.

Now that the bugs have been sorted I'll start to release the videos showing you how to use the new features.

-Frank Haywood

I"ve decided to take the evening off to spend some time with the family, so I'm going to let this "24 hour" offer run until 6pm Saturday.

Hopefully, by mid-day tomorrow we should have upgraded everyone that qualifies, or answered their support ticket.

Lots of the same questions, and maybe even a bug, but we'll sort that one out after the excitement has died down.

Answers to the same questions then, as a series of points.

#1 – If you purchased after 1st March 2008, we will upgrade you manually. A lot of people have already been done, but there are still plenty to go. If you fall into this category, please don't raise a support ticket yet, be patient, we'll get there.

#2 – If you've taken one of my special offers to upgrade to v2 since 1st March 2008, then you *will* be upgraded to v3.

#3 – If a few days have passed and you believe you should have been upgraded but you haven't, THEN raise a support ticket. If you fall into one of the two categories above, ie you have v2 and it happened since the 1st March 2008, then there's no argument, you'll get v3.

(I never argue with people anyway, I only discuss or back off and don't get involved. You can never win an argument, ever.)

#4 – If you have either a PRO1 or PAID or EBAY or WSO similar special offer membership and you purchased before 1st March 2008, then the upgrade is $17 and you can find a link to get it by logging on and clicking "Membership Downloads".

#5 – If you have a FREE membership, then the full price stands which you can find inside the members area by clicking "Membership Downloads". There is no $17 upgrade for FREE members.

Okay, I think that pretty much covers it and the bulk of the questions I've seen so far.

UPDATE:

I've had quite a few people ask if there will be a special deal for FREE members to upgrade.  I did this for V2 and it seemed to go down well.  It won't be quite as straight forward as just paying for the upgrade, I'll be asking for a *little* more than that, but nothing too difficult.

Watch out for that in the next few days.

-Frank Haywood

SmartDD v3 is released. I hope you feel it was worth the wait.

But before you go racing off to the members area to upgrade, make sure to READ THIS first so you understand the implications.

#1 – If you purchased SmartDD on or since 1st March 2008, then you get the upgrade for free. Hopefully I can upgrade everybody over the next day or so. Please be patient.

#2 – If you purchased SmartDD before 1st March 2008, then for 24 hours it's just $17.00, let's say until 11.59pm GMT (6.59pm EST) Friday night.

#3 – After the time in #2, the price goes up to $27 to upgrade.

#4 – I've tried the most common possible combinations of purchasing and upgrading, and they work for me. It's possible that someone will run into a problem. Please raise a support ticket at http://www.Vendiva.com/support/ if you run into any issues. Again, please be patient.

Okay, now I know that one of the burning questions will be "what feature did you add in that delayed release by yet another week?"

Answer – ClickBank!

The four most requested features were free sign ups, one time offers, Kunaki.com, and ClickBank support, and we've done all four. A close fifth was memberships and subscription functionality – we're going to try and get those in before Christmas. It will be a 3.x release, so any V3 members / owners will get those for free.

Finally, and I know I'm going to get panned for this…

Because we added in ClickBank support at the 11th hour, I suspended the docs as things look a little different now. I've had to junk a lot of my screen shots, and it means I'll have to do them all again. Please be patient while I finish off the docs.

YES, I will do them this time!

Over the next 72 hours, I'll create a decent set of videos running over each of the main new areas of functionality that have been missing up to now, or are new.

So that's:-

#1 – The web store and the three built in templates.
#2 – Using and creating templates.
#3 – Kunaki.
#4 – Free sign ups with Aweber as the example.
#5 – One time offers.
#6 – ClickBank – easy that one.

In fact, using ClickBank is as simple as adding a new publisher ID, creating an item and then selecting ClickBank on the button code generator screen, and finally copying and pasting the code onto your sales page.

SmartDD does the rest as usual.

You know what? I think you should be able to work out how some of it works just by taking a guess at it. Only the web store and the templates aren't so obvious, although it's easy to get to grips with once you've been shown how.

Okay, that's it for now. You have until this time (ish) tomorrow to upgrade to V3 at the reduced price of $17.

http://www.SmartDD.com/

-Frank Haywood

We've decided to go ahead and add this one last feature.  I'm positive you'll say I did the right thing when you see what it is.

Paul said that Monday 20th was a bit of a tall order as we'll have to do new screen shots to show the new feature, and I conceded he was right and decided that's what we'll do.  He'll be finishing the coding tomorrow (Sunday) which will give us time to test and document.

As an aside, I'm almost sorry I went with JVM1 now to manage all my products through a central location as I now feel SmartDD in conjunction with JROX JAM would have achieved the same thing, only better.  (Maybe it's not too late to change my mind, I'll have to think long and hard about that one though…)

Anyway, partly as a result of moving SmartDD v3, I've also decided to put the release date of AdSpurt back until the 6th November to give me and my new JV Manager time to contact some more partners before launch.

If you went for the CB Ad Rotator deal on AdSpurt, don't worry, you'll get it in a couple of days or so.  How does Tuesday sound? 

-Frank Haywood

While he was having another look at the code, I had a request in (hi Myles) asking if a couple of small changes could be made to accommodate some affiliate tracking code on the thank you and download pages, so I asked him to take a look at that and he's done that too.

But then we got a bit carried away and he's added in something else that we really weren't planning on doing for v3 release.

I don't want to let on what it is, just in case it doesn't pan out, but the first test worked perfectly.  Things went a bit down hill after that though as we discussed the method involved and we realised it wouldn't work the exact way we wanted it to.

We decided to put the release date back until Monday (which we know is a bad day to do it), and try to get this new feature in.  I know that some people have been asking for this and that it will blow their stack when they see we've put it in, but just in case we can't do it, I don't want to discuss it here.

So Monday 20th it is then.

If you have v2, then you'll get the upgrade to v3 for $17 for just 24 hours, then the upgrade price will go up to $27 after that.

If you bought after 1st March 2008, then you get v3 for free.

Finally, we'll also be releasing a v3 trial edition for all the free members.  We've upped the number of deliverable products in the free version from 3 to 5, which means that for many people this will be all they need to set up and run all their mini-sites with secure delivery.

Although it's 5 products, they can be used with unlimited saleable items, which we think is still exceptionally useful for free.

-Frank Haywood

#1 – I've had a new bug reported by someone who got v3 early (sorry Ray) that's now being looked at. It's fairly obscure but annoying, as a customer can't currently order the same item twice. If they do, the second order just doesn't register.

#2 – While trying to manually add an order, the saleable items aren't being pulled back correctly. There's some corruption getting in there somehow.

My own installation of SmartDD here on this blog works perfectly – both of these are brand new and must be a result of Paul's recent tweaking.

I'm sure they're easily fixable and I'm just waiting for Paul to get back to me. But take this is as a warning that SmartDD v3 might *not* be released on Thursday after all.

-Frank Haywood