Digistore24 is a combined payment and affiliate marketing platform. Vendors can submit products they want to sell through Digistore24, while affiliates can use the marketplace to discover and promote these products. I have experience with both sides of the platform, as a vendor and as an affiliate.
In this review I will give you a little insight into my work with Digistore24 as an affiliate, and at the end, I will give you some tips and tricks on how you can earn more money as an affiliate with Digistore24.
Was ist Digistore24?
Digistore24 is a German-based online platform launched in 2012, primarily focused on providing an affiliate marketing network and sales platform for digital products, software, and services.
It was created to simplify the sales process for creators, offering tools for payment processing, marketing automation, and affiliate management. Over the years, it has grown to become one of Europe's leading platforms in the digital product space
As mentioned earlier, Digistore24 is both a payment service for digital products and an affiliate platform. Vendors can list their products on Digistore24 and sell them directly through the platform.
However, Digistore24 does not market the products — vendors are solely responsible for promotion. Digistore24's role is limited to processing sales, delivering the products, and providing some support if customers reach out with platform-related issues.
What makes Digistore24 truly special, however, is its affiliate functionality, which every vendor can use. Vendors can invite affiliates to join their partner program, allowing them to promote the products in exchange for a commission.
Thousands of users use Digistore24 not only to sell their own digital products, but also to promote products from other vendors. The second option — recommending someone else's products as an affiliate — is particularly interesting for us.
Why become an affiliate on Digistore24?
Naturally, as an affiliate, you might wonder why you should join Digistore24 when there are already numerous affiliate networks with thousands of partner programs that you could start promoting immediately.
What makes Digistore24 special?
Here are the top reasons why Digistore24 is highly recommended for affiliates:
- Over 90% digital products — Digistore24 was originally intended to be a sales platform for digital products. As an affiliate, you broker downloads or online access, and since these are digital products, the commission rates are usually very attractive.
- Attractive commissions — many partner programs at Digistore24 offer 40% or more commission for each referral. If you compare the commission rate with that of affiliate networks, you can see where you can earn more money as an affiliate for the same amount of work.
- Detailed reports and statistics — what affiliates always need in order to optimize their earnings are in-depth insights into statistics and at least some tracking for advertising campaigns. Digistore24 excels in both areas.
- More than 1,000 products to promote — Digistore24 currently offers more than 1,000 products and affiliate programs that you can use to earn money. New products are added almost every day.
- More and more strong sellers — initially, Digistore24 mainly had small providers and newcomers to the digital business as sellers. Now, more and more larger providers are joining, who understand their job better, have many products and "upsells", and enable affiliates to earn more.
- Quick participation in affiliate programs — participating in an affiliate program is very easy with Digistore24. Simply select a product from the marketplace and click on the button to participate as an affiliate — that's it.
There are very compelling reasons to join Digistore24 as an affiliate. However, there are two cons that should be considered before becoming an affiliate with Digistore24:
- Substandard products — I would estimate that around 30% of all products offered by Digistore24 are of poor quality, to put it mildly. It would be disastrous for an affiliate to recommend these products to their users!
- Dead products — there are quite a few dead or abandoned products on Digistore24. I know this because I keep coming across such products. Either the product is outdated, the sales page is not working properly, or the product can no longer be purchased at all.
If you can overlook these two disadvantages, Digistore24 is really a good and solid platform for affiliates and vendors, as you will learn in the following.
I really wish Digistore24 would address these issues and keep the marketplace free from outdated, inactive products or those with poor quality.
Free registration with Digistore24
Registration with Digistore24 is free, and anyone can open an affiliate account there, but first, the following question arises:
When registering, you will need to decide whether to register primarily as an affiliate or a vendor. If you choose vendor, your dashboard will be optimized for vendors; otherwise, it will be optimized for affiliates.
If you want to use Digistore24 only as an affiliate, register as an affiliate. However, if you plan to sell your own digital products in the future and use the platform for both vendor and affiliate purposes, choose the first option for vendor registration.
When registering, there is essentially only one thing to keep in mind:
The choice of username.
You need to choose a username that will also serve as your affiliate ID. This identifier will later be used to generate a unique affiliate link for you. The username must be unique.
Make your username universal and avoid tying it to a specific website or domain. Later on, you'll be recommending thousands of Digistore24 products with the same affiliate ID, and it would look unprofessional if the username weren't neutral.
Universal examples of a username would be:
- marcus754
- digi657
- abc123
You should follow the reasoning behind choosing a universal username. You don't want a username like MoneyCash457, as it sounds unprofessional and could make you appear amateurish when you start promoting products. Keep in mind that your username will always be visible in your affiliate link.
Also, since you may end up promoting products from different categories, the username should not represent a specific niche or topic. Again, keep it neutral so you can use it for any product you promote, whether today or 10 years from now.
Fill out all the fields on the registration page and submit the form. You will then receive a confirmation email and can log into your Digistore24 account immediately afterward.
Dashboard, Berichte und Auszahlungen
There are three things I particularly like about Digistore24:
- Clear dashboard with current income.
- Detailed reports for transactions and sales.
- Fast and frequent payouts of earnings.
Digistore24 strives to be 100% transparent about your numbers. You'll see every single click, transaction, and even be able to track each campaign, so you'll know which campaigns led to a transaction — helping you create highly effective promotions.
The affiliate dashboard
As soon as you log into your Digistore24 account, you'll immediately see your current earnings and when your next payout is due. I think this is great because it provides all the essential information an affiliate needs at a glance.
Note that after logging in, the view is set to the affiliate mode, so you won't see unnecessary information in your account that's only relevant to vendors.
Detailed reports for transactions and sales
Equally interesting are the reports for affiliates, allowing you to measure how well a campaign is performing. To view the reports, simply go to the menu and click on "Reports → Transactions".
You can narrow down the transactions list by specific criteria, such as vendor name, product, date, or time range. The list is very detailed, and you can see all the important information for each transaction. Transparency is truly one of Digistore's strengths, which is great.
You receive a detailed list of all transactions for which you are responsible as an affiliate, where a transaction is the sale of a product. Not only can you view individual orders, but you can also filter transactions by vendor or "campaign key" to focus on specific data.
For every affiliate, the campaign key is especially important, as it helps distinguish between different marketing campaigns. I'll explain later how to integrate such a key into your affiliate link.
Payouts — up to 4 times per month
Once you reach the payout threshold of at least $50, your affiliate earnings will be paid out. Payouts are made via PayPal or SEPA bank transfer. If you've provided a valid VAT ID, the payouts will include VAT, which is especially important for affiliates based in Europe.
Payouts are made up to 4 times per month, but only if you reach the minimum payout threshold:
- On the 07. of the month a payout of $50 is possible.
- On the 14. of the month a payout of $200 is possible.
- On the 21. of the month a payout of $200 is possible.
- On the 28. of the month a payout of $200 is possible.
Digistore24 marketplace for products
Once you've created an affiliate account on Digistore24, the fun can begin! In your account, go to "Marketplace → All offers" to discover all the products you can promote as an affiliate.
The marketplace currently offers nearly 1,500 products for English-speaking audiences, which is quite impressive. However, as mentioned earlier, you should be selective in what you promote, as many products may not meet high-quality standards. After all, as an affiliate, we don't recommend subpar products.
All partner programs are sorted into categories, and there's also a useful search function to help you find a product more quickly. Before choosing a product, you should first check the statistics for the respective partner program, which are displayed below the description.
Make sure to set the correct filters for category and language to find products relevant to your region and market. The search function is very useful and allows you to find exactly the offers that are relevant to your promotional campaigns.
Using the filter to narrow down the results is helpful, as is sorting the results by "Popularity", "Earnings/Sale", and other criteria. Popular products usually perform very well on the platform and therefore have many affiliates.
In the performance overview, which is displayed separately for each program, there are three key things a good affiliate should focus on:
- Commission per sale — this is your income per sale. The higher, the better.
- Cart conversion — this percentage indicates how many visitors who added items to their shopping cart actually purchased the product. Here, too, the higher the better. Anything above 10% is good – anything above 30% is excellent!
- Cancellation rate — this percentage indicates how high the cancellation rate is. The lower, the better. This figure should be below 20% if possible.
I usually choose products with the highest cart conversion rate possible because it directly indicates that the product is selling well and performing effectively. Also, make sure to keep an eye on the cancellation rate. After all, what's the point of a high conversion rate if half the customers end up refunding their purchase?
Also, make sure to visit the product's sales page to see how it looks and if it's still actively selling the product. Sometimes, a dead product might still be listed in the marketplace, and you definitely don't want to send your users to a website that no longer exists, right?
If a product is attractive to us and fits our promotional campaign, we can promote it. To do so, we simply click the "Promote now" button in the program description, and an affiliate link will be generated for us, which might look like this:
https://www.digistore24.com/redir/Produkt-ID/Affiliate-ID/You can now use this URL for all your promotional efforts. When someone clicks on it and purchases the product you're promoting, you'll earn a commission, which will be displayed in your affiliate account under "Transactions" on Digistore24.
Now you will certainly use several platforms to promote a product. The advertising platform can be:
- a website.
- paid advertising in search engines.
- banner advertising on other websites.
- advertising in a newsletter.
- ...
We need to be able to distinguish which advertising platform earns money for us and which does not, and it is precisely for this purpose that we use the "campaign keys" feature that I introduced to you earlier.
You can add a campaign key to your partner link to distinguish between all your advertising measures, for example:
https://www.digistore24.com/redir/Product-ID/Affiliate-ID/website-xyz
https://www.digistore24.com/redir/Product-ID/Affiliate-ID/ppc-ad-xyz
https://www.digistore24.com/redir/Product-ID/Affiliate-ID/banner-xyz
https://www.digistore24.com/redir/Product-ID/Affiliate-ID/newsletter-xyzSimply add a term to the partner link that describes the respective advertising measure as specifically as possible. The term can consist of letters, numbers, and an underscore or hyphen.
As soon as you make a sale, you will see an entry in the transactions list that has the campaign key assigned:
Now, you can see directly in the transactions table which traffic sources generate commissions. This allows you to identify winning traffic strategies and focus more on them to increase your Digistore24 earnings.
Best tips for increasing your affiliate revenue with Digistore24
Finally, let me give you some specific tips on how you can earn more money as a Digistore24 affiliate:
- Don't promote bad products — unfortunately, there are also bad products on Digistore24. If you recommend them, you're helping the seller sell their junk, while at the same time the buyer is the fool who has been talked into buying some junk.
- Find the right prospects for a product — only recommend products that you can supply to the right prospects. You can only sell products if the people you recommend the product to want to buy it or are at least interested in it.
- Use proven, effective traffic sources — whether it's your own website, social media, or paid ads — to generate high-quality traffic. Avoid spamming the internet or relying on fragile traffic sources, like comment links or forum posts.
- Prefer products with high cart conversion rates — the higher the cart conversion rate, the better. This means fewer abandoned carts and more commissions for you.
- Make sure the cancellation rate is as low as possible — you can view the cancellation rate for each affiliate program. The higher this number is, the more commissions will be canceled because customers are returning the product.
- Don't work below your worth — there are affiliate programs that simply pay too little commission. For example, I don't work with affiliate programs if I don't get at least $10 per referral, because I know I can earn significantly more.
- Track all your advertising activities — attach a unique campaign key to each affiliate link so that you can see in the reports which advertising is working and which is not.
- Work with multiple affiliate programs — never work with just one affiliate program to earn money. Instead, find a handful of good programs and spread your earnings across multiple products to prevent a complete loss of income.
Conclusion
Digistore24 is an interesting platform for affiliates. It offers a wide range of products, the commission rates for most affiliate programs are fair, and affiliates are provided with a solid foundation for earning money.
The offering is somewhat marred by product providers who are not so serious about quality or who become inactive after a while. This problem is not unique to Digistore24, but also affects affiliate networks. Naturally, we hope to see an improvement in this area soon.
All in all, Digistore24 is definitely an interesting and reliable source of income for affiliates. I have been actively using Digistore24 as an affiliate and seller since 2012 and can confirm that this provider pays its users and also offers good email support.