Our new referral program is finally ready to go, and we’d like to invite you to take part. This program is open to all users and requires no changes to your existing Portfolio123 account.
We give you a unique identifier, in the form of a link to Portfolio123 that lets us match potential subscribers to your account. Having done so, the deal is simple: If the potential user subscribes then you get the first two months of their paid subscription.
We will credit your account with the proceeds, and it will be deducted from your next Portfolio123 charge. If you still have credit left over at the end of each quarter then you’ll receive a cash payment.
Most investors want ALPHA, but do not want to manually place trades week after week.
P123 allows TRADE to 3 ports and BOOK to 5 assets for investors, which significantly limits the pool of referable subscribers to small accounts.
Only investors with $100k+ will look for alternatives to mutual funds. I don’t see how a new P123 subscriber with $100k account can automatically TRADE 5 to 10 SMART ALPHA ports easily.
To gain more investors, P123 should have better AUTO TRADE.
AUTO TRADE is the missing ingredient!
The trade tool must also allow you to enter orders that expire on mm/dd/yy.
With this change in place I would expect to auto trade a port with “prev close” as the limit price. Orders would expire one day before the next rebalance.
Will the old affiliate program be discontinued?
Will the old affiliate links still be working?
Will the recurring commissions of old referrals still be paid?
P123 - What is meant by 2 months subscription? Is that P123 subscription or Smart Alpha model subscription? I assume it is P123 subscription as the link goes to a generic P123 page. This is contradictory to the idea of signing up to a Smart Alpha model without paying the P123 subscription fee.
I have the same problem with this new referral program as the last. And that is I can’t send visitors to the P123 page of my choice (such as a Smart Alpha model). You need to streamline the process of sending visitors directly to Smart Alpha models and allow them to sign up directly.
In other words, I don’t understand what or why you are doing this.
piard2 - The old affiliate program remains as is - we just don’t accept new affiliate partners.
Steve - Commissions for referrals are earned on Portfolio123 Subscriptions ONLY. If you link to a Smart Alpha model using one of the share options (facebook, twitter, goggle+) from the Smart Alpha page you’ll get credit for the referral. If the referral signs up for a P123 subscription you’ll get commission. We don’t give commission on Smart Alpha subscriptions as 80% of subscription fee belongs to the designer. You’re a member of the old affiliate program so you can link to any page of your choice on Portfolio123 by adding “?apc=YOUR_INVITATION_CODE” to the url.
What kind of subscriber is P123 looking for in this referral program? I am not asking to change anything but I am curious about what kind of new users that P123 wants to have moving forward.
Perhaps it is my stupidity but that was never explained before. I thought I had to use the general P123 URL address. Is this the same for the new referral program? i.e. One can point to any P123 URL with the referral code on the end? This should be explicitly stated as that is not how it reads.
As for no commissions on models… That is OK but keep in mind there is no incentive to market someone else’s models because the visitor can sign up to the model without paying a P123 subscription fee.
The two programs track referrals the same way, only difference is that if you’re a legacy affiliate commissions are calculated differently and there is a different page for tracking referrals.
The link to any page using the referral code is new with this release and isn’t explicitly documented because it’s a little more involved than just adding “?sref=xxxx” to the end of any URL. For one the URLshould be accessible without being logged in otherwise it will track the referral but the new user will simply see an access restricted message which isn’t desirable. Second, if the UR? already has parameters (like ?portid=“1234”) then you need to use “&” instead of “?” to properly add the referral parameter (“&sref=xxxx”). This shareable URL should be automatically generated via a button on shareable pages - but we haven’t implemented that yet.
A visitor can sign up to the model without paying a P123 subscription fee? How does that work? Can current subscribers who are also P123 members cancel their P123 membership and continue being R2G subscribers?
Ted - am I able to use both old and new referral programs, or am I restricted to the old? (I want to keep the old but I have an issue with it as you know).
As for adding the code to the end of the URL, you have me somewhat confused. Smart Alpha models are visible without the user logging in, so can you repeat what you said, but in the context of Smart Alpha URLs only? For example, what needs to be done in terms of adding the code to the URL, and whether this applies to old and new referral programs, and if it can be done now or have to wait for something to be implemented…
We’ll add a message to the new referral page for legacy affiliates to hopefully clear up some confusion.
The tracking of referral links is backwards compatible to work with the old affiliate codes so you can use url parameter name “sref” or “apc” (from the old affiliate program) and the value can be your old affiliate Invitation Code or your P123 user name. It will all track the referred user back to you. This is live on the site now.
Georg - I believe that a P123 subscriber could in theory unsubscribe then only sign up to Smart Alpha models. But in that case the user would lose all their P123 benefits such as designing models, offering Smart Alpha models, the referral program, etc.
Steve
Steve, there was mention of a free P123 membership some while ago for people only interested in the SmartAlpha models. So, from what you say, now a person could take out the cheapest membership, subscribe to a SA model, and then cancel the membership - effectively being a free member with a SA subscription.
If that is correct, then P123 should offer free memberships to avoid this convoluted process.
Georg - for me P123 is value-added and I don’t mind paying the P123 fees, and most probably feel this way. The problem lies in trying to bring in new people. They generally don’t understand the value beyond subscribing to a model. i.e. they don’t want to pay for what they think they aren’t using. It all makes sense if the signup process is streamlined but that isn’t the case, at least so far as I’m aware.
In any case, if everyone were to unsubscribe to P123 and then subscribe to Smart Alpha models en masse, then Marco would have to make up the difference somewhere, and that would lead to a bigger cut for P123 on SA models.
Portfolio 123 Team,
What happened to the free membership program muted a while ago by Marco? The idea was that free members would only be able to subscribe to SA models and not have any access to P123 data.
Also I would like to have the ability to offer combination models. Additionally short models should also be permitted on SA as long as they have a continuous 100% long hedge in place as well.
I am speaking to a friend about trying P123. He has an MBA and took some finance classes so I know he understands key concepts. He is married, has a child and a busy life. I think he might tinker with model development on the weekends when he has a moment but don’t think he will be able to spend a lot of time on it. He is an experienced options trader so he knows how to trade stocks efficiently.
If he wants to start investing now, I think I will recommend he look at Smart Alpha models first to get his feet wet.
What documents does P123 recommend I use to get someone started on the path?
I think I will send him the ‘How to Build a Model’ and ‘A to Z Guide’ and then verbally walk him through the concepts.
For SA use, I thought I had seen a Getting Started Guide on Smart Alpha but cannot find it now in Tutorials or in the Smart Alpha section. Just use the info on the SA webpage?
Given the background and time investment ability of my friend, what does P123 recommend for bringing someone ‘into the fold’.
Free memberships are currently available to Portfolio123. You can pretty much use them to subscribe to Smart Alpha models, but not to use any Portfolio123 tools. That includes the combined book, which can be quite useful for SmartAlpha subscribers.
David, your friend can contact me. I can walk him through use of the site, and can help with writing rules. I am at paul@portfolio123.com or at 312-233-2657.
