(digital file delivery) 7 ways your digital file delivery provider should make your life easier

If you plan to sell any kind of digital file direct from your website, blog or anywhere you can paste a link then you'll need to enlist the help of a digital file delivery provider. These providers should make a hard job very easy. They sort out integrating with a payment gateway, providing a secure checkout, and automatic and secure delivery of your files. This leaves you free to get on with the most important job: growing your business.

In this article we look at 7 ways your digital file delivery provider should make your life easier:

1. By doing three important ecommerce jobs in one
2. Being easy to set up and start selling
3. Have an elegant and accessible dashboard
4. Offer effective reporting and analytics
5. Have great customer support
6. Offer extra security features to prevent fraud
7. Give you the choice of extra marketing features to boost revenue

1. By doing three important ecommerce jobs in one

The core activities of a digital delivery file provider include: linking with your payment processor(s), providing a secure checkout and ensuring secure and automatic delivery of your files.

Payment processing

Digital file delivery providers don't usually process payments. This is because, historically, payment processors and ecommerce companies have been separate. Payment processors have needed to be tightly regulated because they are dealing with your money, while ecommerce companies have preferred to sidestep that level of bureaucracy and concentrate on helping you sell more.

So, before you start out with a digital file delivery company you will need to sign up with a payment processor like PayPal or Stripe
. Digital file delivery companies then integrate with your favourite payment processors. A few providers will offer more payment options such as Bitcoin and ApplePay integration. This is because the more ways your customers can pay, the more likely they are to give you money. Although common in the UK and US, credit cards are not necessarily common in other countries, even in Europe. Some people also simply hate PayPal.

This type of digital file delivery provider therefore facilitates payment but does not get involved in the transaction itself. They do not own your products or claim any copyright or other legal rights over them. Be aware that some digital file providers are actually resellers of your product, which involves a different legal framework and a hefty cut of your profit.

Providing a checkout

If a customer wants to buy your digital product then you need to lead them through a series of actions where they give you their payment details and email address for delivery. This is called your checkout. Digital file delivery providers will all provide a checkout of sorts. However, what you want to look for is one that is specifically:

• mobile-optimised so customers can buy on all devices
• multi-language so customers can buy all over the world
• streamlined so customers don't abandon carts when asked to provide extra useless information (if you sell digital files you shouldn't need a physical address. You don't even need a name.)
• customisable so customers feel comfortable being sent to these pages because they look like the rest of your site
• flexible so you can add trust icons, for example, if you think they will increase your conversion rate
• accessible so that customers can easily choose to pay how they want

Linking up your checkout to your website, blog or social media

Most providers should give you two options:

• add a button to your website or blog (such as Buy Now)
• paste a link anywhere you can (including social media) that sends people directly to your checkout

Most providers expect you to ask customers to add your product to a cart, which is great if you have an online shop and want to persuade them to buy more than one product. However, if you want to persuade customers to buy your fantastic ebook after you've just given them a free chapter, for example, then you'd be better off with Buy Now functionality. Preferably look for digital file delivery providers that give you the choice of Add to Cart or Buy Now functionality so you can choose the most suitable option for your business.

Artist Amira Rahim sells quite a few digital products so needs Adds to Cart functionality.

Securely deliver your digital file

Once your customer has paid for your product, then your digital file delivery provider should automatically and securely deliver your file to them. You shouldn't need to do anything. Most providers should give your customers the chance to download the file by email or by a download link that appears straight after their payment has been processed. Other features to look out for include:

• quick download speeds for your customers – you don't want them to get fed up waiting!
• time-limited download links which makes them harder to be shared
• maximum download attempts (that you can specify), which reduces sharing

2. Easy set up

There's no excuse for a digital file delivery provider that takes you a day to get set up: because you need to download an app, use an external landing page that doesn't really fit with your website, or simply has a terrible user interface.

Look for a provider that gets you set up quickly, and can prove this in their marketing material or in a free trial. Beware of companies that just talk about how great and easy to use they are without showing you proof!

3. Elegant dashboard

This provider is going to be an important part of your growing business, so you'll be using their dashboard regularly to check your sales, customise your experience and add new products.

Make sure that the dashboard is easy to use on all your devices (including mobile) and that you can find your way around it without needing to refer to their knowledge base every two seconds.

4.Effective reporting and analytics

Analytics isn't just inert data that you look at and forget about. It's super-exciting information that holds the key to how you can grow your business – and what you might be doing wrong.

Make sure your digital file delivery provider has decent analytics and reporting functionality otherwise you'll get frustrated when your business begins to take off.

Analytics sections should offer baseline features such as the ability to see your sales over a selected time period, how many of your orders are started and completed, and income per product. They should also help you with more granular insights, for example:

• How much extra revenue in-built marketing features like one-click upsells and gifting are generating
• Where do your most profitable customers live?
• What's your average order value?
• How much will you make next month from subscriptions?
• Cashflow with subscriptions, and refunds identified separately should you with

Your analytics section should help you identify ways to grow your business

5.Great customer support

There will almost always be a point when you need customer support, because you have a query or question that is specific to your business. You want to be able to get a helpful response from customer support quickly, so check that your potential provider has a good reputation in this field.

Also, browse their knowledge base articles. These should help you navigate sometimes quite complex topics quickly and easily. If they don't, then you'll end up wasting time getting something wrong or waiting on customer support to get back to you.

Useful knowledge base articles:

1. Use clear non-technical language
2. Offer a video walkthrough as well as a screenshot walkthrough
3. Help you understand use cases and exceptions
4. Point you in the direction of related content that could be relevant

6.Extra security features to prevent fraud

Part of your reason for using a digital file delivery provider is that they offer a secure way of selling and distributing your product. After all, you didn't create a great video series or ebook only for people to rip it off in two seconds. Some digital file delivery providers will go one step further to help you keep your product secure. These include:

• video streaming – often popular with customers and much more secure for you
• PDF stamping – which discourages illegal sharing without penalising loyal customers
• license keys – keep software and other digital files secure
• fraud filtering – so you can filter out offenders by their country of residence, IP address or email
• secure by design – if your provider is built by software experts rather than marketers, for example, it is more likely to be secure by design
• two factor authentication (2FA) – so that if your email gets hacked your account is still secure

Two factor authentication will keep your account secure

7.Extra marketing features to boost revenue

Most digital delivery providers recognise that everyone needs help with growing their business. Those that are serious about helping customers put a rocket under their revenue will offer marketing features such as these:

• a built in affiliate scheme – so you get other people to sell your products
• discounts – so you can encourage people to make a purchase NOW
• Pay what you want pricing – an effective marketing tactic for many companies
• cart abandonment – a great way to recover lost sales
• one click upsells – get people to give you more money without spending an extra cent on marketing
• gifting – so your customers can buy products as a gift for friends and family

One click upsells can boost revenue with no extra marketing spend

How to choose a pricing structure

Digital delivery providers tend to fall into two categories: those that charge a flat fee per month and those that charge a % per transaction. The latter can seem enticing if you are hesitant about how much you will sell. And they are a good option for low volume sellers.

However, if you are serious about growing your business consider whether a monthly payment might actually be better value. With a monthly payment, you won't be penalised for selling more and you know exactly how much you will be spending on digital delivery every month.

If you make between $200-$300 a month it is usually better value to pay a monthly rather than a per transaction fee.

Comparison chart between four different digital delivery companies

SendOwl is the simplest, easiest and most secure way to sell your digital files



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