Traditionally, affiliate marketers haven’t had a lot of options when it comes to tracking software. There’s Prosper202, the original tracking software developed in 2008. There are the follow-up programs such as CPVLabs, iMobiTrax, Bevomedia and a few others. But all of these programs have a lot of similar limitations and, to a lot of affiliate marketers, they’re starting to feel a little stale.

There is something new and fresh out there, however, and it’s getting a lot of praise. It’s a program called Voluum. We recently took it for a test spin. Does it live up to the hype?

Affiliate Marketing and Tracking Solutions

The key to a successful affiliate campaign is proper tracking. The right software will grab your customer’s IP address, country, operating system, the time of the transaction and more. You can analyze this data and make decisions about how to best run your campaign. But the decisions you make will only be as good as the data you have. With Voluum, you’ll reach a whole new level of precision when it comes to gathering data.

About Voluum.com

Voluum is a tracking platform designed from the ground up with affiliate marketers in mind. The software was created by Robert Gryn and his company Codewise.com. This team has years of experience together as the owners of ZeroPark.com.

Voluum stands out from the competition in four key areas:

• Their technology – They spent a year creating an entirely new database technology. This new database allows for campaigns which are infinitely scalable as well as fast loading reports. Your click figures can be in the millions and you’ll still have no problems.

• Their team – This isn’t some fly-by-night operation. Twenty experienced java developers form the backbone of the company. They’ve created software for banks, aerospace tech, telecom software and more.
• Their approach – These developers don’t work in a vacuum. They’re actively engaged with Voluum users. There have even been cases recently of “ask and ye shall receive,” where users have suggested a feature only to see it appear live a few days later.

In fact, Voluum’s roots start in a popular forum post titled Ditch CPV Lab for What? where a longtime affiliate marketer started a discussion about the lack of scalability in the current commercial products. The users suggested many solutions, but each solution led to significant slowdown. It became apparent to everyone that an entirely new program needed to be created.

Top Features of Voluum

Enter Voluum. Designed specifically to address issues like those brought up among the marketers in the forums, Voluum:

• is fast. With other software, an overflow of data can slow your targeting software, and the only solution is to delete data. Voluum manages to fix that. You can get fast speeds while retaining 100% of your data.
• is evolving. With 20 developers, Voluum has more manpower than any other tracking software.
• has an easy-to-navigate layout and a clean, pleasing design.

• provides powerful detection and redirects. Voluum logs the operating system, IP address, country location and other info from each visitor.
• has the lowest conversion discrepancy of all major tracking software. Typical conversion accuracy can show 500 actual conversions as something closer to 440. Voluum has a near perfect conversion rate, where 500 conversions shows up as 500.
• allows you to host your LP’s on a CDN. There are no dynamic scripts needed for your LP’s.
• incorporates user feedback. Their forums are active and the Voluum developers are hungry for input.
• can handle huge amounts of traffic. Seriously. Voluum handles millions of clicks. You don’t have to worry about server crashes.

Volumm is not self-hosted. Normally, you’ll need a server for landing pages, and another server for hosting. With Voluum, you don’t need that second server, so you can save several hundred dollars a month.

Currently, Voluum operates out of four data centers in Sydney, Ireland, Singapore and the U.S. They’ll soon upgrade to eight data centers. Traffic will be re-routed, based on user location, for optimal speed.

Get in on the Ground Floor!

These upcoming data centers reflect another exciting aspect of Voluum – it’s new. While it’s a solid, reliable product, it’s also only going to get better. If you start implementing Voluum now, you’ll be in a unique situation where your ideas will carry a lot of weight with the developers. It’s a great way to tailor the program for your long-term needs.

Another room for planned growth is with mobile tracking. Unlike CPV Labs or Prosper, Voluum tracks both web and mobile traffic, and more mobile support is planned for the future.

Voluum Prices

The program was in beta until September, but don’t worry if you missed it. You can still use a lot of Voluum for free. There are four tiers of pricing:

Criticism of Voluum

The main criticism of Voluum is that it’s not self-hosted. Marketers can be worried about protecting their data. We found it comically unlikely that Voluum is out to steal a user’s affiliate campaign, since they seem to be pretty busy running their own business, but that is a concern some marketers have.

Voluum discusses this issue on their site. They point out, rightfully so, that anyone who wanted to see your campaigns could do so with spy software. The Voluum system, however, is designed so that the only person who can access your account is you. Not even internal Voluum employees can view it! Additionally, soon super-affiliates will receive a login inspired by that of online banking.

There’s another reason as to why self-hosting might not be the best choice. There’s a limit to the technology. When you try to run millions of clicks while also loading reports, you’re going to experience slowdown if you self-host. Voluum, with its cloud-based system, lets you scale without worry.

Customer Support

Currently, customer support is focused around community/developer interaction and a robust knowledge base. It’s important to note that Voluum just came out of a beta, however. Right now, most of the users are early adapters with a pretty high degree of technical expertise. Everyone is working together to improve and grow Voluum.

Final Thoughts

The Voluum database is powered by VoluumDQ. Every competitor uses MySQL. Voluum is a totally unique product, and the first one to hit the market in years. For that reason alone, we strongly recommend you at least check it out.

But we think you’ll find Voluum isn’t just some novelty.

We’re excited by Voluum and look forward to watching it grow. The gulf between what marketers want and what tracking software has been capable of was growing far too wide, but Voluum is working to bridge that divide. Their dedication to the early Voluum users is certainly admirable, and promises strong support for the future.

With the Noobie tier, you have 30 days to check it out with no risk. More and more, Voluum is looking like the future. After our time spent with the program, we can see why.