How Automation Can Supercharge Marketing For Your Online Business

  • Jason@DPD
  • June 25, 2019
  • No Comments

Online businesses have so many more opportunities to market than pre-internet brick and mortar stores. But with those opportunities come some challenges. You’re expected to show up in so many different places and have a presence in so many channels. Email marketing, new social media platforms all the time, mobile marketing, etc. 

How do you keep it all going at once without dropping the ball? Where do you find the time?

According to HubSpot’s State of Inbound report for 2019, The top marketing challenge for companies was generating leads and traffic, followed by proving the ROI of their marketing methods and obtaining the budget to pull it all off. Marketing automation tools can help you with all three. 

Automating your online marketing can help you generate more leads and grow your traffic, analyze exactly the ROI you’re getting on your marketing, and reduce your costs making it easier to hit the budget. 

What can automation do for you?

Automation allows you to leverage online tools and technology to save time and effort. You can automate communication, lead nurturing, content scheduling, research and analytics, and social media processes. All of this lets you get more done in less time, saving money while you reach more clients. Here are some examples of how you can use online marketing automation to reach more clients in less time:

Communications

When leads reach out to you online, how long does it take them to get a response? If the answer is longer than a few minutes, it could be costing you new customers. We live in the age of impatience and a lead who is actively looking for your products and services will quickly move on to the next provider while awaiting your reply. 

You can automate emails to respond to inquiries, giving you more time to provide an answer to the question being asked. You can do similar things with social media messenger apps, like Facebook Messenger. Chatbot technology can even carry on a simple customer service or marketing conversation for you, providing leads and current customers with simple information and answers instantly.  

Lead nurturing

You can automate the nurturing process by setting an automated sequence of messages through email, messenger, or even text messages. This allows you to follow up and stay top-of-mind with your leads automatically. 

Content scheduling

If you use a lot of content to market your business on social media, it can take hours to schedule posts to different platforms at the best times of day for each. This process can be automated, allowing you to paste the content into a tool which schedules on multiple platforms at specified times throughout the day. Finally, you can handle all your social media posting at once and let it trickle out at the perfect time.  

Aiming at the Right Target

Before you think about online marketing automation tools, you have to consider what you want to achieve and the best way to go about it. A few questions up front will save you a lot of trial and error later on. 

What tasks should you automate?

You’ve got a lot on your plate. Marketing involves a lot of different steps and not all of them are prime targets for automation. You have to determine which ones take up a lot of your team’s time, without the need for human decision making and judgement. 

Repetitive tasks that your team perform in the same way, over and over again, will save the most time and give the best results if automated. The repetitive and sometimes boring nature of those tasks (let’s be honest) also creates a higher risk of mistakes. That can be prevented by automation.

What tools should you use?

Some of the top online marketing automation tools are discussed below. For now, think about the tasks you’ve just decided to focus on. Chances are there are several tools on the market to do each of them. You’re looking for the ones that fit your budget and the unique needs of your company for that task. 

Who’s in charge of those tools?

Automation tools save tons of time and effort and streamline your day to day marketing, but they do still take time to set up and master. Decide who in your organization will be using these tools and what the learning curve looks like. The makers of these automation tools want you to succeed and continue using them. Many offer free training, support, and even certification. 

Re-evaluate 

Automation tools can help you track ROI, but how do you track the ROI of the tools themselves? Before you start using a new tool, take a look at the results you’re getting and the time and energy you’re putting into that specific task. Once you’re up and running with a new automation tool, compare your new results to see if the tool is helping you improve your outcome. 

Top Marketing Automation Tools

Hubspot

Hubspot offers a range of automation tools in its marketing suite, depending on the level you purchase. You can manage and segment your email list, build automated email campaigns, and connect everything to the built in CRM. 

Pardot 

For a product with a bit more of a sale process, Pardot can be a great option. It automates and streamlines the sales process, allowing you to track, nurture, and score leads. It also makes it easy to track ROI for your campaigns. All of this connects with your SalesForce CRM, since Pardot is made by SalesForce. 

Hootesuite

For social media marketing, Hootesuite offers pretty much everything you need. You can schedule all your social media posts in one place at one time. 

Hootesuite will alert you when your company or product is mentioned on social, so you can make the most of free publicity or put out any fires before they spread. You can also keep a close eye on the analytics of all your social media content. 

A few new automation tools likely hit the market while you were reading this article. Take a look at what’s out there and see how automation can help you make the most of your day to day marketing efforts.

Keys to Starting a Digital Product Store in 2019

  • Jason@DPD
  • June 18, 2019
  • No Comments

Whether you want to create a freedom lifestyle or just build a business that can scale, selling a digital product is one of the best options out there. Unlike a direct service, you’re not limited by the amount of time you have to provide it. And unlike a physical product, there’s no inventory, no shipping, and no worries about where your customers are located.

Once a digital product has been created, it can be bought and downloaded by as many customers as you can find. This means you can scale the business to any size while working from anywhere. 

So, what does it take to start a digital product store in 2019? The tools are definitely available. Here’s what you need to get started: 

A Great Product

Of course, you need something to sell. If you’re considering starting a digital product store, you may already have a product in mind or may even have it ready to go. If not, you’ll need to decide on a product and put it together or partner with a creator to sell their product. 

A digital product could be anything from a 99 cent song to a downloadable online course worth thousands of dollars. Books, music, software and apps, art, and digital courses are all examples of great digital products. You just need a product that provides value to your customers in some way. 

Picking the Right Name

Naming your store can be a fun process. Just make sure your creative juices don’t take you too far. You need a name that’s easy to remember and easy to spell. Complicated names and creative spellings can make it hard for customers to find your store. 

When you choose your name, make sure not to limit yourself too much. You may be selling a single digital product today but what if you want to expand and diversify down the road? Choose a name that works for more than one product and you can continue the name and reputation you’ve built with new products. 

Along with non-traditional spelling, avoid hyphens and other punctuation that your customers won’t expect if they’re spelling out your name after hearing it spoken (you want that word of mouth to work, right?).

Claim Your Domain

Your domain name is the address where your store will be found online. A short, memorable .com or .io domain name can make your digital product store look more established and professional. 

Name and domain go hand-in-hand. Take a look at available domain names while you’re deciding on your store name. If you’re able to get the .com domain name that matches your store name, you can make it much easier for customers to remember your URL and find your store. There’s nothing more frustrating than choosing a name you like and finding out the matching domain name is owned by someone who’s not even using it.

When looking for a domain name, consider your registrar options. The cost of your domain name may vary between registrars but hosting and security may be bundled together to provide a better overall price for your needs.  

Set Up Hosting

If your domain is the address where your store is found, hosting is the landlord. Your hosting company provides servers for your site. Choose a reputable hosting company to help ensure that the servers don’t go down (causing your site to be inaccessible) and that you get reliable customer service when needed.

Again, one factor in choosing your hosting company may be bundle services. Some offer free domain registration or easy set-up with the platform you’re using (like WordPress).  

Think Security

One thing many people forget about is an SSL security certificate. SSL certificates are a way to show the internet that your site is secure and trusted. It attaches a file to your site so browsers know you’re legitimate.  

Having an SSL certificate in place can establish trust with your customers, since a website without one is label “Not Secure” in the web browser. Even if the site is safe, this is unnerving for shoppers. In fact, you won’t be able to process online payments through a sight without SSL – at least not without a lot of extra steps and a special setup.

The SSL certificate is another thing you may be able to get bundled from your hosting provider. Keep that in mind when you shop for hosting and domain names.  

Secure, Convenient Payment Processing and More

Once you have all the basics set up on your digital product store, you’re almost ready to open your doors. But, of course, you don’t want a store if no one can pay you. Payment processing has to be set up to allow online card and bank payments from customers. 

There are several payment processors you can choose from and a lot of moving parts. Knowing which one to go with and how to set up payments on your store can be daunting. If you want to simplify the process and get started selling your digital product fast, look no further than www.getDPD.com.

DPD offers more than just payment processing. You can upload your digital product easily and DPD will provide seamless digital delivery when your customers purchase your product. No more worries about delivery and fulfilment issues. 

Once your product is uploaded to DPD, you simply paste the “buy” button to your site allowing DPD to handle the payment and order processing for you. You bring in the customers and DPD does the rest. All for a flat monthly fee with no transaction fee per download, so you can scale as high and as quickly as you want. 

You can also use Zapier to connect DPD to many 3rd party apps like Mailchimp and Google, Analytics, making it easier to track your business and grow your sales. 

Are you ready to go from ambition to making your first sale in no time? DPD makes it possible. Click to learn more and get started now! 

How Proper Social Proof Can Double Your Digital Product Sales

  • Jason@DPD
  • June 11, 2019
  • No Comments

Social proof has been a “thing” for years, but it’s still one of the hottest trends in marketing today. Why? Because it works, and it’s just what you need to send your digital product sales into the stratosphere. Simply put, people like what other people like and they buy what other people are buying. It’s the same dynamic that is making influencer marketing is so hot right now. 

But how can you leverage social proof to make a difference in your bottom line and your digital product sales?

With the growth of social media and the corresponding growth of technology, social proof is relevant to marketing on a scale that Robert Cialdini likely never imagined when he first coined the term in his 1984 book, Influence.And while influencer marketing is important, social proof goes far beyond influencers, with testimonials, good reviews, expert opinions and blurbs, personal recommendations, and more, playing a role. Let’s dive deeper into how you can capitalize on several forms of social proof to grow your digital product sales.

The Power of a Good Review

People want to be where the action is and they tend to buy what other people like. The numbers show this is resoundingly true as at least 85% of us read reviews online before spending money at a business! 

In fact, according to BrightLocal, 91% of us trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. So while you definitely want to leverage influencers and personal recommendations as much as possible, you want to focus heavily on getting reviews, especially those in the four-star and five-star range. Reviews can make a difference in 66% of all purchase decisions – that’s huge.

Why Bad Reviews Matter for Digital Product Sales 

People may not always speak up about good experiences, but they definitely speak up about bad ones. Having a bad customer experience go viral can be very damaging to your future sales as well as your business’ brand. When your overall rating loses a single star or goes from a four-star rating to three, you can lose 5-9% in sales.

These numbers are significant, however realistically, not everyone will decide not to purchase based on a single bad review, and in fact, having some negative reviews can actually help your digital product sales. After all, people prefer to buy from brands that have a four-star rating, and actually trust these products more than those with five-star ratings. Why? Because no one has a perfect reputation, and people are naturally suspicious of products that have all five-star reviews. 

So how can you leverage a bad review into higher digital product sales?

That’s where this aspect of social proof gets really interesting. People tend to trust brands that acknowledge the bad reviews and respond to them over those that sweep the problem under the rug. So turning bad reviews into an opportunity to improve client communication and solve new problems, you can actually turn a bad review into higher digital product sales.


And there’s something else to consider, too. Some consumers search specifically for negative reviews and these folks can actually end up being some of the highest converting, by as much as 85%. So when you handle your reputation management the right way, not only do you appear trustworthy and authentic, you demonstrate that you care about your clients and their needs. Plus, it may yield an opportunity for an updated review or a new positive one. And there’s no better social proof than that!

The dangers of using negative social proof

There should be no doubt in your mind by this point that social proof is a powerful option to grow your digital product sales. However, keep a close eye on your messaging. You want to focus on positive aspects rather than negative. For an example this, consider when the Arizona Petrified Forest posted three different signs to keep people from stealing petrified wood. 

This one actually reversed the effect and led to more vandalism: “Your heritage is being vandalized every day by theft losses of petrified wood of 14 tons a year.”

Can you guess why? 

It sends the message that everyone else is doing it. And with that, people tend to figure: “why not me, too?”

So, while you want to use social proof to increase your digital product sales, you want to be sure you’re doing it the right way.

How to integrate social proof into your product page

At this point, it’s really a no-brainer that you want to start leveraging social proof to increase your digital product sales. But what types of social proof do you want to add to your product page?

Testimonials & Reviews

Testimonials from clients you’ve worked with can be indispensable, as can those great reviews. Choose a few that are really great, and select short, meaningful blurbs from each that will really speak to your target client.

Logos

Are there some big names you’ve worked with? Adding their logos to your sales page boosts your credibility. After all, if big names are working with you, you become that much more attractive to more clients.

Badges and accreditations

If you have trust seals, certifications, or accreditations, add those too. Just like logos, these badges offer social proof that will grow your digital product sales, to the tune of up to 30% and sometimes higher! In fact, Blue Fountain Media’s A/B test with a Verisign trust seal increased sales by 42%.

Live sales numbers/notifications

These are a relatively new addition to the social proof game. Notifications pop up on your screen showing when other people purchase the product. Remember how social proof is about liking what other people like? This gives social proof in real time and shows how popular the product is. If you add this to your page, your digital product sales will start converting higher!

The bottom line

No matter how you slice it, social proof is the key to increasing your share of the digital product sales pie. However, be sure to start integrating social proof mindfully to make the most of its power. And, don’t be surprised when your digital product sales grow in a big way!

6 Reasons Selling Digital Downloads Is The Perfect Side Business

  • Jason@DPD
  • June 4, 2019
  • No Comments

In 2019, everyone is talking about why we need multiple income streams to ensure that our finances are secure. After all, if one is suddenly disrupted or dries up, having other options will ensure that our bills still get paid. There are lots of options out there, but there are many unique benefits to selling digital downloads that makes it the perfect side business and a powerful income stream.

When you consider the wide variety of options that the world of digital downloads opens up for you, it’s easy to see why selling digital downloads is so lucrative. 

So whether ebooks, printables, graphics, audio, courses, graphics, or some other type of download fits best in your niche, there’s definitely an option for you. And this is a case of the sky truly being the limit, especially with platforms like DPD offering a one-stop shop for anyone wanting to make money selling digital downloads.

And, although making more money is likely most people’s chief motivator, here are six reasons that you’ll want to consider growing your bottom line by selling digital downloads.

Shipping Isn’t Even a Blip on the Radar

When products travel as fast as the click of a button or an email, then the age-old costly problem of shipping is no more. Not only do you not have to compete with mega-retailers like Amazon who promise goods in 1-2 business days (or less!), but you create the playing field where you are the star. What’s more, your clients don’t have to wait days for their product, they can download it as soon as the purchase is complete. This means that you can start capitalizing on their excitement immediately with tips on how they can use their new product.

Selling Digital Downloads Gives You the Highest Margins 

When you sell digital downloads, you don’t have to pay a wholesaler a big chunk of change and lose 40% of your sales in fees. On the contrary, when you use a platform like DPD, you pay a low monthly fee and otherwise, you get to keep your money. Outside of transactional costs, a digital storefront means that you have extremely low overhead, especially in comparison to a brick and mortar business. That means that your new side business can quickly become a valuable income stream that is almost pure profit.

You Reach a Global Audience

A traditional brick and mortar business can be fantastic, but it also limits you to a specific geographic area, unless you create new locations which is both time-consuming and costly. But selling digital downloads gives you global potential. You can reach anyone with internet access, which in the age of the smartphone is nearly everyone in the world. What can you do with this limitless potential? Just about anything. With a global audience at your fingertips, start making goals that match your potential by creating a digital download that can truly deliver.

Build it Once and Reap the Sales Rewards

If the phrase “passive income” is music to your ears, then you may find this to be the biggest draw of selling digital downloads. Because truly, a digital download can be set it and forget it. Once you’ve created your digital download, whatever it is, you can start selling it. And because platforms like DPD keep track of your sales, if you ever need to update your product, you can make sure that your buyers are aware of any updates.

Selling digital downloads is absolutely one of the best ways to generate passive income. Your digital download will be available for purchase as long as you choose to allow it. And while, to maximize your sales (and profits), you’ll want to do some marketing and perhaps an email nurturing sequence or two to ensure that your target market knows about your product, it is easily something that can continue to generate income 24/7. 

You Set the Rules 

How do you want to price your digital download? Sure you put lots of time and energy into it up front, but since this is your product for sale on your site, you can set the rules of engagement. Meaning, do you want to set it up as a pay-as-you-go or a la carte system? Would you rather have your product(s) be available when users pay a one-time fee? Or maybe you’re selling subscription-based access that generates a monthly income. You get to set the rules for how the money comes in as your digital download sales grow. 


If you want to reach a new audience, why not let some brand ambassadors do the marketing for you by creating an affiliate program that offers a discount to clients these influencers send your way? 

Want to run a discount promotion or build a bundle? That’s 100% in your control, too. You get to decide if and when you want to offer a sale or if you want to take advantage of scarcity mindset and offer a low introductory price to the first 100 buyers.

Direct Contact with Your Audience (and the ability to upsell them)

The true beauty of selling digital downloads is getting to maintain direct contact with your audience. After all, once they buy from you once, chances are good that they’ll buy from you again. So not only will you be able to continue to market your new digital downloads to your audience, but you can upsell them to the next level of related services. 

Most importantly though, once people buy your digital download, you can continue to stay in touch with them via a weekly or monthly newsletter that allows you to give them free tips and tricks and first-in-line access to any new products.

The takeaway here is that selling digital downloads is a hugely profitable way to grow your income. Maybe it starts as a side hustle and grows into a significant source of income. Regardless of what you’re selling and how many digital downloads you offer, the income potential is nearly limitless, so take advantage and start selling digital downloads soon. There’s really no downside.

New Help and Support Tools!

  • Jason@DPD
  • March 20, 2019
  • 2 Comments

We’ve been working hard to make DPD easier to use and understand. We’ve recently updated our admin to a new, more logical layout with option consolidation and organization, and we’re adding new support tools to guide you along the way.

On-Page Guides and Tours

We’ve started adding on-page guides and tours to explain how to find things, what each item on the page does, and to help people accomplish common tasks we regularly get support questions about.

To open the on-page guides, click the little flag icon in the bottom right corner of the page:

A menu will open with the guides and tutorials available for that module:

These guides and tours appear right on the DPD page, highlighting fields and buttons and giving you extra information on what each thing does and how it’s used:

If you’ve decided I’m too boring and just want to bail out of a guide you can always click the “X” icon in the top right corner at any time.

Right now we’re working to add guides and tours to the top level page (usually the list page) for each module, so as you go to Products, Orders, Customers, etc. in the left menu you should see the icon.

If you don’t see an icon for a specific module we don’t have any guides available for it yet, but we’re working on it!

On-Page Knowledge Base Links

We’ve added links to most modules that go directly to the KB section that relates to that module. This should save everyone time looking up help or waiting for a support response.

For example, the KB link on the Products page links directly to the Working with Products page in the KB (which we’ve also reorganized to line up more cleanly with modules in DPD).

If you have advanced questions that aren’t answered by the on-page guides or just like reading through documentation that reads like stereo instructions then this is the link for you.

Live Chat / Support Tickets

Our dedicated live chat guy Chase is available Monday – Friday, 9AM – 5PM Eastern for live chat (except when he gets cranky and we have to let him go to the bathroom or eat).

You can get to the Live Chat interface from the orange tab in the bottom right corner of the screen:

If live chat is not available you’ll see a “Submit Support Ticket” message that will let you…. submit a support ticket. We’ll reply just as soon as we can!

We hope these changes make it easier to use and get help with DPD! We’re always looking for feedback on our changes, so drop us a line or post a comment and let us know what you think!

DPD Update: Some Customer Requests!

  • Jason@DPD
  • February 13, 2019
  • 2 Comments

Now that our new admin is out the door and stable for everyone in this DPD update we’re adding some features and tweaks requested by our vendors!

Added Ability to Disable Sale Notifications for Free Checkouts

You can now disable sale notifications for free checkouts by turning them off from the vendor profile. Basically, you can get no notifications, notifications for free and paid checkouts, or just notifications for paid checkouts.

Sale Notifications ON + Free notifications OFF = only paid notifications

To get to the profile go to the top right corner of the screen in DPD and select vendor profile from the menu.

Added Product Update Emails for Tangibles

Some vendors used product update emails to communicate with buyers about tangible item pre-orders, production updates, etc. so we made them available for that product type.

Just like every other product type, you can send a product update from the product’s details page by going to Products in the left menu and then clicking on the product name.

Added Text Areas on Portal index and Portal Login Pages

Vendors wanted to be able to insert text on the customer portal pages just like every cart page, so we added above and below page body text areas for this page.

Edit all the text.

You can get to these new text areas (and all the other text areas) by going to Settings > Checkout and clicking the edit Text areas button on that page.

Added Affiliate Fields to Order->Create and Order->Edit

You can now manually specify an affiliate and commission due for manually edited and created orders. DPD doesn’t do any Automatic calculation since thats done at checkout, but you can manually specify a payout if needed.

Select Affiliate and set payout

Added Option to Use UPS Negotiated Rates

By default, DPD quotes the “published” rates for UPS. Some vendors have special rates negotiated with UPS. They now have the option of quoting those rates to customers during checkout. If you have negotiated rates and want to quote standard rates, leave the option turned off!

Updated French Cart Translations

A native French speaking DPD vendor provided us with better translations, so we updated them! We always try to use translations provided by our native speaking vendors when possible.

More New Admin Updates based on Vendor Feedback!

  • Jason@DPD
  • January 29, 2019
  • 1 Comment

We’ve received feedback from many vendors about the new admin and its been mostly positive, but a few have asked us for tweaks here and there to make their life easier. In this update we have another round of minor changes to make things easier for everyone!

Made it easier to disable Integrations and Payment Methods

Previously form validation (making sure all the fields were filled out correctly) required API keys, etc. filled out in integrations and payment methods even if you were just trying to disable them on your store.

This wasn’t ideal, for example if you wanted to remove your credentials from DPD, so we made it where you can save them them as disabled with blank fields. If the integration is enabled you still need to fill out the required fields to make the integration or payment method work (because why would we save an active integration in a non-working state?) but now you can disable them and leave fields blank.

Mobile Layout Tweaks

With the new admin we’re trying to move the entire DPD admin to a mobile friendly layout that works on phones, iPads, etc. We’re about 80% there (some of the data tables are big and we’re working on getting them mobile friendly) and we’ve done some tweaks to button layout, etc. so that everything lines up and wraps correctly on mobile devices.

Specifically, we’ve fixed the button layout for saving pages on mobile, which was a little wonky, to use “block” buttons on small devices:

Easy clicky buttons on the small screens, natch.

This update wins the award for “the most work that nobody will notice” with 482 changes just to make buttons look a little different.

More Key Product Improvements

Vendors use DPD to deliver product keys it for a multitude of uses- delivering activation keys, phone card codes, gift card codes, keyed URLs as unique links, coupon codes, and all sorts of other things.

In the last update we added a key count display to the product list to make it easier for key sellers to see how much key inventory they had left:

Color Coded Key Inventory display on product list

This was great, but for vendors who deliver the same key to every customer or keys generated at an external URL or with Aquatic Prime it was annoying- it would show a red 1 or 0. So, we fixed that by adding different icons for “deliver the same key to everybody” and external methods and added helpful tooltips to tell you whats going on with product keys:

“Infinity key” for deliver the same to everyone and a “server key” for external generation!

Per Product Key Inventory Warning Threshold

We also added a per-product low key warning threshold, so you can manually override DPD’s sales velocity based warnings and set your own limit:

This field is optional- you can leave it blank or 0 to use DPD’s built in sales velocity based 7 day warning threshold.

Quick Actions Menu added to Product List

Based on popular demand, we’ve added a quick actions menu to the product list so you can jump right to a product’s specific task:

Jump right to what you need with the new Quick Actions menu.

You can still click on the product name or View button to see product detail and see everything about a product including stats, past product updates, existing fulfillments and price points, etc. but hopefully this makes basic tasks for people that know exactly what they want to do quicker and easier!

Other Minor Tweaks and Changes in this update:

  • Fixed the expired account message on the Dashboard when you no longer have a DPD subscription
  • Fixed a misplaced form tag on vendor/manageaffiliate
  • Made the Zapier link on integrations open in a new tab/window
  • Removed some dummy text that made it in to production on one obscure tooltip on one page that we’re pretty sure nobody ever noticed.
  • Depreciated 2CheckOut because even though they account for 0.059% of checkouts they are responsible for waaaaaay more than that in support requests, they have 3 different systems and it’s a crap shoot which one people are on, and their support desk will only send us canned responses.

New Admin Updates Based On Vendor Feedback

  • Jason@DPD
  • January 10, 2019
  • No Comments

We’ve had mostly positive feedback from vendors since launching the new admin earlier this week, but there have been a few bugs and a couple user interface issues we needed to address. We’ve been continuously releasing updates this week as things pop up, so here is a rollup of changes we’ve made:

More Transparent Product Key Inventory

A vendor wrote in and told us how important it was to be able to see available key inventory from the product list and suggested some changes to make his and all “key sellers” lives easier so we implemented them!

For products that deliver product keys, we now display the available key number with a color coded icon for inventory status on the product list and product detail page:

Red icon for no keys, yellow for less than 10 keys, and green for more than 10!

Easier to Find “Send Free Download” button

Before the redesign there used to be a button on the product detail page to send a free download to someone. We’ve received a lot of tickets asking where that went (we put it in the action menu button at the top) so to make life easier for everyone we’ve added the button back to the product detail page.

Now you can send free downloads like a madman without going in the menu!

Other Bug Fixes and Minor Changes

  • Fixed some buggered CSS in the affiliate mini-site from the update
  • Moved export button on reports pages to the top
  • Added some back buttons to purchase transaction detail pages
  • Fixed a bunch of minor styling inconsistencies on various pages
  • Fixed the send free download “success!” page style
  • Fixed an issue with affiliate link codes not generating properly
  • Increased global text size based on vendor feedback
  • Increased global gray text contrast based on vendor feedback
  • Fixed the affiliate / vendor mode switcharoo.
  • Made the product “bulk edit” page search field label more descriptive of its capabilities (hint: it searches everything on the page)

New Year, New Admin

  • Jason@DPD
  • January 7, 2019
  • 2 Comments

Last week we warned told people that we were releasing a totally redesigned admin and today we made good on our threat promise!

After hours of annoying database updates and migrations and a bunch of boring stuff that nobody really cares about we’re happy to share that the upgrade is complete and live!

We thought about showing you a bunch of screenshots of the new admin, but you can just log in and see it for yourself! Instead, here are some tips to help you get acclimated to the new layout:

New Admin Navigation Tips

The new admin has a simplified main navigation and we’ve reduced the 25+ items down to logical “modules” for each section. All the modules follow the this same design pattern:

  1. Module
  2. Primary action button and secondary action menu on the module “index” page

For example, to do anything with a product (create, edit, delete, get button code, copy, import, whatever) go to Product in the left menu, then either do the primary action on the page (create new product) or select your secondary function (like FTP import) from the menu at the top of the page. Or, open the product and do all existing product related functions there.

Store Options

We’ve consolidated store options that used to be in the theme and sprinkled around DPD in to two main menu items- Store Setup (store name, URL, contact emails, etc.) and Checkout which handles everything that used to be in theme, cart text blocks, store logo, policy pages, error pages, up-sell and cross sell text, etc. No more digging through 20 pages to find options!

Where did __________ go?!

We’re going to try to answer a few of these right off the bat to save everyone time!

  • Switch Store, Add new store —> Change Stores link at the top of the page
  • Add new product, FTP import, bulk edit products, deleted products —> Product page, menu at the top right
  • Purchases —> Orders
  • Import Customers, export customers —> Customer page, menu at the top right
  • Preferences Page —> Settings / Store Setup
  • Policies Page —> Settings / Checkout
  • Affiliate Options —> Affiliate menu item, store and global settings
  • Checkout Setup —> Settings / Checkout
  • Email Templates —> Settings / Store Emails
  • Theme —> Settings / Checkout
  • Individual page checkout settings —> Settings / Checkout

Having Trouble or want to give Feedback?

We’re in the process of updating all the KB articles and tutorial videos with the new admin, so if anyone has any questions on how to find anything or has any issues please yell at our support team via live chat or support ticket- they’ll be happy to help!

We welcome any and all feedback, good or bad. Please drop us a line, send us a chat, or leave us a comment here. We’ve already received a few suggestions and we’re going to do our best to tweak things to make them easier for everyone!

Coming Next Week: All New Vendor Admin

  • Jason@DPD
  • January 2, 2019
  • 4 Comments

We’re making this post ahead of the update (scheduled for Monday, Jan 7th) so everyone will have a bit of a heads up before the log in and everything looks different. We know change is kinda scary, but we promise this one is a good one. We’ve made it easier to find things, cleaned up the design and navigation, and gave everything a modern facelift!

Simplified Navigation

DPD’s navigation was getting cluttered with years of adding new features to our top-level navigation menu. Most stores had over 25 menu items in the main menu alone, and then sometimes multiple sub-pages and menus to get to the option you needed. It was a real drag, and features are cool and all but if you can’t find them when you need them that’s no good either.

So, we’ve cleaned that up quite a bit!

The new navigation shows what module you’re working in at a glance so you don’t get lost and is greatly simplified so you’re not spending 30 seconds scanning through a giant list of options trying to find the thing you need.

Primary and Secondary Actions

We’ve also refined navigation within modules- Instead of having 4 or 5 top level navigation links for product related functions, now you simply go to the Product list and either do the primary action (the green button) or open up the secondary action menu to do other things.

This same “primary action button, secondary actions menu” system is used throughout DPD. For example: the product detail page which is now the one-stop shop for all product related functions. We’ve tried to make all interactions in DPD linear, with a clear straight line to what you want to do instead of 3 different ways to get to a specific option.

Store Option Consolidation

Previously, we’ve been tacking on checkout options on the theme. You want to turn on the coupon field? You had to go to Theme > Edit Current Theme > Find and open the the checkout page options > Edit and save.

This was terrible for a number of reasons, mainly that it was impossible to find anything and you had to write us a support ticket to figure out where to turn on core functionality of DPD.

So, we fixed it! Now all checkout settings are on a page thats under Settings > Checkout. I know, crazy right?! No more clicking 3 layers deep in to the theme system and going through 12 pages of options to find the one you want.

We’ve also consolidated options like the actual store theme, store policies, error page messages, cart page text blocks, etc. to this page to further reduce menu items and places you have to look.

A million other updates too!

We’ve moved the customer view to a timeline layout that lets you see when notes and purchases were made in chronological order, and added stats like Lifetime Value (LTV) and lifetime purchases. We also try to pull in their Gravatar if they’ve set one up so you can put a face with a name, as shown by the ruggedly good looking customer below.

Pages like the Payment Methods page and Integrations page are cleaned up and easier to read and interact with and reflect how most people use DPD.


All in all, this update has touched every single page of the DPD vendor admin and we’ve spent hundreds of hours of development time working on it. We hope everyone likes it! As always, if anyone has a question about where to find something, needs to report a bug, or just general feedback please send us a support ticket or start a live chat from the admin and we’ll do our best to help!