Interesting case study from WinZip and TrialPay. It details how Winzip used their download page – you know, the page that very often appears after you start a download – to display a TrialPay offer to buy the product.
If you've never heard from them, TrialPay works by having offers from advertisers fund your purchase. For example, you get a subscription to Netflix, a paper, or buy other software. That other company automatically pays for your purchase, so you just spend what you would if you bought the offer directly.
Back to the case study – that download page added tens of thousands a month in new revenue – without affecting the existing conversion rate.
The results seem a bit meaningless to me, though – we have no idea on how much those tens of thousands represent from their regular revenue.
However, the basic idea of displaying the “free” offer after the download seems pretty good, given that many downloaders never get around to installing. Of course, WinZip doesn't have the same problem as micro-ISVs – if the user doesn't know about TrialPay yet, they might worry about a free offer. But given how well know WinZip is, they will probably trust them.
On a last note, while I do not publicize it much, both our main programs are available through TrialPay. You can get STG FolderPrint Plus for free or get STGThumb for free.