Affiliate Link 1.8 Administrator Reference

Contents

How Tracking Works

Affiliates

The Affiliate Link software automates the affiliate sign-up procedure, providing affiliates with a special link to your site so they would be credited for referring visitors to your site, purchasing your goods online, referring new affiliates and so on. In addition, Affiliate Link supports 3-tier affiliate programs where affiliates are credited not only for visitors they refer, but also for visitors referred by affiliates who, in turn, were referred by that affiliate.

Here is a basic illustration of how Affiliate link most commonly handles sales and clickthrough tracking:


Affiliate's link
under banner 		— Visitor clicks —> Click is
logged [1] 		— Visitor is sent —>
to your site 		Your
Site 		Visitor negotiates
— shopping cart —>
or cc processor 		Order
Placed[2] 		—> Order is
logged [3]


Notes

  1. A visitor must "click through" an affiliate's link, which is assigned to them by the software, in order for the tracking process to begin. After this has occured our software, , places a cookie on the visitor's browser; this is what we use to determine which affiliate's link, if any, a visitor has followed to get to your site.
  2. It's almost always best if logging does not come into the picture until an order has been confirmed; however, if this is not possible, you can also either decide on the status of the order at the time a sale takes place, and/or choose to log only orders which send a special parameter to .
    (This is explained in more detail below.)
  3. Order logging is handled by . Basically, looks for the cookie placed by , and if it finds that the visitor has indeed been referred by an affiliate, records the sale amount, and calculates the affiliate's due commission.

    From this point, you may either:

    1. Display a receipt, or "thank you" page to your customer, in which case will be embedded in the HTML as a 1x1 transparent image, invisible and harmless to your page's layout.
    2. Or you may choose to redirect the visitor to a page, site or script of your choosing, using the redirect parameter.

    How exactly the logging is handled depends on how it's called. Click here for a far more detailed explanation.

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To Sign-up Affiliates

  1. Make a clear description of requirements your affiliate must satisfy.
  2. Optionally, provide an agreement your affiliate candidates should read and understand before proceeding to sign up procedure. (You should have some example templates of this in the file 'quickstart.pdf which you received after your account was created and/or integrated.)
  3. Add a link to automatic affiliate sign-up page at
    http://
  4. Let affiliates sign up themselves using this page.
  5. After sign up form is submitted, affiliate will receive email notification and see confirmation page.
  6. If affiliate candidate submits signup form from the same computer more than once in certain period of time, it is considered as duplicate submission and warning message is displayed. No new affiliate account is created. You can change duplicate signup blocking period (or even disable this feature) by Signup Persistence option in admin options panel.

Important

Note

You may want to customize sign up pages and email notifications your affiliates receive. Templates used for sign up processing are stored in the Signup Panel portion of the Templates section.

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2nd and 3rd Tier Affiliates

Affiliate Link supports 2- and 3-tier affiliate programs where affiliates may refer another affiliate and then get credited for that affiliate's commissions.

There are two ways for affiliates to sign up using 2- and 3-tier programs:

Note

By default Affiliate Link is configured to track 2 tiers. If you would like to change this, please go here

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Clickthroughs

A clickthrough is made when a visitor comes to your site from an affiliate's site. It is a very important action in affiliate tracking process and most of affiliate tracking is based on the clickthrough concept. In order to get rewarded, affiliates should refer visitors to your site (several sites or just a part of some site as well). Then, visitors perform some activity on the target (yours) site: purchasing goods, joining membership programs, subscribing to online resources etc. Affiliate tracking system takes care of rewarding commissions to affiliates for those activities, but in order to do that, the affiliate tracking system must know that particular visitor was referred by affiliate.

Without that information, it is impossible to tell ordinary visitors from those referred by affiliates. And this information is created and stored when a visitor performs a clickthrough.

You may or may not reward affiliate for clickthrough itself (read more about clickthrough commissions), but in either case, these steps must be done to perform affiliate tracking correctly:

  1. Affiliate refers visitors to your site (online resource) using special URL assigned to affiliate on sign up or obtained via affiliate interface later. Such URLs are unique to each affiliate and should be used properly. Affiliates may assign such URLs to banners and/or text links to your site placed on their sites, post URLs in email messages (no SPAM allowed!) and so on. Affiliates should never link visitors to your site directly bypassing affiliate tracking URL (or affiliate tracking just won't happen).
  2. When visitor clicks on affiliate's URL to your site, affiliate tracking system processes clickthrough first and then forwards visitor to your site. This is done automatically and transparently, and most visitors won't even notice that affiliate tracking process took place (this doesn't violate user privacy because user-sensitive information is not collected).
  3. When clickthrough is being processed, affiliate tracking system stores affiliate-related information in visitor's browser to be retrieved later, when visitor does some commission-generating action. This is done by saving a small portion of information called a "cookie" in the browser's memory. The cookie contains only the affiliate ID#.
  4. When visitor purchases goods or subscribes to service etc. at your site, the referring Affiliate ID# is retrieved from cookie and commission is assigned to affiliate by the sales tracking interface.

Notes

Sometimes it is impossible to use cookies due to legal or technology restrictions. In such case, Affiliate Link may be adjusted to perform affiliate tracking without cookies. Read more about this here. Please contact technical support to evaluate such tracking possibility in your particular case.

Please also note that it's not uncommon for people to have problems when testing if a clickthrough is being recorded; this is due to our anti-fraud features which block duplicate clicks from the same host. Don't worry, it's still logging clicks -- it's just doing so in a way that protects you from any cheating.

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Clickthrough Tracking

Clickthrough tracking is performed by Affiliate Link site entrance script at

http://

In order to perform affiliate tracking correctly, all affiliates' links to your site should point to this script. It accepts various parameters to adjust processing and perform tracking actions.

The standard way to use the site entrance script is to provide the affiliate ID# as a single parameter to it: 

http://?AFFILIATE_ID

where AFFILIATE_ID is substituted with the actual Affiliate ID#. For example, if the affiliate ID# is 123 then above link for this affiliate would be 

http://?123

When this link is clicked, the system redirects visitor to default location of your site, set by Location option in Affiliate Link options panel.

Advanced Syntax of Calling Parameters

supports traditional name=value parameters as opposed to single affiliate ID# parameter described above. This is useful if you want to pass more than one parameter or if you want to have finer control over affiliates entrance.

aid
Use mandatory aid parameter to set affiliate ID#. Example: ?aid=28 where 28 is some affiliate ID#.
mid
If your affiliates are running membership programs at their sites and want to track how much each member of their site spends on your site, they may set unique member ID# as optional mid parameter to distinguish members from each other. Affiliate Link will track sales by member statistics and display it in Sales by Member affiliate report section (if it's enabled by corresponding report option). mid should be unique for each member of one affiliate (but it is allowed to have members with the same member ID# if they belong to different affiliates). mid must not contain spaces and must be 25 characters maximum.
redirect
To redirect visitors to specific location other than default location set by Location option, use redirect parameter with value set to URL-encoded target location. This feature works only if Strict Entrance Mode option is disabled. Example: affiliate #135 wants to redirect visitors to hughestracking.com. To implement this, must be called with
?aid=135;redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fhughestracking.com
ent
Sometimes it impossible to use redirect parameter described above because of limitations for URL length to be submitted to search engine, email message and so on. Explicit redirection via redirect tends to produce long URLs because target URL may be long and URL-encoding makes it even longer. To solve this problem, Affiliate Link allows admin to specify a set of custom entrances and assigns unique number to each of them. To redirect visitor to one of those predefined entrances, pass entrance number as ent parameter. This produces short entrance URLs and works even if Strict Entrance Mode option is on.

Important

Note

Affiliates may use Custom Entrance panel in affiliate management tool to generate custom entrance URL with any target location. The system will ensure proper syntax of call to and will encode redirect parameter correctly.

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Sales Tracking

In order to reliably log orders, and thus be able to award commissions based on these order, we need our logging script to be called directly after the shopping cart or order processing application has decided that the transaction is successful. This can occur in two basic ways.

  1. Usually, on-line shopping carts and order processing applications have a page that appears immediately after the order processing is successfully completed. This page usually includes something like "thank you for purchasing" so we will refer to this page as the "thank you" page. Affiliate Link needs to be notified when the order is completed, so the first way to integrate is to insert a small snippet of HTML onto the "thank you" page (this is sometimes called "pixel tracking"): 
                    
                        <img src="http://?ORDER_AMOUNT" />

    where ORDER_AMOUNT is actual amount of the order that has just been placed (with taxes, shipping and handling excluded if possible). The way to have this replacement done depends on the shopping cart capabilities so in order to learn how to do it read the manual or contact the author of the application. Some applications provide a special string that should be added in the HTML source code of the "thank you" page and that will be parsed when the page is displayed. For instance, if we assume that this string would be "%subtotal%" then the HTML snippet could be written as follows: 

                    
                    <img src="http://?%subtotal%" />

    Another example: if your shopping cart software is written in ASP, and order total is stored in variable Total, and order tax is stored in variable Tax, then the HTML snippet could be: 

                    
                    <img src="http://?<%=Server.UrlEncode(Total - Tax)%>" />

    The logging script may be called with more than one parameter, separated by a semicolon (;) or an ampersand (&), for example: 

                
                <img src="http://?amount=12.34;orderid=56x29z-17" />
  2. The second method of calling is accomplished by either by making the browser send a GET or POST request, directly after a sale has been successfully confirmed.

Advanced Syntax of Calling Parameters

amount
To set order amount, use amount parameter. Decimal part (if any) should be separated by point. All non-digit characters are ignored, e.g. currency name. Example: ?amount=USD123.45
orderid
To set unique Order ID, use orderid parameter. It should be 25 characters maximum, any leading and trailing spaces are ignored. If your shopping cart provides some unique order number or identification string, it is desirable to log it via orderid parameter to make it easier to identify a certain order when looking at the sales and commissions reports provided by Affiliate Link. Example: ?orderid=A1B-234;amount=USD123.45
lv1_percent or lv1_fixed
To set 1st tier affiliate commission, use either of two parameters: Note that only one of lv1_percent or lv1_fixed may be set, but not both. If neither is set, 1st tier commission settings are taken from affiliates database.
lv2_percent orlv2_fixed
To set 2nd tier affiliate commission, use either of two parameters: Note that only one of lv2_percent or lv2_fixed may be set, but not both. If neither is set, 2nd tier commission settings are taken from affiliates database.
lv3_percent or lv3_fixed
To set 3rd tier affiliate commission, use either of these two parameters:
lv1_xxx, lv2_xxx and lv3_xxx parameters are independent, so you may set lv1_percent and lv2_fixed, lv1_fixed andlv2_percent, just lv1_percent and let 2nd tier commission be default, and so on. Use these parameters with care, and only if needed. In most cases, only order amount and default affiliate commission settings (set within the admin panel) will be enough, without any need to overwrite them with lvN_xxx parameters.
redirect
To redirect visitor to some "return page URL" use redirect parameter and do not insert call to into <img> tag. If your application does not allow customization of "thank you" page then maybe it will let you set a "return page" you want to be displayed after the order is complete, if this is your case then you can set as the return page and pass another URL as redirect parameter to . It will log the order information and then redirect the buyer to the URL you provided. Example: 
http://?amount=91.95;redirect=http%3f%2f%2fsome.domain%2fpath%2fto%2freturn.html
where return page URL is "http://some.domain/path/to/return.html" properly escaped: / translated to %2f and so on.
aid
To use Affiliate Link in cookieless tracking mode you need pass affiliate ID# directly to via aid parameter when the sale is being logged. This will also override any existing cookie.
mid
May be used with aid parameter to pass member ID# in cookieless mode.
status
If Allow a Different Order Status than the Default One If Specified is checked in the Options menu of the admin panel, then the order status may be specified via this parameter. Takes either 'pending' or 'approved' as an argument. Example: 
http://?amount=9.95;status=pending;orderid=ABCD
this would log a order amount of 9.95, the order ID to 'ABCD', as well as set the status of the order to 'Pending', so that you can later decide whether the order is valid or not.

If you set Allow Online Status Update
rebillingid
To process rebillings, use rebillingid parameter. Certain on-line payment processors support rebillings, that is they can be configured not only to charge the credit card of your client at the time the order is placed, but from that moment on they can charge a certain amount on it periodically. This is suitable if you sell mebership-style or continued services like web hosting. In the case the buyer was referred by one of your affiliates, you might want to credit a commission to that affiliate not only when the order is placed, but on each rebilling too. The credit card payment processor can use the following syntax to make this happen: 
<img src="http://?amount=29.95;rebillingid=UNIQUE_REBILLING_ID" />
where UNIQUE_REBILLING_ID is unique online payment system payee ID# (or identification string). It must be included in parameters passed to both on the first notification (order time) and on the next ones (at rebilling time). The first call may be done in either of two standard ways, by inserting image tag or by redirecting to return page. The next calls may be done by a direct http connection from the on-line payment processor server instead. Rebilling ID should be 25 characters maximum, any leading and trailing spaces are ignored.

Important

Note

If your e-commerce software provides unique order ID# for each sale, it is recommended to log that order ID# into affiliate tracking system, and enable Block Duplicate Orders with Same ID option. This will ensure that no order will be logged twice.

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Testing Your Integration

In order to test your integration with Affiliate Link, you'll need to follow these few simple steps. Please see below for notes about repetetive tests.

  1. Create an Affiliate: First, you'll need to create an affiliate within your program. There are two methods which you may use in order to accomplish this: The first is by signing up in the exact way which an affiliate would - by going to your Signup URL given to you in the Welcome! e-mail that was sent to you when your account was created, and filling out the form there. This will provide you with an affiliate ID, linking code, and a good idea of what your affiliates will see when they sign up.

    Alternatively, you may log into your Admin Panel, and use it's built-in interface to create a test affiliate. For instructions on this second method, please click here.

    Note: you'll only need to follow this particular step once, for your first test.

  2. Clicking Through: Either place the affiliate link directly into your web browser's location bar, or create a small HTML page with the linking code provided on that page. This should take you to your online store.

  3. Make a purchase: Place an order with your shopping cart / credit card processor as a normal customer would. Depending on which e-commerce solution you're using, there may or may not be a test mode to use, which does not actually bill for a card for transactions.

  4. Check the Orders: Log back into (or leave a separate window logged into) your admin panel, and click on "Orders". Enter your Affiliate ID (or, if you've made multiple test orders, you may wish to search by "OrderID"), and click "List Orders". If your transaction appears in the screen that immediately follows, then the test transaction has been successful!


These steps should be followed precisely for each and every test order made to Affiliate Link, else our anti-fraud features may create incorrect or undesired results.

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Client-Side Tracking

Some sites do not have on-line sales system but provide customer registration form, membership subscription etc. On-line sales system may have off-line order form that customer may print, fill-in and then mail or fax to sales department. In either case, online tracking with may be impossible or unsuitable. To provide affiliate tracking feature for such sites, Affiliate Link has a special client-side tracking script, , that allows to insert affiliate ID# on any page of the site for future use.

The exact behavior of is dictated by the aid template, however by default affiliate ID insertion into a page can be accomplished in two ways:

  1. The first way of using requires that you place something like the following line inside of the <head> ... </head> tags of your HTML document:
    <script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" src="http://?var=aid"></script>

    When the page is loaded, it sets the JavaScript variable 'aid' to the referrer's affiliate ID #, if applicable. Otherwise, JavaScript variable 'aid' is set to "". If you specify a value other than 'aid', then that it what it will use. For our example, using the value 'aid', it inserts this JavaScript code fragment: 

    var aid = "AFFILIATE_ID";

    Where AFFILIATE_ID is substituted by actual affiliate ID#. After this has been placed, you can then make the affiliate id appear anywhere within your page by using the following line of code: 

    <script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript"><!-- document.write( aid ); //--></script>

    Where ever you place the above line of code, the affiliate ID will be printed on your page.

  2. The second default method of inserting the affiliate ID is by calling the script from within a form, with the field parameter. For example: 

    <form action=".....">
    <input type="text" name="Customer_Information">
    .... other form fields here ...
    <script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" src="http://?field=affiliateid"></script>
    <input type="submit"> 
</form>

    When the page containing this code is loaded, JavaScript fragment is replaced automatically and the form will be: 

    <form action=".....">
     <input type="text" name="Customer_Information">
     .... other form fields here ...
     <input type="hidden" name="affiliateid" value="AFFILIATE_ID">
     <input type="submit"> 
</form>

    Therefore, affiliate ID# will be submitted along with other fields. Note that inserting the <script ...></script> block outside of the <form></form> block won't work.

Notes

For the first method of calling , you'll need to place the document.write(); call exactly where you want the affiliate ID # to appear when the page loads.

For the second method of calling , you must place the JavaScript code exactly in the place where the input field should appear.

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Cookies

Affiliate Link uses cookies in default tracking mode. Here is list of all cookies used and their meaning:

AffiliateLink
Primary tracking cookie. May be persistent with expiration time controlled by Persistence option. This cookie is set by affiliate entrance script on clickthrough and contains: This cookie is received and used by sales logging interface script and by client-side logging script .
AffiliateLinkLastClick
Duplicate clickthrough blocking cookie. May be persistent with expiration time controlled by Clickthrough Persistence option (using of this cookie may be also disabled by setting that option to '-'). This cookie is set by affiliate entrance script on clickthrough and contains: This cookie is received by and used to detect duplicate clickthroughs.
AffiliateLinkLastOrder
Duplicate order blocking cookie, current browser session only. This cookie is used by sales tracking script and contains: When the order is being logged, is called from order finalizing page. Script sets this per-session cookie and if customer accidentally reloads order finalizing page, cookie is already set and it allows script to detect that page is being reloaded and to prevent paying affiliate commission twice for the same order. Note that if your shopping cart (online sales) system provides unique order ID#, it is preferable to enable Block Duplicate Orders with the Same ID mode because it is more reliable way to detect duplicates.
AffiliateLinkLastSignup
Duplicate signup blocking cookie. May be persistent with expiration time controlled by Signup Persistence option (using of this cookie may be also disabled by setting that option to '-'). This cookie is set by affiliate signup script and contains: When affiliate accidentally submits signup form more than once, script detects if the cookie is already set and warns affiliate for duplicate submission. Note that this cookie may cause problems if someone tries to signup more than one affiliate from the same computer -- Affiliate Link will treat them as one signup. To workaround this either disable cookie completely (setting Signup Persistence option to '-') or make it per-session (by setting Signup Persistence option to '0') and asking people to close and reopen browser for each affiliate sign up.
AffiliateLinkLastRequest
Duplicate signup request blocking cookie. The same as AffiliateLinkLastSignup cookie above but used if Defer Signups mode is on.

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Cookieless Tracking Mode

Unfortunately, sometimes it is impossible to use cookies for affiliate tracking purposes because of customer privacy reasons (note that AffiliateLink cookies do not store any private information anyway) or due to technical limitations. In such cases, Affiliate Link provides cookieless tracking mode.

To use cookieless tracking mode, Affiliate Link requires additional cooperation with the e-commerce system in use. Here is a brief illustration explaining how cookieless tracking is most commonly performed:



Affiliate's link
under banner 		—Visitor—>
clicks 		Click is
logged [1] 		Visitor is sent to
— your site, along with—>
affiliate info in
the background 		Your
Site 		Visitor negotiates
— shopping cart —>
or cc processor 		Order
Placed [2] 		Your site sends
— affiliate info —>
back to us 		Order is
logged [3]
  1. When a visitor performs a clickthrough from an affiliate's site, sends the affiliate ID number (and member ID number, if applicable) to your site via the location URL rewrite mechanism. Here, a program or script on your end must read and record this information.
  2. Your site is then responsible for storing the affiliate and member ID #'s for future use. It should take care of associating them with the visitor, expiration, etc. When an order is placed, your cart or cc processor will need to be able to decide whether or not the visitor placing the order has been referred by an affiliate, and if so, what their affiliate id # is.
  3. When a sale (or other commission-orientated action) is logged via , your site must pass the current affiliate ID# and member ID# back to us, using the aid and mid parameters, respectively.

Important

Not all e-commerce (shopping cart) systems support the receiving and storing of additional information for future use (i.e., affiliate ID# and member ID#). Please contact our technical support to evaluate your site software and consider the possibility of using it in cookieless tracking mode.

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Remotely Updating Order Status

With Affiliate Link, you are able to remotely update your order status from another server, defined in the options section of your Admin Panel. Using this feature, you can use your own backend to communicate with our software, and decide the status of orders residing on our servers. This can result in a more tightly integrated system. If you believe your system can handle this, please follow these directions:

  1. Log into your Admin Panel, click on Options, and [Switch Advanced Mode]. Scroll down to the Sales Tracking section of the Options section, and find the checkbox field labeled Allow Online Status Update; enable (check) this option.
  2. Scroll down to the text field immediately following, which will be labeled Allow Online Status Update Pages. In this text field, you will need to place whichever URL's your system will be calling our server from, each on separate lines, or delimited by a semicolon (;). Every URL must begin with either http:// or https://, and you can input as many URL's as required.
  3. Finally, you'll need to setup your system to call status.cgi like so: Where the ORDER_ID is the orderid which was originally called. This is how we identify exactly which logged order to act upon, and as such is required.

For example, if you've logged an erroneous sale with the orderid of "ABCDEFG", and your account has been setup to default to "Pending" status, you could use status.cgi to delete this sale from our database like this: status.cgi?orderid=ABCDEFG;status=deleted

Note

You can restore the status of the order to whatever you would wish from within the Admin Panel, just as if you had changed it manually.

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Tutorial Presentations

Starting an Affiliate Program has never been this easy!

Learn how to implement Affiliate Link 1.8 with your website, and how to use the different features of Affiliate Link 1.8 to enhance your online business.

Before getting started
Information about what you need to know before you get started using Affiliate Link 1.8
Welcome Email Explained
Why the 'Welcome!' email for your account is so important.

Administrative Options

In five separate presentations, the five categories of Administrative Options are explained.

General Settings
Affiliate Signup
Affiliate Tools
Clickthrough Tracking
Sales Tracking

Special Instructions Presentations

These presentations detail some of the features available with Affiliate Link 1.8, and how to use them to manage your performance based program. As Affiliate Link 1.8 is developed, you will find new presentations will be available here, explaining the "how and why" of added features.

Editing Templates
An explanation and simple instructions about customizing the Affiliate Link 1.8 templates for your program. Includes resources for basic html instruction.
Creating Categories
An explanation and simple instructions about how and why to create categories with Affiliate Link 1.8.
Creating Entrances
Simple instructions about how to create and retrieve entrances for affiliate with Affiliate Link 1.8.
Banner Management
Simple instructions about how to use the Banner Management feature, new in Affiliate Link 1.8.2!
Ad Campaign Management
Simple hints about how to use Affiliate Link for tracking your Ad Campaign.

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Admin Interface

To Change Your Password

  1. Click Change Password in the main menu.
  2. Enter your new password into New Password box.
  3. Retype your password for verification.
  4. Click Change Password button.

Important

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Affiliates

An affiliate is a person whom partners with your business, and refers customers to that business. On the Internet, this is typically accomplished using hyperlinks, or references to other sites. These are often simply called "links". The affiliate can place a link to your site, effectively advertising your business from their own.When a visitor clicks on this link, and follows it to your business' site - he or she has now been referred - this is known as a "click through".

Finally, if and when the visitor decides to buy something, the affiliate would be assigned a reward, either a fixed amount (say, 2 per order), or based upon percentage (e.g., 5%). When this occurs, it's often called a "lead".

Use the Affiliates panel to search, list, add and remove affiliates. In addition, this panel allows you to send e-mail to all or some of your affiliates.

To enter affiliate management panel, please click on the AFFILIATES button in the main menu.

The affiliates database contains:

Affiliates
Ordinary members of your affiliate program, performing actions and earning commissions.
Deleted Affiliates
Affiliates that have been removed from the program are placed in their own list, so that if you'd like to restore them later on, you may.
Pending affiliates
Candidates to affiliates, signed up while Defer Sign-ups mode is ON. They must be approved by admin to became affiliates.
Advertisers
Some of affiliates may be marked as "advertisers", who are treated specially in the paid e-mail ads tracking. Advertisers are still present in affiliates database.

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To Add a New Affiliate

  1. Click Affiliates in the main menu to enter affiliate management panel.
  2. Click Add a New Affiliate menu item.
  3. Enter affiliate information into the form and click Add a New Affiliate. The system will display a prompt about new affiliate sign up.
  4. The new affiliate will receive notification email, the same as affiliates receive on automatic sign up.

Important

Notes

Affiliate ID will be assigned to the new affiliate automatically.

The new affiliate receives email notification generated from the welcome_email template, under the Signup Panel section. You may want to adjust this template for your affiliate program.

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To Search Affiliates

  1. Click Affiliates in the main menu to enter affiliate management panel.
  2. Use List selection box at the top of the search form to select the type of affiliates you are going to search for (affiliates, pending affiliates, deleted affiliates, or advertisers).
  3. Fill in the search form fields. You can search by
    or any combination of them. For all fields except Affiliate ID, Parent Affiliate ID, and Country, a case-insensitive substring search is performed. For example, if you remember that affiliate's last name contains string "Mc" you can just enter it and the search results will include all affiliates whose last name includes that string (McCracken, McLaud, etc.). If you remember just the domain of affiliate's e-mail address (say "yahoo.com") you can narrow the search by entering "@yahoo.com" in the E-mail field, this will produce a list of all affiliates whose last name include the string "Mc" and whose e-mail address is at yahoo.com. Also you should not worry about the capitalization the affiliate used when submitted e-mail address because the search is case insensitive, this means the search results won't change regardless of the way how affiliate wrote name (Mclaud, etc.) and e-mail address (john@yahoo.com, john@yahoo.COM, John@yahoo.COM, etc.).

    For the Affiliate ID field, you may input multiple ID's into the field, delimited by spaces or commas (,), and it will search for all affiliates that match the desired criteria.
  4. To restrict search only to affiliates who signed up within certain timeframe, use the timeframe selection box.
  5. Using the Output section of the search form, you can adjust output result output format:
  6. To get search results, click Search Affiliates button.

Important

Note

Leave all fields blank to list all affiliates.

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Search Affiliates Results

Note

Parent Affiliate ID is displayed for affiliate only if affiliate was referred by another affiliate.

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To Remove Affiliates

  1. Using the Affiliates Search Form, search for affiliates you want to remove.
  2. If you want to remove some of the listed affiliates Or, if you want to remove all affiliates listed on the page
  3. Confirm removal by checking box near GO button.
  4. Click GO button to remove affiliates. The system will display the prompt with total number of affiliates removed.

Notes

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Restoring Deleted Affiliates

You may now restore the deleted affiliates via Affiliate Link's admin panel.

  1. To restore a deleted affiliate, click on 'Affiliates' from the main menu of the Admin Panel.
  2. Select "Deleted Affiliates" from the list box, and then enter your desired search criteria as you would if this were a routine affiliate search.
  3. If you want to restore some of the listed affiliates, then: Or, if you'd like to restore all of the affiliates listed on the page:
  4. Confirm restoration by checking the box near the GO button.
  5. Click the GO to restore the afilliates. The system will display a prompt with the total number of affiliates restored.

Note

You may also restore affiliates using the Edit Affiliates panel.

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To Edit Affiliates

  1. Using Affiliates Search Form, search for affiliates you want to edit.
  2. Click EDIT link at the right of result row with affiliate you want to edit. The "Edit Affiliate" panel will appear.
  3. Modify the affiliate's fields, which include:

    Note:

  4. Click Update Affiliate Account to submit changes and return to affiliate search results panel.
  5. You can also remove affiliate:
    1. Confirm removal by checking Confirm Removal box at the bottom of the page.
    2. Click Remove This Affiliate button.
  6. You may also restore an affiliate, if they've been removed:
    1. Confirm restoration by checking Check to Confirm box at the bottom of the page.
    2. Click the Restore this Affiliate button.

Important

Notes

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To Confirm Pending Affiliate Requests

  1. Using Affiliates Search Form, set List selection to Pending Affiliates and search for pending affiliates.
  2. If you want to confirm some of the listed affiliate requests Or, if you want to confirm all requests listed on the page
  3. Confirm action by checking box near GO button.
  4. Click GO button to confirm requests and make pending affiliates the approved ones. The system will display the prompt with the number of request successfully confirmed.

Important

Note

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To Remove Pending Affiliate Requests

  1. Using Affiliates Search Form, set List selection to Pending Affiliates and search for pending affiliates.
  2. If you want to remove some of the listed affiliate requests Or, if you want to remove all requests listed on the page
  3. Confirm action by checking box near GO button.
  4. Click GO button to remove requests. The system will display the prompt with the number of request successfully removed.

Important

Note

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Mass Email

Use the mass email feature to send email messages to some or all of your affiliates. You may want to inform affiliates about new incentives, updates in your site content, affiliate program configuration (e.g., commissions, new entrances, etc) changes or about anything you may think is important to your affiliates. You have the choice to send the emails in either plain text, or in HTML (MIME encoded) format; this allows you much greater flexibility as to how your messages will appear to the affiliates.

The system allows you to email a large number of recipients in a short amount of time, but it will send email to registered affiliates only and there is no way to email people outside your affiliate program. Affiliate Link provides limited ability to personalize your mass emails by automatic insertion of affiliate name, email, and ID# into each message.

You may target your emailings by category, country, state and zip code and then send email to all affiliates matching target criteria, or limit number of recipients. If number of affiliates selected by targeting criteria is greater than number of recipients requested, only given number of recipients will be emailed. Next time when affiliates are selected for emailing with limited number of recipients, the system selects least recently emailed affiliates first, i.e., the system always tries to select those affiliates who weren't emailed for a longer period of time than other affiliates. If the number of candidates is still greater than needed, recipients are selected in round-robin manner. Such selection allows to send your emailings to larger number of affiliates making your audience larger, and minimizes number of emails that each affiliate receives within given period of time, making email less annoying.

Paid Emails

Affiliate Link with conjunction of its mass email system may be used to run "Get Paid to Read Email" affiliate programs where you pay your affiliates for reading email you send them. This is done by embedding one or more paid links into email message sent to affiliate. When affiliates click on such link, the system rewards them commission assigned to that link, and takes care about paying each affiliate only once for each paid link. Paid email statistic and commissions are displayed in administrator and affiliate reports.

Another interesting concept related to paid emails is "advertisers". Affiliate Link allows you to mark some affiliates as advertisers (using affiliate management) and later send paid emails on behalf of any advertiser. Note that advertiser never sends email directly, instead he/she should ask administrator (you) to do that and you may ask advertiser to pay for sending mass email. The system allows to have many advertisers among affiliates and this allows to implement peer-to-peer paid email program. In affiliate reports advertisers can see how many emails were sent on their behalf and how many paid clickthroughs were made for each email.

The system also supports modification of 3-tier affiliate program regarding advertisers. If your advertiser pays you to send paid email, and this advertisers was referred by affiliate, you may want to credit affiliate who referred advertiser with commission for each paid email click. This encourages affiliates to refer advertisers who then pay you money to send emails to other affiliates.

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To Email Your Affiliates

  1. Click Affiliates button in main menu to enter Affiliate management panel. Click Email Affiliates button in the top menu to enter mass email settings panel.
  2. Fill in mass email form fields
    Categories
    Check Email All Affiliates box in category selection to email all affiliates without referring to categories they selected.
    Alternatively, you may select some categories to send email only to affiliates who subscribed to at least one category from your selection.
    Country
    Select country to email affiliates from that country only. There are three special choices in country selection box:
    <All>
    This is default. Affiliates from all countries are selected.
    <US>
    Only affiliates from USA are selected. Allows to send emails with offers valid only in USA
    <non-US>
    Only affiliates form countries other than USA are selected. Useful for sending emails with international offers etc.
    Zip Code
    Select only affiliates with zip code exactly equal to value entered in this box (case-insensitive). Leave blank to select all affiliates.
    State
    Select affiliates from the given state (case-insensitive). Leave blank to select all affiliates.
    Advertiser
    If you want to send email on behalf of advertiser, select advertiser here. System displays affiliate ID# and name for each advertiser. Select <none> (that is default) to send non-paid emails or paid emails not related to any advertiser.
    Recipients
    Enter intended number of recipients here. Enter 'all' (without quotes) to email all affiliates.
    Ad-Link URLs
    Enter up to 9 paid links to be embedded into email body. For each link to be sent you should enter valid URL beginning with http://, and commission settings
    • 1st tier per click commission -- self-explanatory
    • 2nd tier per click commission -- self-explanatory
    • 3rd tier per click commission -- self-explanatory
    • referral commission -- amount to be rewarded to affiliate who referred advertiser (if any) for which this email is being sent.
    By default, these settings are copied from system Commission Settings, but you can customize them for each link individually. Links with URL left blank
    Subject
    Enter email subject here. Please make it short, concrete and self-explanatory. Note that paid emails will be identified by subject in detailed affiliate reports.
    Body
    You can send email in either (or both) plain text or HTML (MIME encoded) format, by typing your message in the respectively labeled text box. The email message will contain this body exactly as you write it, with small header with affiliate program identification added automatically. For HTML formatted emails, only include what would be inside of the <body> ... </body> tags of an HTML document; the software handles the rest for you. Email body supports some special placeholders (special template variables) to be replaced with actual values for each affiliate:
    [name]
    Optional. Will be replaced with the affiliate's name (first and last names) for each recipient.
    [id]
    Optional. Will be replaced with affiliate ID# for each recipient.
    [email]
    Optional. Will be replaced with the affiliate's e-mail address.
    [link-1] .. [link-9]
    Mandatory for each link with non-empty URL entered above. Will be replaced by encrypted clickthrough link for each affiliate. Note that target URL will be invisible, thus preventing affiliates from clicking directly to it bypassing affiliate tracking. Instead, embedded link will point to Affiliate Link paid email clickthrough tracking script which ensures that affiliate is credited only once for clicking paid link even if he/she clicks many times, and redirects affiliate to actual URL (that you entered in Link URL entry box above). Redirection to target URL is always performed, even if it is a duplicate clickthrough and no commission is credited to affiliate.
  3. Check box receive a copy of the message if you want to send copy of email to admin, e.g. for verification or accounting purposes.
  4. Confirm emailing by checking box near Send Affiliates This Message button.
  5. Click Send Affiliates This Message button to launch mass emailing. The system will display notification page with mass email session ID# to refer to this session later if needed.
  6. When the session is completed, system sends notification email to administrator with session statistics (time elapsed, number of recipients emailed etc.). Additionally, if there was advertiser selected for emailing, system will notify advertiser too.
  7. If mass emailing session was failed or interrupted for some reason, error message is emailed to administrator. It will include session ID# and short problem description. Please include that email in any request to technical support about incomplete email session.

Important

Note

Mass emailing session with many recipients may take hours to be sent out and consume significant fraction of system resources. Please avoid sending next sessions in short period of time after the first session.

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Orders

Use this panel to search, list, add and remove orders. Usually, orders are added via integration with on-line order processing system or shopping cart. You can also add orders manually, using the Add a New Order panel, for example, to credit an affiliate for an order that has taken place offline.

To enter order management panel, please click on the ORDERS button in the main menu.

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To Add a New Order Manually

  1. Click Orders in the main menu to enter order management panel.
  2. Click Add a New Order menu item.
  3. Enter order information into the form
  4. Click Proceed. The system will display a prompt about new order added.

Important

Note

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To Search Orders

  1. Click Orders in the main menu to enter order management panel.
  2. Select one of the following from the Type listbox: This will allow you to decide which of the three types of orders will be displayed.
  3. Fill in search form fields. You can search orders by or any combination of the three.
  4. Adjust result output format
  5. Click List Orders to get search results.

Notes

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Order Search Results