Clarification On Affiliate Program

[bizmum]

Hi

Before I start promoting my affiliate program I just wanted to be clear about something.

I have your eStore installed too and want to use a free report as an affiliate tool which can be rebranded with the affiliates links in there and given away to their lists/from their own website etc. There would be no initial payment for any leads generated until the lead actually bought something from the estore.

I will be mailing the customers through an autoresponder series encouraging them to buy from my estore. My question is this, if a lead from an affiliate then buys something say 30 days and then again in 180 days who gets the affiliate commission is it the affiliate or is it classed as a site sale? I’m presuming it depends on the cookie length that I stipulate in the admin panel but I wanted to make sure.

Thanks

[Ivy]

Hi, You are correct about the cookie length. If you set the cookie to 180 days then both sales in your example would be credited to the affiliate (as long as the customer does not clear their cookies).

[bizmum]

Thanks Ivy!

[kimjcastleberry]

Similar question only not quite the same.

Is there a way to make a purchaser permanantly linked to an affiliate once they have made their first purchase?

For example, an affiliate sends the customer to the site and the customer opts in for the free membership. Then say 90 days later buys a product, and maybe one year later buys another. Is there a way to maintain that customer as linked to the first affiliate even if they may have stumbled over another affiliate link since originally opting in?

Kimberly

[amin007]

Hi Kim, The affiliate tracking is done via cookie so if the customer clicks on another affiliate link for the same site then it will get overwritten because this is what everyone expects. For example, consider this scenerio:

a) John sent me to apple.com to buy something a year ago and I bought something which resulted in an affiliate commission for John.

b) You (Kimberly) sent me to apple.com to buy something today and I bought something.

You should get the affiliate commission and not john because it was your effort that made today’s sale. If you don’t get rewarded for today’s sale then you have every right to be angry

So the affiliate platform is designed to work in this manner but if you want it the other way then I can also accommodate that via a custom workaround. Now, the question is… do you really want to follow this model?

[kimjcastleberry]

Amin, thanks for the reply. I’ve got to think on this. It’s what we’ve been using on Nanacast to assure that the person that sends someone to a free webinar and gets them to sign up, doesn’t lose their cookie during the gap before the webinar, and lose the sale at the time of purchase.

For example, I’ll plan a single launch webinar, and get my students to promote it. They’ll get their people to sign up to attend. We put the webinar registration link behind a option, so we can make the person “stick” to the affiliate that sent them. Often times right before the webinar some over achiever will send out a bunch of links that may or may not be accurately labeled, they’ll get clicked, but the person won’t re-register, believing (correctly) that they are correctly with the first person that they signed up for the webinar with. If the coding was not “sticky” then the second person would have gotten the sale and both the first affiliate AND the customer would be confused. I’ve had this happen where customers have tried to do the right thing for an affiliate, and still lost the tracking, due to the gap between the promotion and purchase that happens with this launch model.

I understand where you’re coming from too with the other model. Unfortunately I cant think of a better way to ensure that a cookie is not lost to the affiliate the customer really wants it to be with.

Actually now that I think of it, I seem to recall we have a affiliate ID/coupon-per-affiliate system in here somehow don’t we? Some way I could let the customer manually tell me who sent them? Am I recalling correctly? If so can you point me in the right direction?

Thanks (as usual!!) You’re the best!

Kimberly

[amin007]

Hi Kim, yes you can use the “Affiliate ID/Coupon” option which gives the user the ability to enter the affiliate ID and the commission for the sale will go to that affiliate.

Simply go to the “Addon Settings” tab of eStore and check the “Allow Affiliate ID Entry” field.

[Author]

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