Tracking free users with s2Member

[corey34]

I am using WP affiliate and S2Member Pro and am wondering how I could set it up to track free users for affiliates.

I want to be able to give affiliates credit for free users they refer that then eventually pay for a paid account. Is this possible?

Thanks

[admin]

If the user is sent by an affiliate then it will generate commission when that free user pays for a membership later. Just make sure to increase the cookie lifetime to something like a year. That way any user that signs up within the year after being referred will generate the commission. So that functionality is already there.

We have an option with WP eMember that allows the free members to be captured as leads:

https://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/wordpress-membership/wp-emember-user-signups-as-affiliate-leads-addon-701

I can create something similar (given s2member has the required action hooks for it) but that will need to be handled as a custom job.

[corey34]

Thanks for the reply. Increasing the cookie length is an option although that would mean increasing the cookie for all signups. That might be an option but not sure.

What exactly does eMember do that would make this work? I can code but I can’t quite figure out what makes it track. I added users into the wp_affiliates_sales_tbl table when they signed up for a free account but I am guessing they need to be added as a user in Stripe as well. Is that correct? Or is there something else that needs to be done?

Thanks

[wzp]

@corey34 — Normally, the Affiliate Platform binds an affiliate to a customer, after a sale is made. The addon referred to by @admin causes this binding to occur when an eMember account is created; whether or not an actual sale occurred. Hence, you’d be able to determine member/affiliate relationships long after the affiliate cookie expires.

The custom coding offer is to create a similar capability for s2member.

https://support.tipsandtricks-hq.com/need-custom-work-done

[admin]

Increasing the cookie length for all signup is normally not an issue. You only ever give commission if they person purchase something. You are simply keeping the window open longer.

[corey34]

@wzp – My testing does not confirm that. I have a cookie set for 2 days. I signed up with an affiliate for a free plan then upgraded 3 days later to a paid plan and the affiliate did not get credit for the upgrade. What is it that does the actual binding? Is it something that is being tracked in the database? Does the customer need to have a Stripe Customer ID?

@admin – Increasing the cookie would likely work but for our case, we don’t necessarily want to do that.

Thanks

[corey34]

@wzp – Sorry, I think I misunderstood what you were saying earlier. You were referring to how a different plugin worked.

@admin – How much would you charge and how long would it take to implement what this for me?

Thanks

[admin]

Settings cookie to 2 days and then doing the payment 3 days later is not suppose to work. Thats kind of the whole point of the cookie length. Commission is given if the transaction happens within the cookie length. I am not sure why you are setting the cookie to 2 days?

It is very common to set the cookie length to something between 30 to 90 days. So set the cookie to something like 90 days then do a test. Test for the obvious use case which is something like the following:

Someone goes to your site via a referral. Then becomes a member and then pay for it. Sometimes they will pay on the say day, sometimes they will pay for the paid membership in a few weeks. Setting a cookie length value to 90 days cover all that. Then observe how things go. If you need to cover a new use case later, you can tweak things then.

If you want to have a more complicated setup, use the following so we can understand your project needs and provide a solution accordingly:

https://support.tipsandtricks-hq.com/need-custom-work-done

[Author]

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