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Q: How Do Affiliate Programs Work?
A: An affiliate program allows the affiliate to earn commissions by referring traffic to a merchant's site. By placing a banner or link with special code provided by the merchant, it is possible to track which visitors have been sent, and which ones have actually made a purchase or created a lead. When this takes place, the merchant's software records the sale and credits the affiliate with the proper commission. There are also affiliate programs that credit an affiliate simply for sending a visitor.The three major types of affiliate programs are CPS (cost per sale), CPA (cost per action) and CPC (cost per click). CPS affiliate programs are the most common. In a CPS model, the affiliate is given a commission when a visitor is referred who makes a purchase on the merchant's site. This is either a flat amount or a percentage of the overall purchase. The affiliate will know ahead of time what the commission rate is before deploying any merchant banners or links. A CPA model is similar to a CPS model. The only difference is that instead of being given a commission on a sale, affiliates earn a set fee if the visitor takes some kind of action on the site, such as filling out a form to request information. In a CPC model, affiliates are paid a very small fee per visitor that is sent to the site. Merchants usually have software integrated into their site or as a separate area of their site where the affiliate can login and see exactly how many clicks have been referred and how many of those have actually converted to leads or sales. It will also display how much the affiliate has earned in commissions, and if the affiliate has reached the minimum payment threshold, he/she is sent a check for accrued earnings. As an affiliate one need not worry about customer service or stocking issues. Affiliates simply guide visitors to the merchant's site and earn referral fees for purchases and leads. It's that simple. Q: How are clicks tracked?
A: When an affiliate places the code provided by our software into his/her site, the banner or link that was chosen will render. If this is an image it will be hosted by our server, so there is no need for the affiliate to upload the banner image to their server. In fact, if just an image is placed, referrals will NOT be tracked. Affiliates must place the code provided by our software. When the visitor clicks on the banner or link, they are redirected to the TrackAssure™ server for a split second before being sent to the site advertised with the link or banner. In this split second, TrackAssure™ software registers the click and updates the statistics accordingly.Q: How are sales tracked?
A: In most affiliate programs, sales are tracked using what is known as a cookie. Cookies are small data packets that are gathered and stored on a visitor's browser. They record the actions or path of a user to provide a customized experience or to record information upon their return to a website. You may have noticed cookies at work, for example, if you have come back to a site and your name is displayed in the text. Previously, you may have entered your information to a form. This form then put a cookie on your browser, and when you came back to the site, it recognized this cookie and thus personalized the site for you.In the case of an affiliate program, we use cookies to determine where visitors were referred from so that we can credit the affiliate for the sale. When an affiliate places the banner code from an affiliate program and someone clicks on the banner or link, a cookie is automatically placed on his or her browser. This cookie indicates that the user clicked through the affiliate link. Cookies have set expiration dates. Many affiliate programs set their cookies to expire within 30 days or less. This means that if someone clicks through an affiliate banner, bookmarks the merchant's site and comes back 31 days later, the affiliate will not get credit for the sale. However, if the purchase is made within 30 days of the click the affiliate will get credit for the sale. Once the cookie is placed on the visitor's browser and a sale is made, the cookie is recognized by a snippet of code containing a 1x1 invisible pixel placed on the confirmation page. This code and pixel recognizes the cookie and tells the affiliate software that a sale has been referred. The sale is recorded in the software, statistics are updated in real time and the affiliate is paid accordingly. Q: How are leads tracked?
A: Leads, like sales, are tracked by cookies (see above). In fact, any action can be tracked by TrackAssure™ software. The visitor simply needs to click through an affiliate banner or link. Then the pixel on the confirmation page of the lead form will recognize the cookie that was placed when the banner was clicked on and credit the affiliate with the lead.
Q: Types of advertisements
A: TrackAssure™ software allows affiliates to deploy a variety of banners, text links, popups, datafeeds and more on their site as long as the Merchant has produced all of these advertisements to use. At the very least, affiliates will be able to deploy banners and basic text links. Here is a brief explanation of each type of link that can be used on an affiliate site.Banner: A banner is simply an image used for advertising online. Banners can be found on almost any informative commercial site online. They can be animated or static and consist of 3 different file types; flash, gif, and jpeg. Flash banners are typically animated and can be quite elaborate at a low file size. However, a lot of affiliate programs don't deploy flash banners as the tracking code for such banners has to be embedded in the file itself, which would require custom programming for each affiliate. Check with your affiliate manager about Flash banners. Gif banners are probably the most common banners online. They can be animated, but have to remain simple, as the file size can be quite high if they are complex. Jpeg banners are also common, but they cannot be animated. Text Link: A text link is simply a line of promotional text that links to the merchant's site. This is the simplest, and quite frequently the most effective type of affiliate link. Popups: Popups are windows that render on the visitor's screen with an advertisement. Some popups are quite invasive and pop up by themselves without any prompt. This tends to aggravate many visitors. Exit popups and popunders, however, do not interfere with the visitor experience and are therefore more desirable. An exit popup comes up only when the visitor leaves the site. This way, an affiliate can be assured that their visitors aren't distracted from their site by an ad that may be running through an affiliate program. Popunders are named as such because they pop up under the active window in your browser, so the visitor only sees the ad when the main window is closed or minimized. Datafeeds/Deep Linking: Datafeeds provide an affiliate with all of the information they need about a product and URLs to the purchase page and product image in CSV format (spreadsheet) so that they can easily display the product on a site as if it were a part of that site. Then when the visitor clicks "Buy" they are taken to the merchant's shopping cart. Most of the time, datafeeds are used by affiliates who don't necessarily want to promote the product on their own site, but would rather submit it to a price comparison engine or shopping mall and manage the listing. The linking URLs within the datafeed are specific to the affiliate, so that if their promotion efforts in a site such as Amazon, or Nextag result in a sale on the merchant's site, they will earn a commission. Also, such sites are already configured to accept datafeeds. Advanced Affiliate Creatives: With a skilled programmer, the possibilities for affiliate promotion are endless. Custom banners can be made with searchable fields, a leads form could actually be placed within the affiliates site, and so much more. If you have an innovative idea, be sure to check with your affiliate manager. He/she may just have the resources to implement it. Q: Running an offer
A: After an affiliate signs up, he/she will be sent login information via email to access the affiliate administration area. Before affiliates can start earning commissions, they must choose an offer that they would like to run. A merchant may have several different offers to choose from. Once an affiliate has logged into his/her account, clicking on the "offers" tab will list all of the offers that are available. Under the "offer" heading there are brief descriptions of each offer. To get a more detailed explanation of each offer, click the blue "I" icon to the far right of the offer. If you would like to see the overall statistics for an offer, simply click on the "R" icon. Here one can choose a date range and even compare the performance of any running offers. Once an affiliate has found an offer that has decent statistics and is complementary to his/her site, they can go back to the offers listings page and click the small "D" icon (deploy creatives) to the far right of the offer. Then each available advertisement for that offer will render. Some or all of these banners will be scaled down so that more fit on the page. To see banners at full scale, click the link labeled "scaled (click for full size)". This will render the banner in full scale in a separate window. Once an acceptable advertisement has been found, it is time to generate the unique banner code to place on the affiliate's site. If one wants to run the advertisement in several different places, the option is available to create multiple sets of code so that each can be tracked independently. From the URL pull-down menu, choose how many locations the banner will be placed in. If one doesn't care to track locations separately, or if one only wishes to place the banner in one location choose "1" from the URL pull-down menu below the scaled banner and click "generate URLs".The next page will render each banner that has been chosen and will provide the opportunity to give a name to those banners to match the pages they will be placed on. Banners can also be grouped. For example, a good way to track the statistics for each banner would be to enter the URL on which one intends to place the banner in the "name" field. This way, when statistics are viewed, one can see exactly how each banner is doing on each page. One can also assign banners to groups. This may be useful if one intends to run the banners on separate sites. Each site one intends to deploy a banner on can be a "group", and the URL of each page one intends to put the banners on can be the "name". This functionality is entirely for the affiliates' organizational use. The field below the "name" field, and the "group" pull-down is where banner code is attained for the corresponding banner to the left. One needs only to copy and paste all of this code into the affiliate site in the desired location for the banner to appear. Do NOT alter this code at all or tracking may be inhibited, which in turn will result in loss of commissions for the affiliate. Q: Organizing offers
A: If one intends to promote heavily and use several different banners, then he/she will want to make use of the "URLs/Ad Groups" tab. This is where the names and groups of all of the offers that are currently running can be changed. This is for organizational purposes. This is also where one can go if one accidentally erases or alters current banner code and needs to find the same code without starting a new offer. This page can also serve as a quick reference to see how many banners have been deployed and where they are located.Q: Reporting and statistics
A: The reporting tab allows several reports to be run to gauge the success of current offers and the affiliate program in general. The first type of report that can be run is an Account Report. This report lists statistics for ALL of the offers the affiliate is running. It also allows one to choose a specified date range to focus statistics and allows one to view and/or export the information to a CSV file for download. The next type of report that can be run is an Offer Report. This is the same report that is run when one compares offers on the offer listings page. It allows one to look at the overall performance of available offers. One can also run a creative report which allows the running of statistics for independent advertisements within offers. This lets one see which banners or links within offers are performing the best. Ad Group statistics allow separate stats for each group one have defined. Lastly, one can run a report on a specific URL where one has placed a banner. This can be useful to see if the page hosting the advertisement is converting to clicks.All reports allow the viewing of statistics online or they can be downloaded in CSV format, which can be opened in Microsoft Excel. One has the option of only viewing a summary of statistics or one can view a detailed report with a daily breakdown of statistics. Q: Account Information
A: The account information tab is where one can edit personal information. Affiliates may edit their address, website, email address change, or login information. It is VERY IMPORTANT that one keeps contact information up to date so that we can make contact about changes and so that one's check is successfully delivered.Q: Payment Information
A: The payment information tab allows one to view any outstanding balance and the minimum threshold before a check will be sent. One can also view the last payment date and the next payment date as well as payment history.Q: Help
A: If one requires assistance, he/she may click on the help tab for the affiliate manager's contact information.Q: Do you charge a commission on affiliates' transactions?
A: NoQ: Is a trial version of the software available?
A: No, however you can see a demo at http://demo.affiliatetraction.com/Username: samedemo Password: samedemo Q: Are reports generated in real time?
A: YesQ: What forms of support to you offer?
A: Phone, Email unlimitedQ: Can cookie lifetime be customized?
A: YesQ: Can affiliates be tracked without the use of cookies?
A: Not currently, however by the end of next monthQ: Do you support the P3P protocol?
A: YesQ: Do you support Java / Flash banners?
A: YesQ: Do you support multiple currencies and languages?
A: Not till the end of Q3Q: Can affiliates be categorized or grouped?
A: Only standard or PremiumQ: Are new affiliates approved automatically or manually?
A: Either can be doneQ: Can applicants be automatically rejected based on preset criteria such as geo-ip?
A: NoQ: Please describe the criteria and metrics used to detect click fraud.
A: It is a farce that fraud can be controlled automatically. The only true way is to management the program well. These automated systems often reject affiliate you want and let in affiliates you don't, the fraud affiliates have figured out those systems along time agoQ: Can custom emails be set up and sent to affiliates? If so, are there any limitations?
A: Yes, and there are no limitationsQ: Do you support CPL programs?
A: YesQ: Are there any monthly traffic limitations?
A: NoQ: Can users be targeted (for example, on a geo-ip basis)?
A: YesQ: Can a minimum payout be set?
A: YesQ: What payment options do you support?
A: All FormsQ: Can different commissions be set up?
A: Yes |
