Affiliate
Module Features:
(All of these
features are available in the Pro package.)
Affiliate
Program
Custom
Commission Levels
Two
Tier Pay Structure
Default and Affiliate Specific Referral Destination URLs
Automatic
Affiliate Login Accounts
Customize
Signup Form Welcome Message
Welcome
Page
Automatic
and Custom Affiliate Instructions
Refer
A Friend Form
Commission
Payout Report
Minimum
Payout OptionAffiliate
Order Records
Affiliate
Cookies
Affiliate
Program
A
potential customer comes to your site. Looks around,
and likes what they're seeing. Maybe the purchase something,
maybe not. Then they see your "Join Our
Associates Program!" link. They click on
it, get more info and fill out a quick form, and then
they are given a username and password. They
receive an email with instructions and a referral URL. They
then send prospects to this URL, which sends the prospects
to your site but they get tagged as having been referred
by the affiliate (unbeknownst to the customer). When
they become customers and make a purchase, the affiliate
is credited with the sale. You can see this in
the order record, and the affiliate can view his/her
order record using a unique login page with a history
of all their commissions. At the end of the month you
can run a commission report, which gives you the monthly
totals for all your affiliates along with their commission
amounts.
Affiliates
are, simply, a self-hired commission-only sales force. The
Professional Cart Solutions Pro package gives you all
the tools and automation necessary to effectively establish
and utilize such a powerful resource. One of
the biggest challenges for a new Internet business
is how to drive traffic to your site. Affiliates
send traffic your way, and you only pay them for paid
customers. This is one of the best marketing
tools available anywhere! Setting up your affiliate
program is quite easy.
Go to top
Custom
Commission Levels
You
set a default commission level for all affiliates. But
if you want to give some of your affiliates a higher
(or lower) commission rate, you can change that by
editing the affiliate record for that affiliate. For
example, if your husband is doing sales for you, you
might give him a higher commission than Joe User who
comes to your website and joins your affiliate program.
Professional
Cart Solutions does not support item specific affiliate
commissions. If you absolutely require this ability,
you might be interested to know that you can integrate
AssocTrac, an affiliate-tracking system that does support
item specific commissions. All you have to do
in Professional Cart Solutions is enter your AssocTrac
User ID, and we setup everything else for your account
with us. Click
here for
information about their product.
Go to top
Two
Tier Pay Structure
You
can have your Affiliates get a second-level commission
if you like. This way, if a customer whom an Affiliate
originally referred decides to themselves become an
Affiliate, the first Affiliate gets a residual commission.
For
example, Bob signs up as an affiliate with you. Bob
refers Michiko to your site, and she makes a purchase. Bob
gets the first level commission on this sale. Later,
Bob refers Carol to your site, and she also becomes
an affiliate. Carol then refers another customer
to your site; Carol would get the first level commission,
and Bob would get the second level commission. Professional
Cart Solutions automatically keeps track of who gets
a first level commission and a second level commission
for every purchase automatically. This is network
marketing in overdrive!
Go to top
Default
and Affiliate Specific Referral Destination URLs
If
you want your affiliates' referrals to come to your
site via a certain page, you can set that page as the
default for all affiliates. If you want to use
your affiliates to promote a particular group of products,
you can create a page for just those products and have
affiliate referrals to go there.
If
you would like a particular affiliate to direct prospects
to a page specific to that affiliate or to a certain
product, you can also configure the system that way. For
example, if you make a special arrangement with a power
seller to concentrate on a single item for a higher
commission rate, this feature would is invaluable.
Go to top
Automatic
Affiliate Login Accounts
Go to top
All affiliates get a
username and password automatically, which allows them
to login to a system-generated page that allows any
affiliate to view the commissions for the past month
and a history of all their commissions as well as giving
them their referral URL.
Customize
Signup Form Welcome Message
You
can add custom HTML to your affiliate signup page to
include additional info such as a simple welcome not,
your commissions pay structure, your terms of service,
or whatever you like.
Go to top
Welcome
Page
An
affiliate welcome page is where a new affiliate will
end up after signing up. This is a fantastic
opportunity to welcome your new 'Business Partner.' It
may also explain or reiterate how your affiliate program
works.
Go to top
Automatic
and Custom Affiliate Instructions
You
can opt to have the system send instructions with the
various code for links to your affiliates, and/or you
can include a custom autoresponder that also includes
the affiliate's username, password info, referral URL
and how they can make referrals to your site. If
you use an autoresponder, you can then set follow up
messages to train the new affiliates in the features
of your products or further encourage them in one way
or another with news of product improvements, or announcements
of special offers.
Go to top
Refer
A Friend Form
Your
affiliates also get the use of a special tell a friend
form, called refer a friend, that gives them the ability
to tell their friends and family about your site. The
email that this form sends out includes the Affiliate's
referral URL automatically.
Go to top
Commission
Payout Report
When
you setup your affiliate pay day, you are also setting
up the day that your affiliates will receive notice
of their commission amounts for the past month. On
that day, you will also get an email for each affiliate
and commission due. You might also do a commission
payout report, and import the results into a spreadsheet
or database. This will include those who do not
make the minimum payment amount for the month, so that
you may keep complete records of the month's activity. Professional
Cart Solutions does not issue affiliate commission
checks on your behalf - that is totally under your
control.
All
commissions are dated, and the affiliate can see what
commissions they have accumulated for the month by
simply logging into their
Affiliate
Login page. Thus, it is not necessary to reset
the commission amount to zero.
Go to top
Minimum
Payout Option
Commissions
that do not meet a minimum specified by you will just
carry over to the next month.
Go to top
Affiliate
Order Records
The
order record for an affiliate will include affiliate
account info, contact info, and most importantly histories
of the affiliate's first and second level commissions. You
can also view a history of all the orders referred
by this affiliate. The order history can be exported
just like any other search of your orders.
Go to top
Affiliate
Cookies
When
a prospect clicks on an affiliate's referral URL, the
system places a cookie on the prospect's computer. When
the customer makes a purchase from you via our shopping
cart, the system looks for an affiliate's cookie. When
it finds one, the customer's order is marked as having
been referred by that affiliate, and the affiliate's
record is credited with the commission amount specified
by you. If the system does not find an affiliate's
cookie, the order is considered to be 'direct.' The
only way an affiliate might miss a commission is if
the customer deletes their cookie file (pretty rare)
before coming to your order form, or if the original
cookie gets overwritten by another of your affiliates.
By
default, the system is setup to give affiliates commissions
on 'their' customers for the life of that customer. This
is the most common model for an affiliate program,
but you may want to give commissions only on customers
who were directly referred to your site. There
is a way to essentially overwrite an affiliate's cookie
after a purchase so that subsequent purchases by that
customer will be 'direct'. This way, affiliates
will only earn a commission when a customer actually
clicks through the affiliate's referral URL.
Go to top