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Here are some things to consider in order to get started with your affiliate program, once your integration is complete.

You should also have a look at the Welcome email which was sent to you when you signed up, for more Steps on getting started. You can also check our Integrations Getting Started Guide for more info.

Getting Started

1. Setup your Affiliate Sign Up Page. This was included in the ZIP file package we sent you. Please check the PDF for instructions on how to get that page up. Then what you'll want to do is add your program details on there, like how much commission you will be offering affiliates for each sale etc. Make the page enticing!

2. Check Step 3 in the Welcome email on how to setup your default commission settings. By default it is set to 0%. Please have a look at the Settings page in your control panel, and set it up as you like. Other settings include 2nd and 3rd tier (if you will offer that), Payment intervals, cookie lifetime, re-order commission, approve affiliates automatically or manually, notify on commission etc.

3. Next you'll want to create Text Links and possibly add any Banners or other marketing materials you want to offer affiliate. Once you login, go to Marketing > Text Links, Banners or HTML Ads. All of the items you setup in there will then be available to all affiliates when they log into their account and go to the Marketing tab. They will be displayed the text links in a special LINK CODE with their affiliate ID. It is those HTML codes with which they add to their website or emails or wherever they want to put your links. Please note that if you do not have TruLink enabled, you should disregard anything to do with that in your account.

For Text Links, put some links to your website with good titles, because those keywords can be picked up by Google, when they are placed on your affiliate's website. You can put links to your main website index page, or to a specific product page.

The same idea applies for banners, but you would put the path of the banner location (where the banner is hosted), and then the landing page URL, like your main page or product page, depending on where you want customers to land once having clicked the banner.

You may also add HTML Ads, and in there you can create HTML code with which your affiliates can copy and paste on their homepage or in an Email (like an email template). To do that, just make sure whatever link(s) you add in the HTML code, will have the affiliate ID code at the end, like so:

http://test.com?affId=!!!affiliate!!!

or

http://test.com/test/index.html?id=12&affId=!!!affiliate!!!

It's like creating a mini-web page for your affiliates.

TruLink

If you have TruLink enabled in your merchant account, this allows any of your affiliates to submit their domain name in their control panel (under Marketing > Domains > Add Domain). The domain must be owned by them (cannot be a free web hosting or google, yahoo or any other type of domain which they do not own). After they submit that, you can approve or reject it. If approved, they can then use any TruLink code on that website. Their Domain name essentically becomes their actual Affiliate ID. Please explain this process to your affiliates.

4. After you set those things up, you'll be pretty much ready to begin getting affiliates to signup. Once you do, they will be visible as "Pending" in your control panel. You will be notified when new affiliates sign up, and then on your Dashboard you click on "Pending Affiliates" and you'll be able to review their data and either Approve or Reject them. Once approved, they will be sent an email with their ID and password and where to login.

5. The email message which affiliates receive after they have been approved, and other email messages in ClickInc.com are totally cusomizable. You may want to edit those email messages to add further details or custom messages – for example, information for them to get their links etc and how to start advertising.

The email messages can be accessed by going to Dashboard > Contact > Mail Settings.

On the left will be a drop down menu with the various email messages. Simply select the one you want to check and then you can edit the message as you like.

The Confirm Affiliate Registration email is the one which might be most important. Please check that and edit as you like, explaining to affiliates what they need to do next (get their links from their Marketing tab section and post them on their website, mention the instructions about TruLink etc).

6. Once you start getting sales, they will be listed on your Dashboard as "Pending Sales" (unless you configured them to be automatically approved from the Settings section). You'll be able to see the order ID, and compare with your payment processor / shopping cart to verify that it was paid for. Then, you can Approve or Reject the order. Once approved, the commission and sale will be seen in the Affiliate's control panel.

7. After 2 weeks (or whatever your payment interval is set to be on your Settings page) you can go to the Reports tab and generate a report for that Payment preriod. It will tell you who is owed what commission, and then you can issue payment by means of paypal or check or some other method (you can tell affiliates what payment methods you can pay them by, in the Settings page towards the bottom of the page). Once you have created the Payment Report for an affiliate and you have paid them, you can mark the payment as PAID, and then their report goes back to 0.00 and it begins again for that affiliate.

With that, you should have a good base to begin!

Please note that all Merchants and all Affiliates should log into their account and check each section, and then each sub-section to see all the features and get a really good feel for how the system is setup and what features are available.

If you have any questions, please contact integration@clickinc.com and we’ll be happy to assist!