E-Commerce Online Store Affiliate System

Affiliate Processing

Affiliate processing allows you to associate individual orders with another site, person or company. The site links to your shopping site passing their affiliate number. ASP E-Commerce Store System remembers that number and adds that number to any orders processed for that customer for that session.

ASP E-Commerce Store System Affiliate Facilities

• Associates individual orders with an affiliate

• Detailed reports which include:

• The number of links to your site for each affiliate

• The number of orders

• The total of all orders

• Date of last link to your site

• Commission reports

• Ability to add, alter affiliates using standard ASP E-Commerce Store System administration

• Affiliate Administrator. Affiliates can review orders and change their details.

• Ability to have both a master affiliate and sub affiliates

• Ability for customer to select the affiliate if no link is provided

How it works

The affiliate must link to your site with a hyperlink or form specifying

shopaff.asp?affid=n	Affiliate links to site and takes all defaults
shopaff.asp?affid=n&id=yyyy	Affiliate links to site but goes to display specific product with catalogid yyyy
shopaff.asp?affid=n&directurl=http://awdh.com	The directurl tells ASP E-Commerce Store System to go to a specific url. It can be a file name or full URL

Where n is the assigned affiliate number. This is the affid in the affiliate table. If the affiliate does not exist, ASP E-Commerce Store System goes to your home page. No error occurs. If you want the affiliate to be directed to a specific product, specify the catalogid of the product as id=yyyyy.

If the affiliate exists, the login count and login date is updated. Each affiliate can have a unique page on your site and ASP E-Commerce Store System will automatically link to that page. If no page is specified in the field directurl in the affiliates table then ASP E-Commerce Store System goes to your home page.

New Report Program

New reporting programs have been provided that allows you to:

• Summarize all affiliate activity

• View orders for a specific affiliate

• View account details by date range

• Edit affiliate records

Registering an Affiliate

Affiliates can register themselves by linking to shopaffregister.asp . Or you can use normal ASP E-Commerce Store System administration facilities to add names to the affiliates table.

Configure the Affiliate System

The affiliate system needs some information about your site before you can use it. The configuration involves:

• Login to the Administration section and select “Affiliates” from Configure Shopping Cart.

• Edit shopaffuserinfo.htm with text that you want to display when a new affiliate registers.

• Optionally create a page or pages on your own web site that describe your affiliate system.

Affiliate Options

Certain options need to be set in ASP E-Commerce Store System configuration. You MUST alter these before you allow self-registration using shopaffregister.asp

affallowaffiliatesrevieworders	Can the affiliate review orders via the customer service
affcommissionincludesallorders	When calculating commission, should all orders be used or only those marked “processed”
affcommissionIncludesshipping	Should commission include shipping costs
affcommissionrate	The default commission rate. It can be altered for each affiliate by editing their record
affdirecturl	The default page to display when an affiliate links to your site
affinfourl	A location on your site that describes your affiliate system
affpaymenttypes	How you will pay your affiliates
affsubject	Your Affiliate System
afftemplateaffiliate	tmp_affiliate.txt
afftemplateMerchant	tmp_affmerchant.txt
affwebsite	http://www.yoursite.com
xaffiliatedb	You can have the affiliates in a separate table
xaffiliateusecookies	No. If you use Yes, more sales will be associated with an affiliate since the cookie will remember where the customer originally came from. We recommend that Yes be the default
affmultilevel	Yes means that there can be referring affiliates
affmastercommissionrate	The default commission rate for a master affiliate
affcommissioncategory	Yes means that commissions are paid by category
affcommissionproduct	Yes means commission is paid by product
affcommissionproductfield	The field in the products table where the commission value is found
Affmailorder	Yes means to e-mail affiliate at the end of an order
Affmailorderdetails	Tmp_affmailorderdetails.txt Template used to mail affiliate at end of order
Affmailordername	Tmp_affmailordername.txt Template with affiliate details used in constructing the order detail message
Xaffcustomerform	Generates a list of affiliates on customer checkout form
Xaffheaders	Yes ASP E-Commerce Store System attempts to display headers and footers specific to the affiliate

Information - Shopaffuserinfo.htm

On the affiliate registration page, shopaffregister.asp, you can provide information about your program by editing file shopaffuserinfo.htm . This file is plain HTML should not include any html start or ending code. It is included as part of shopaffregister.asp.

Affiliate Service - Shopaffadmin.asp

Affiliates can register themselves, login and review any orders. We recommend that you have a hyperlink on your site that points to this file.

Affiliate Registration

File Shopaffregister.asp has been supplied to allow an affiliate to register.

There are two ways to register an affiliate. One is to allow the affiliate to register themselves using shopaffregister.asp. This form is shown below.

The second is for the shop administrator to add the affiliate in the administration section of ASP E-Commerce Store System Shopping Cart.

The form below is displayed by shopaffregister.asp . It allows for new registrations and existing affiliates to update their details.

	Master Affiliates
	A master affiliate can either register a sub affiliate or have the sub affiliate register by linking to shopaffregister.asp?refid=m m is the master affiliates affiliate id.

Affiliate Login – shopafflogin.asp

Affiliates can login and then alter their details or review any orders.

Link Report

The results below are for a yearly report. The number at the top, total 2 is the total number of links. Then for each month in the year, the totals are displayed.

Confirmation of Registration

Upon registration and change, a confirmation page will appear to confirm the changes.

For new registrations, an e-mail confirmation is sent to both the affiliate and the merchant.

Email Confirmation of Registration

When a new affiliate registers, both the merchant and the affiliate receive an e-mail confirmation. Templates are used to send the e-mail and they can be customized to your site. Templates are plain text files.

Two templates are supplied and you can alter these or supply your own.

tmp_affiliate.txt for mail confirmation to the affiliate

tmp_affmerchant.txt for mail confirmation to the merchant

Affiliate Template

The sample affiliate template is shown below. More information about templates is in the next section. Templates are a combination of text and special codes in [ ]. These codes tell ASP E-Commerce Store System to substitute fields from the database. In this case data is being taken from the affiliates table such as the affiliate id, name, country, phone and e-mail.

Sample tmp_affiliate

Thank you for becoming an affiliate.

Affiliate ID: [Affid]

Name: [FirstName] [LastName]

Country: [Country]

Phone: [Phone]

Email: [email]

Affiliate Reports

A date range can be specified. All affiliates who had links to your site during that period are displayed. If an affiliate is registered but had no links to your site, they are omitted from the report. To override this date check, select “List all affiliates". If this box is checked, the dates are ignored and a report for all affiliates is provided.

Each affiliate that had at least one visit to your site during the period is displayed. Login Count represents the number of site visits. Orders represent the number of orders. The orders can be displayed as well as a report on your affiliate accounts

The administrative reports are available.

List Affiliates – provides a complete list of all affiliates. From there you can get individual order or link reports.
Commission report allows you to select dates for which commission could be paid.
Links Report allows you to specify a range of dates for which links can be displayed.
Edit Affiliate allows you to edit the affiliates table.
Edit Links, edits the affiliatelog table.

Associating Coupons with Affiliates

You can associate a coupon with an affiliate so that any purchase made with the coupon is attributed to the affiliate and they will get a commission.

When you create your coupon, there is a field called 'CouponAffid'.

In this field enter the affiliate id of the affiliate that you want to associate with the coupon.

Affiliate Reports

Affiliates can see what orders have been made. If you do not wish affiliates to be able to see orders, change the following line in ASP E-Commerce Store System configuration.

affallowaffiliatesrevieworders	Yes, Affiliates can see what orders are associated with them
affmultilevel	Yes, Generates a link to sub affiliate reports

The report includes the number of orders and the last order date, theumber of links and the last link date. And the commission for the orders generated.

Customer Form

An alternative to linking to an affiliate, is to display a list of affiliates on the customer checkout form. This would allow the customer to select the associated affiliate.

xaffcustomerform

Yes, Generates a list of affiliates on customer checkout form

List Affiliates Report

The detailed report shows you:

Affiliate identifier
Link Count - the number of times someone linked to your site
Order Count - the number of orders received
Amount - total amount of all the orders
The affiliate name
Commission - an approximate commission based purely on multiplying the amount by the commission rate. The actual commission is calculated using a complex formula in the affiliate accounts report

From this report you can view the individual orders or create a summary report for that affiliate.

Affid	Affiliate id. By clicking on it you will see a formatted affiliate record
Report	Obtain a commission report
Orders	Obtain a list of orders
Links	Obtain a list of hyperlinks
Link Count	Number of links recorded in the affiliates record
Last Date	Last date the affiliate linked to your site
Orders	Number of orders record. This is a gross number and may include unprocessed orders
Amount	Total amount of orders
Name	The affiliate name

	Commission Reports and Links Report
	The account reports, Orders and Link reports can be date based. When clicking on them, you will be asked to enter the date range for which the report applies Commission Report List The date report will list all affiliates who had orders in the period specified. By using the View Orders or Links. Date reports are available for orders and links.

Commission/Account Report

The account report is produced by shopa_affacounts.asp. This summarizes the details of the orders for this affiliate for the dates selected. Commission is only calculated on orders that have been processed. The commission rate can be configured by altering these two lines.

affCommissionincludesshipping	No
affCommissionIncludesAllorders	No

The default commission settings are based on processed orders with shipping costs subtracted.

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E-Commerce Online Store Affiliate System

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