From the Administration Panel main menu, select Manage Affiliates. Select Link Code from the top menu bar.
The affiliate link code generator enables the store administrator to create banners and text ads for affiliates to use in their web sites, ezines, and newsletters. Once the store administrator enters the banners and text ads, the code generator automatically inserts each affiliate's ID into the code for them to copy from their affiliate support panel.
You can sort your links/advertising material into an unlimited number of categories. Click "Edit link categories" to add or manage your categories.
Add A New Link
| 1. | Select which category the link should be added to. |
| 2. | Optionally, browse for a .jpg or .gif image to upload. |
| 3. | Optionally, set the image alt text. (Text that appears on the page when the mouse is passed over the image) |
| 4. | Optionally, set the URL. If this is not set, customers will be redirected to the default redirect URL, which is set within Configuration > Affiliate Program. |
| 5. | Optionally, enter text for a text link or ad copy to be shown together with an image. |
| 6. | Submit the form to save changes. AShop will generate a link for each affiliate with their ID code for tracking. |
URL
This is where your visitors will be redirected after clicking the link on an affiliate's website. It can be set to index.php or catalogue.php to redirect to your shopping cart or it can be set to any other page on your site or URL to a different site, for example if you want to use specific landing pages for your affiliate marketing. You can also use the website replication feature to personalize your landing/sales pages for each affiliate, giving them their own personal version of the site/page.
To use the website replication feature you need to add the placeholder code %affiliateuser% to the URL. The page or site must be in a subdirectory of your AShop and the format of the URL must be like this: http://www.yourdomain.com/ashop/subfolder/%affiliateuser%/page.html where the "http://www.yourdomain.com/ashop" part should be replaced with the actual URL to your AShop, the "subfolder" part should be replaced with the name of your subdirectory and "page.html" with the name of your sales page to be replicated. The %affiliateuser% code will be automatically replaced with the username of the affiliate, which will result in the page being personalized for the corresponding affiliate.
To use the replication feature you will also need to put special codes in your web page to mark which content should be replaced with the affiliate's information. Read more about this in the website replication help topic.
Link text
Enter the text and HTML that will be provided to affiliates for advertising. Tokens can be used within the HTML link code to provide affiliates with a copy of the code with the correct affiliate ID number . For example, if the URL to your affiliate.php script is http://www.yourdomain.com/affiliate.php and the referring affiliate's ID is 2, then when affiliate number 2 logs in, he will see the link code with the id=2 parameter. http://www.yourdomain.com/affiliate.php?id=2
Link Code Tokens
There are two placeholder codes, which can be used to insert the affiliate.php URL with each affiliates' ID number.
%affiliatelink% inserts the URL to the affiliate.php script on your site and adds each affiliates' ID parameter.
Example: You enter this text and HTML into the affiliate link code generator.
We like to <a href="%affiliatelink%">Go here</a>.
Affiliate number 2 sees the following link code when logged into his or her affiliate panel.
We like to <a href="http://www.yourdomain.com/affiliate.php?id=2">Go here</a>.
Customers see "We like to Go here."
When the mouse is passed over the link, the complete URL appears in the browser status bar.
http://www.yourdomain.com/affiliate.php?id=2
%affiliatecloaklink% inserts the URL to the affiliate.php script on your site and adds each affiliates' ID parameter. It also adds link cloaking code, which prevents the actual URL from being displayed in the browser status bar. This token must be placed within the HTML code in a different way so that it can create the hyperlink opening tag in the correct place.
Example: You enter this text and HTML into the affiliate link code generator.
We like to %affiliatecloaklink% Go here</a>.
Affiliate number 2 sees the following link code when logged into his or her affiliate panel.
We like to <a href="http://www.yourdomain.com" onClick="window.open('http://www.yourdomain.com/affiliate.php?id=2', 'PGM', 'scrollbars=yes, toolbar=yes, status=yes, menubar=yes location=yes resizable=yes'); return false;"> Go here</a>.
Customers see "We like to Go here."
When the mouse is passed over the link, only the URL from the beginning of the <a> tag appears in the browser status bar.
http://www.yourdomain.com
Read more about how affiliate links work in Configuration > Affiliate Program.