Introduction
Welcome to your FlexOffers Affiliate Program! We’re here to provide the tools for you to grow your business through affiliate marketing. You will have full control of the commission rate and payout offered, your publisher relationships, promotional materials, and real time reporting. This New Advertiser Setup will walk you through everything you need to complete before your program can go live in our network and be available to publishers to promote.
1. Select a Plan
- Manage your own affiliate program or opt to work alongside the FlexOffers.com team.
2. Create a Program
a. General
After payment, you will be prompted to create a Program. This will be where you define your brand, payout, links, and publisher criteria.
- Program Name: This is how your brand will be displayed in the Publisher dashboard. We recommend using the name of your brand or website.
- Domain URL: Website URL
- Category: Your program will be sorted in the Publisher dashboard based on the selection. Please choose the option from the dropdown that most closely reflects your business or product vertical.
- Country: The country of operation for your business and customer base. If you service multiple geos, please select the option where the majority of your revenue is generated.
- Description: A brief summary of your brand, available products or services, and unique selling points. This is displayed under your program name in the Publisher dashboard.
- Logo: 150x40 – please use a clear image of your brand logo
b. Program Defaults
This section is where you can define your payout values. Each sale that occurs through the affiliate program will generate commission for a publisher, so setting a competitive rate will ensure your program is appealing to promote. We recommend using your own internal margins and competitive analysis to determine the rate.
- Commission Type:
- Fixed: A fixed payout is recommended for any program that has a user taking a single action rather than purchasing multiple products. For example, filling out a lead form, signing up for a subscription, or creating a new account. If the conversions on your site don’t have a variable sale or order amount, we recommend using this option since the payout will be the same for all transactions. Consider your customer lifetime value, if your goal is customer acquisition you can consider this option for your program.
- Percentage of Sale: This is a variable commission amount calculated based off the total order amount. The percentage is calculated off the subtotal excluding taxes, shipping and fees. This option will not work if the action your customers take do not have an associated sale amount.
- Action Type:
- CPA: Cost per action (Ex. New user account, new subscription sign up, digital download, etc) This metric is defined as the total cost of acquiring a new customer regardless of the checkout process on your site.
- CPL: Cost per lead (Ex. A lead is defined as a qualified prospect to your business)
- CPS: Cost per sale
- Commission Amount: The amount you are willing to pay when a customer takes an action on your site or makes a purchase
- Return Days: This is the amount of days after a creative is clicked that a sale can take place and a Publisher receive commission for.
- Description: This is listed next to the payout displayed in your program listing on the Publisher dashboard. We recommend keeping this section brief to one line of text. Ex. Payout is 5% of sales
- Deep Linking: Enabling this allows your publishers to create affiliate tracking links to any page on your website. If a publisher wants to send traffic to a specific product page or category, they will be able to create a tracking link taking the customer directly to that page without going to the Homepage first. We recommend enabling this.
c. Default Landing Page
- Where is the Text Link Content displayed?
- This will be the first creative your publishers will have access to for promoting your program.
- This will be the first creative your publishers will have access to for promoting your program.
- How is the Default URL different from the Program Level URL? Does this need to be the same?
- This does not need to be the same. We encourage using your Homepage as the Default URL.
- This does not need to be the same. We encourage using your Homepage as the Default URL.
- How is the Category selection different from the Program Level selection? If I select a different category from my Program level, how will it effect the sorting of my program on the Publisher Dashboard?
- For your Default campaign, please select the same category as your Program.
- For your Default campaign, please select the same category as your Program.
- Can this be edited at a later time?
- You can change the Text Link Content, but the Default URL and Category are not editable.
d. Publisher Approval Criteria
- Hover over each publisher type for a definition of what each promotional method means.
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- Can I change whether I want to manually review or automate the process after the program goes live?
- Yes, you have the ability to make this change at any point. Based on your bandwidth and business requirements, you can choose the option that fits your needs best.
- Yes, you have the ability to make this change at any point. Based on your bandwidth and business requirements, you can choose the option that fits your needs best.
- If I don’t select a publisher type, will that prevent them from applying to my program?
- Yes, for the majority of publishers as long as they have a promotional method assigned to their publisher account in FlexOffers. New publisher traffics source may still be set to pending for your review.
- Yes, for the majority of publishers as long as they have a promotional method assigned to their publisher account in FlexOffers. New publisher traffics source may still be set to pending for your review.
- I selected Automated, but I’m still getting publisher applications. Why?
- a. If a publisher has not defined their promotional category in their account on our network, they will pass the automated filter and still require you to review their application.
- a. If a publisher has not defined their promotional category in their account on our network, they will pass the automated filter and still require you to review their application.
- Can I change the publisher criteria at a later time?
- a. You can edit this section at any point.
- Can I change whether I want to manually review or automate the process after the program goes live?
e. Search Terms
- We recommend using keywords that are relevant to your brand and products. When publishers search for advertisers in a specific vertical, or a specific product to promote, having targeted terms associated with your affiliate program will increase your exposure on the FlexOffers network.
f. Terms and Conditions
- The FlexOffers Publisher Terms are what all publishers need to accept and agree to before joining the network, so at a minimum all partners are abiding by this contract.If you have any specific requirements about how to promote your affiliate program that’s not included here, wewould suggest updating this section. Usually it refers to the type of promotional methods allowed, the way in which the brand is being represented, and specific guidelines pertaining to your vertical and business.
3. Create A Campaign
- General: This step creates your “Default” Campaign that will appear in Publisher Dashboard as a promotional link.
- Program: Select the program
- Campaign Name: This will appear in the Creatives tab on your advertiser dashboard.
- Category: Make your selection off the vertical that best describes your product/offer/service
- Description: Enter a brief description about the campaign, this will be displayed in the “Creatives” tab on your advertiser dashboard.
- Link: This is where all creatives for this campaign will lead to when clicked. The destination URL must belong to the domain used at the Program Setup.
4. Create Default Link
- The text link content you want to be displayed when your affiliate link is used by publishers. We recommend using a call to action that will grab a customers attention to click through.
5. Conversion Tracking
- This step is essential to your affiliate program working successfully. Conversion tracking is needed in order forFlexOffers to track and record the sales referred to your website by a publisher. Tracking uses the click ID to identify where the user came from, assigning them to a referring publisher traffic source. Once the click converts to a sale or lead, the order details will be immediately recorded in your Advertiser Dashboard and include the time and date of the click and sale, the order ID, sale amount (if applicable), and the coupon if one was used. Our system automatically applies the commission rate and calculates the payout, so it’s essential that this step is doneaccurately, and all the relevant information is recorded.
- Which tracking method you use is entirely up to you and your website and team’s capabilities. If you are using Shopify to host your website, please click here. Currently this is the only integration option for Shopify.
- FAQ
- What is the difference between Javascript and Sever 2 Server?
- Javascript uses local storage to track the click and uses the script to record the transaction and send data back to FlexOffers.
- Which option should I be using?
- This is entirely up to you. Aside for the requirement for Shopify merchants (must use the Shopify App), you and your team will be able to determine the best format for tracking.
- How do I find which variables to use for the parameters?
- Each webhost will have its own set of variables that are applicable to the values needed in your FlexOffers tracking. Please check your tech support resources internally for this information.
- What is the difference between Javascript and Sever 2 Server?
6. Create Test Transaction
- To ensure your tracking has been done correctly, please submit a test transaction. Select your program from the dropdown, and use the link provided below to complete the sale/conversion as a customer would.
- Your program will not be LIVE until a successful test order is recorded in the Sales Detailed reporting.
- If you have correctly installed your affiliate tracking and still did not receive a successful test result, please contact our support center using the Help icon in the bottom left hand screen.