Smart tip: This handbook is also designed to be printed... set your printer's page orientation to landscape format, so there is enough space to place hand-written notes on the left and right margin easily.
 

In a common environment, we recommend to create a new sub-directory within the existing "cgi-bin" folder to separate the software from other already installed products.

Required "template.en" directory:

Inside the directory you desired for installation, please create a new sub-directory called "template.en". It's used to hold the content of "template.en" directory delivered with your software package.

Required "data" directory:

Inside the directory you desired for installation, please create a new sub-directory called "data". It's used to hold the content of "data" directory delivered with your software package.

Adjust path to Perl:

Open all program files (*.pl and *.cgi) in a text editor and change the first line "#!/usr/bin/perl" that it reflects the correct path to Perl 5 (or higher version) on your system. This is required to let your server know where the Perl interpreter is located.

Usage note: On most systems, /usr/bin/perl is already the default path to Perl and so no modifications are required.
 

Detailed file table: Scheme: [filename | suggested place to upload (short description); file permission]:
 

Filename...	Description...	Filename...	Description...
*	cgi-bin (program & data files); 755	template.en/*	template.en (templates); 666
		data/*	data (basic data files); 666

Important notes: Please double-check file permissions and transfer mode, otherwise the software may not work as intended. Depending upon the server configuration, different file permissions than the ones stated above may be necessary.

Smart tip: Our installation helper install.cgi makes it easier... just call it from your web browsing software (requires correct installation of this script) and it automatically checks your entire installation, adjusts permissions and fixes typical errors.
 

Before you proceed, it is highly recommended to set an administration password. After this is done, access to the admin panel is granted only by using "admin" as login together with the chosen password.

Now click on the button "Edit system parameters" and configure the shown parameters according your needs.

Usage note: Since all parameters are automatically filled with correct values, modifications on your side may not be required.

Directories and files:
 

Name of parameter to set...	Description...
CGI files directory Example: /usr/www/cgi-bin/ya	Absolute path to the location of YourAffiliates on your server.

Platform specific settings:
 

Name of parameter to set...	Description...
Mailing program (for Unix only) Example: /usr/bin/sendmail	Absolute path to Sendmail (or compatible) application on your server.
SMTP server Example: smtp.sunnyscript.com	SMTP server for handling mails; when left blank, the default mail application is used. This setting is required for non-Unix systems, otherwise optional.
Don't use flock Example: Unchecked	"flock" is normally supported directly by the operating system; should it be unavailable for any reason (e.g. on Win9x, WinMe), mark this checkbox.
Don't use fork Example: Unchecked	"fork" is normally supported directly by the operating system; should it be unavailable for any reason, mark this checkbox.
Forked process respawn interval (seconds) Example: 60	Respawn interval for processes; recommended range: 30 to 60 seconds.
Admin e-mail address Example: admin@sunnycript.com	E-mail address of the system administrator (e.g. webmaster).

URLs:
 

Name of parameter to set...	Description...
URL of CGI files directory Example: http://www.sunnyscript.com/cgi-bin/ya	URL to the location of YourAffiliates on your server.
URL of user's help document (optional) Example: http://www.sunnyscript.com/myhelp.htm	URL to an optional help document (not included); may also consist of an e-mail link (e.g. "mailto:support@sunnyscript.com"). Usage note: Should contain a link to your company's terms of business, customer service details or any other related document.

Various parameters:
 

Name of parameter to set...	Description...
Authentication time (in seconds) Example: 10800	Time frame keeping user authentications active (after expiration, people must log in again); recommended value: 10.800 seconds (3 hours).

After you have verified all settings carefully, click on the button "Save parameters" to take over modifications to the system. It is also possible to bring back previous values with the "Let the script restore defaults" button.
 

It is possible to manage multiple affiliate programs at once (e.g. different product groups, departments or company subsidiaries, standard/premium programs with individual commission levels), each coming with its own preference settings.

Click-through based systems:

Affiliates receive commissions for each visitor forwarded to your website or any other online location (e.g. web shop).

Lead based systems:

Similar to the click-through system above, however commissions are granted for carrying out specific actions, like newsletter registrations or submissions of application forms.

Sale based systems:

Affiliates receive commissions for each sale made by a visitor referred to your website. Depending upon the used web shop or e-commerce system, you can also pay variable and recurring commissions based upon sale totals (or other countable units).

Smart tip: Have a look at SunnyScript's SunnyShop - powerful e-commerce software to built Internet-based shopping solutions.

Multi-level systems (up to four tiers):

Affiliates receive commissions for click-throughs, leads and/or sales generated by affiliates originally referred through them.

YourAffiliates is able to handle up to four levels, where each level is configurable independently from others. And all kinds of commissions (even for recurring sales) are supported by the multi-level system.

Engaging new affiliates (as part of the multi-level system):

Beside of paying commissions for click-throughs, leads and/or sales, you may also grant commissions to affiliates for referring new people signing-up as affiliates (regardless or with care of their future success).

Combined affiliate systems:

YourAffiliates allows any combination of the previously described systems - it doesn't matter whether you intend to pay just a click-through commission or want to handle a complex multi-level system.
 

Click on the button "Edit YourAffiliates parameters" available on the main admin menu in order to set up new affiliate programs and manage existing ones. Please refer to the following chapters for more details.

What is the affiliate lounge ?

The affiliate lounge provides an interactive platform for existing affiliates to let them handle their profiles online in a comfortable way (including statistics and payment history as well as download of banners and HTML codes).

Additionally, the affiliate lounge is also the right place for people who are interested in becoming new affiliates to learn more about the business opportunities you have to offer.

How does the software recognize an affiliate ?

Each time a visitor comes to your website through an affiliate (each affiliate uses its own URL to link to your site), YourAffiliates will save a cookie on concerned visitor's computer to mark this person as somebody coming from an affiliate.

YourAffiliates can read out this cookie later at any time (or as long as you decide to let it alive) to grant commissions to the affiliate(s). Even if the visitor disconnects from the Internet and comes back after days, the commissions are paid correctly.

Which software (e.g. shopping carts) is supported ?

YourAffiliates works together with most shopping carts, e-commerce providers and payment processors. For more information, please refer to the following chapters or contact our customer service.

If you wish to pay variable* commissions based upon the sale totals, you need a compatible e-commerce system which hands over the total amount to YourAffiliates. We recommend products from SunnyScript, designed for working together perfectly.

* Fix commissions are possible with most 3rd-party products.

YourAffiliates supports the following SunnyScript products directly:
 

SunnyShop** - click-throughs, sales (processed orders) AccessGuardian** - click-throughs, sales (memberships) AdvertisingSuite** - click-throughs, sales (advertising campaigns) MailingStar (plus) - click-throughs, leads (subscriptions) PowerForm** - click-throughs, leads, sales and recurring sales

** These products support variable commissions based upon the sale totals.

Smart tip: Have a look at SunnyScript - intelligent software technology for today's Internet commerce.

How to access the affiliate lounge (registered users area, affiliate subscriptions):
 

The top menu line provides additional selections (depending on the current system status):
 

General settings:
 

Security settings:
 

"Welcome new affiliate" message:
 

Currency settings:
 

Affiliate control panel layout:
 

Payment settings:
 

* Important note: "Payment period" and "First payment period start date" should be only set once (during the software setup). If you change these settings after closing the first payment period, future calculations may be incorrect !

If you find it necessary to alter "Payment period", click on "Recalculate statistics" (main admin menu) first before proceeding - however please be aware that some commissions could be counted twice for the current payment period.

Multi-level affiliate program:
 

Data maintenance:

Each time data maintenance runs, the following actions are performed:
 

* Refresh the table of registered affiliates and the "daily statistics" table. * Report suspicious fraudulent actions via e-mail. * Update all static statistics and shortcut pages. * Clean expired records (click/lead/sale records, statistics). * Pay recurring commissions.

Important note: Executing data maintenance is required and needs "fork" function to be enabled (see "System parameters"). If it is disabled due to technical limitations of the server, please follow the instructions below.
 

Data maintenance with disabled "fork" function:

Schedule the file cron_run.pl (the file is located in the software directory of YourAffiliates) to be ran regularly by your server (recommended scheduling: each hour). You may use Cron or your server's scheduling tool in order to manage this task.

Technical note: Even when starting data maintenance in this way, ensure to fill in the parameters above.

By the way: If you are new at scheduling server actions, please contact your webhoster for details or refer to available literature. Alternatively you may use the Cron editor we provide (call cron_edt.pl from the command line, e.g. "perl5 cron_edt.pl").

Public statistics pages content update:

This feature is explained more detailed in the next chapter.

Static HTML pages as shortcuts for referring links:

This feature is explained more detailed at the chapter "Helpful hints and technical reference".
 

Fraud detection:

YourAffiliates compares actual and historical data of each affiliate profile to detect possible fraudulent actions (e.g. affiliate uses a special script to achieve a high number of click-throughs or tries to generate invalid leads).

If such actions are detected, YourAffiliates can contact you by e-mail sending a notification. Then you have the chance to investigate this case further and either remove concerned profiles or reduce their earnings.
 

Mailing:
 

Technical note: The text scheme used for all these reports is stored in editable templates. Please refer to the chapter "Affiliate lounge and template management" for more details.

Notifications:
 

Technical note: The text scheme used for all these notifications is stored in editable templates. Please refer to the chapter "Affiliate lounge and template management" for more details.
 

What is an affiliate program ?

An affiliate program allows you to pay commissions to people registered as affiliates for referred visitors and customers.

It is possible to manage multiple affiliate programs at once (e.g. different product groups, departments or company subsidiaries, standard/premium programs with individual commission levels), each coming with its own preference settings.

How to create a new affiliate program:

Type in an abbreviation of the new affiliate program (e.g. "software") and click on the button "Create new".

How to edit / remove an affiliate program:

Select the program from the list, click on "Delete" or "Edit" and follow the provided instructions.

By the way: Modifications made to existing affiliate programs (e.g. changed commissions) take effect after the next data maintenance was performed. So you may have to wait a few hours before you see all modifications active.

How to change the sorting of affiliate programs:

Select the one you wish to move around and click on either "Move up" or "Move down" button to change its position (this affects the program's position within the affiliate lounge).
 

Paid advertising methods:
 

When you have done all settings, please click on the button "Save parameters" in order to take over the changes to the system or to create the new affiliate program.

Usage notes: You can make modifications to your affiliate programs whenever you like. Each affiliate can have also custom commission settings, please refer to the next chapter for details.

For details about implementation of YourAffiliates into existing software (e.g. e-commerce systems and payment processors), please refer to the next chapter "Advanced features, tasks and applications".
 

In the following we want to show how to implement YourAffiliates into an existing software or service solution.

By the way: If you run SunnyScript software, please take a look at the chapter "Helpful hints and technical reference" to get more information about how to achieve cooperation between YourAffiliates and our other products.

Technical note: The 3rd-party software products (e.g. shop systems) or services (e.g. payment processors) may be installed on different servers and may also use different domain names - YourAffiliates will work in all cases.

Enhanced compatible 3rd-party products:

Some 3rd-party products may support YourAffiliates in a special way, like setting affiliate IDs and program codes automatically as well as taking over sale/lead/click-through logging to YourAffiliates' databases.

If a 3rd-party product provides such enhanced features to support YourAffiliates, please follow the provided instructions within its user manual in order to configure the software and YourAffiliates correctly.
 

All your affiliates have to do, is to choose from the HTML codes of the affiliate lounge and add them to their websites.
 

Overview about implementation:

Modify the "thank you" / confirmation page template of the 3rd-party product by implementing YourAffiliates' lead tracking script lead.cgi as hidden image into it (or an equivalent way required by concerned solution).

Important note: This method also works, if the 3rd-party product provides a special parameter to specify a lead tracking script.

3rd-party software pre-requisites:

* Possibility to place an image to the "thank you" / confirmation page template (or equivalent way).
* Optional: Ability to use placeholders for variables' contents (reference ID) within this template.

Step 1... Configuration of YourAffiliates:

There is no special configuration required.

Step 2... Configuration of the 3rd-party product:

Usage note: This step is only mandatory, if the 3rd-party product uses placeholders for system content and you want to submit these information to YourAffiliates - e.g. to prevent abuse, because each unique reference ID is allowed only once.

Determine the name of the placeholder that will be replaced by the 3rd-party product with the reference ID.

Take a look at the schemes below and change our sample placeholder #var1# with the one used by the 3rd-party product (when just leaving ours, it does not work very likely).

Step 3... Implementing lead tracking to the 3rd-party product:

After you have modified the scheme, you should either implement it as IMG tag somewhere to the "thank you" / confirmation page as shown below (location varies on your system, of course) or in the way required by the 3rd-party product.

Scheme to call the lead tracking script without placeholders:
 

lead.cgi

Scheme to call the lead tracking script with placeholder:
 

lead.cgi?reference_id=#var1#

Sample implementation as hidden image (without placeholder):
 

<IMG SRC="http://www.sunnyscript.com/cgi-bin/ya/lead.cgi" HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1 BORDER=0>

Sample implementation as hidden image (with placeholder):
 

<IMG SRC="http://www.sunnyscript.com/cgi-bin/ya/lead.cgi?reference_id=#var1#" HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1 BORDER=0>

By the way: Because of layout reasons, the IMG tag may be shown broken, but it has to be entered as one single line.

Lead based affiliate programs - method 2:

Overview about implementation:

Replace the "thank you" / confirmation page shown after successfully processed leads by YourAffiliates' lead.cgi script. It will manage affiliate tracking (if any) and then forwards the customer transparently to the originally intended page.

3rd-party software pre-requisites:

* Possibility to replace the "thank you" / confirmation page with an URL of your choice.
* Optional one variable is supported to recognize a particular lead, like a reference ID (POST and GET submissions works).

Step 1... Configuration of YourAffiliates:

Customization of variable names:

Go to the screen "Edit YourAffiliates parameters" and select the affiliate program you wish to edit. On the following screen, please go to the part "Paid advertising methods" and take a look at "Pay-per-lead"...

There you find parameters to customize the name of the variables holding the reference ID. Change it according specifications of the 3rd-party product (usage of this variable is optional; reference ID must be individual per action).

Technical note: If you don't want to track a reference ID, please skip this step.

Redirection after commission handling:

Now modify the parameter "After logging lead, redirect user to this URL". Type in the URL of the "thank you" / confirmation page or the concerned page which was replaced by lead.cgi script.

Step 2... Configuration of the 3rd-party product:

Go to the admin panel or open the configuration file of concerned software and change the URL of the "thank you" / confirmation page to call lead.cgi found within the software directory of YourAffiliates:
 

Technical note: You must call lead.cgi with the same domain name as used for the affiliate URLs.

Lead based affiliate programs - method 3:

Overview about implementation:

The 3rd-party product hands over lead related information (reference ID) using the GET submission method to the "thank you" / confirmation page template, where some JavaScript will take care to affiliate tracking.

3rd-party software pre-requisites:

* Possibility to modify the "thank you" / confirmation page template.
* GET method to transfer variables (POST submissions are not accessible via embedded JavaScript).
* Optional one variable is supported to recognize a particular lead (e.g. reference or user ID).

Step 1... Configuration of YourAffiliates:

Customization of variable names:

Same as described for method 2.

Step 2... Configuration of JavaScript part:

In a text editor, open the file js_lead.txt (which is delivered with the YourAffiliates software package) and look for the part "Setup custom form variable names". These variables needs to be modified:
 

Step 3... Configuration of the 3rd-party product:

Open the "thank you" / confirmation page template used by the 3rd-party product in a text or HTML editor. Decide for a place within this page to call the JavaScript - it should be within the first half of it (best placement directly after the </HEAD> tag).

Now copy&paste the modified JavaScript from js_lead.txt to the template, save it and make a test drive.
 

Overview about implementation:

Modify the "thank you" page template of the 3rd-party product by implementing YourAffiliates' order tracking script order.cgi as hidden image into it (or an equivalent way required by concerned solution).

Important note: This method also works, if the 3rd-party product provides a special parameter to specify an order tracking script.

3rd-party software pre-requisites:

* Possibility to place an image to the "thank you" page template (or equivalent way).
* Optional: Ability to use placeholders for variables' contents (total amount, reference ID, cart content) within this template.
* Granting sales based commissions requires the total amount being delivered.

Step 1... Configuration of YourAffiliates:

There is no special configuration required.

Step 2... Configuration of the 3rd-party product:

Usage note: This step is only mandatory, if the 3rd-party product uses placeholders for system content and you want to submit these information to YourAffiliates - e.g. mandatory for paying variable commissions based upon the sale total.

Determine the name of the placeholders that will be replaced by the 3rd-party product with information about total sale amount, reference ID and/or purchase content.

Take a look at the schemes below and change our sample placeholders #var1#, #var2# and #var3# with the ones used by the 3rd-party product (when just leaving ours, it does not work very likely).

Step 3... Implementing order tracking to the 3rd-party product:

After you have modified the scheme, you should either implement it as IMG tag somewhere to the "thank you" page as shown below (location varies on your system, of course) or in the way required by the 3rd-party product (see its documentation).

Scheme to call the order tracking script without placeholders:
 

order.cgi

Scheme to call the order tracking script with placeholders:
 

order.cgi?total=#var1#&reference_id=#var2#&purchase_content=#var3#

Sample implementation as hidden image (without placeholders):
 

<IMG SRC="http://www.sunnyscript.com/cgi-bin/ya/order.cgi" HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1 BORDER=0>

Sample implementation as hidden image (with placeholders):
 

<IMG SRC="http://www.sunnyscript.com/cgi-bin/ya/order.cgi?total=#var1# &reference_id=#var2#&purchase_content=#var3#" HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1 BORDER=0>

By the way: Because of layout reasons, the IMG tag may be shown broken, but it has to be entered as one single line.

Sale based affiliate programs - method 2:

Overview about implementation:

Replace the "thank you" page shown after successfully processed orders by YourAffiliates' order.cgi script. It will manage affiliate tracking (if any) and then forwards the customer transparently to the originally intended page.

3rd-party software pre-requisites:

* Possibility to replace the "thank you (for your order)" page with an URL of your choice.
* Granting sales based commissions requires the total amount delivered as variable (POST and GET submissions works).
* Optional two other variables are supported to recognize a particular order later (e.g. reference ID, cart content).

Step 1... Configuration of YourAffiliates:

Customization of variable names:

Go to the screen "Edit YourAffiliates parameters" and select the affiliate program you wish to edit. On the following screen, please go to the part "Paid advertising methods" and take a look at "Pay-per-sale"...

There you find parameters to customize the name of the variables holding the total amount, reference ID and cart content. Change their names according the specifications of the 3rd-party product.

Technical note: If you wish to pay only fix commissions per sale and don't want to track more details of an order, then these variables needs not to be set (however it is recommended, e.g. to find a particular order later).

Redirection after commission handling:

Now modify the parameter "After logging sale, redirect user to this URL". Type in the URL of the "thank you" page or the concerned page which was replaced by order.cgi script.

Step 2... Configuration of the 3rd-party product:

Go to the admin panel or open the configuration file of concerned software and change the URL of the "thank you (for your order)" page to call order.cgi found within the software directory of YourAffiliates:
 

Technical note: You must call order.cgi with the same domain name as used for the affiliate URLs.

Sale based affiliate programs - method 3:

Overview about implementation:

The 3rd-party product hands over order related information (total amount, reference ID, cart content) using the GET submission method to the "thank you" page template, where some JavaScript will take care to affiliate tracking.

3rd-party software pre-requisites:

* Possibility to modify the "thank you (for your order)" page template.
* GET method to transfer variables (POST submissions are not accessible via embedded JavaScript).
* Granting sales based commissions requires the total amount delivered as variable.
* Optional two other variables are supported to recognize a particular order later (e.g. reference ID, cart content).

Step 1... Configuration of YourAffiliates:

Customization of variable names:

Same as described for method 2.

Step 2... Configuration of JavaScript part:

In a text editor, open the file js_order.txt (which is delivered with the YourAffiliates software package) and look for the part "Setup custom form variable names". These variables needs to be modified:
 

Step 3... Configuration of the 3rd-party product:

Open the "thank you" page template used by the 3rd-party product in a text or HTML editor. Decide for a place within this page to call the JavaScript - it should be within the first half of it (best placement directly after the </HEAD> tag).

Now copy&paste the modified JavaScript from js_order.txt to the template, save it and make a test drive.

Sale based affiliate programs - recurring commissions:

Paying recurring commissions requires implementing sale commissions either according method 1 or 2.

Also a recurring flag variable needs to be handed over to order.cgi telling whether or not granting recurring commissions. Therefore it is required that the 3rd-party product supports this type of commission, too.

The recurring flag variable has to be implemented like done with the total amount or reference ID (e.g. by using a placeholder).
 

In this case, just follow the instructions for the concerned affiliate program type above and set the commissions according your needs within the admin panel of YourAffiliates; no special steps are required.
 

The system tables contains system related data, like affiliate profiles, commission settings, sales, processed payments and daily statistics. All system tables can be searched and modified according their specific applications.

Usage note: All modifications made to these tables takes immediately effect to the affiliate lounge. Since most of these actions cannot be recovered, please be careful when altering data.

Table of registered affiliates:

This database contains all affiliate profiles currently existing on the system.

All fields used within this table can be included in registration & update forms on the affiliate lounge to request custom details from your affiliates (doesn't require any template modifications (except mail templates), since pages are dynamically generated).

You can add new affiliate profiles, update and remove existing ones (e.g. in case of fraudulent actions). It is also possible to set individual commission settings here (see below of this chapter).

Tables of logged clicks / leads / sales:

These tables contains all logged clicks, leads and sales.

Manual table modifications:

You can add (update and delete) entries of these tables which takes immediately effect to the open payment period. In this way, you can correct any commission granted by YourAffiliates:

Sample applications may be manual sale commissions for offline generated orders or lead commissions for mailed-in coupons. Accordingly, it is also possible to remove any commission (e.g. chargeback of a sale).

Usage note: In order to process added, updated or removed records, please click on "Recalculate statistics" (see "additional admin tools") or just wait till the next data maintenance is done automatically.

Table of payments:

This table contains all information required to pay out affiliates. Each time you process payments to affiliates, new entries are made here automatically. In this way, you will find all required data to fill out cheques or handle banking transfers.

Table of daily statistics:

Here you find daily statistics which may contain useful information about your running affiliate profiles. Statistics are sorted by affiliates and programs, summarized by day.

Clear old raw data from system tables:

Within "Data maintenance" of the screen "Edit YourAffiliates parameters", you can decide the number of payment periods keeping all collected data, before they become removed.

Depending upon the number of affiliates and generated data volume, you may set the time frame according your needs. After clearance, all removed data cannot be recovered, but summarizations are still kept in the table of daily statistics.
 

The following information contains details about how to modify the system tables. As an experienced user, you can modify YourAffiliates' system behavior according your wishes.

However please note, that once modifications were made, they cannot be recovered. In worst case, you have to re-install the software with the risk of losing existing affiliate profiles.

Important note: Before you touch the system tables, ensure that you are familiar with YourAffiliates.

Restructure system table:

Click on "Restructure" of the desired system table. Alternatively you can use the "Restructure" link in the upper right corner of the screen appearing when you are inside of a system table (browse its content).

How to add a new or edit an existing field:

Go to "New field name", type in the desired name, select the data type and click on "Create new field". Otherwise look for the field you wish to modify and click either on "Edit" or the field name. Now the screen "Field properties" appears:
 

Important notes: If you edit a system field (all system fields starts with an underline character), some of the settings above may be not available for selection. Don't touch pre-filled settings for system fields; you may negatively affect their behavior.

How to change sorting of fields:

Look for the field you wish to move around and click on either "move up" or "move down" to change its position. This action takes effect to the admin panel and to the dynamically generated affiliate lounge templates (except mail templates).

How to delete a field (use with care only):

Look for the field you wish to remove from the table and click on "Delete". However, please note that once a field is removed, all related content will get lost and cannot be recovered.

By the way: All table parameters are automatically updated and the concerned field becomes removed from these settings.

Empty table:

Just select the desired options and click on the "Clear data" button in order to clear the concerned table. Please note that once a table (or part of it) is cleared, all related content will get lost and cannot be recovered.

Important note: Since all entries of concerned table may get lost, this option should be used with care (e.g. clearing table from test entries before starting to run your affiliate programs officially).

Usage notes: This feature is helpful, if you wish to clear the table of payments (e.g. after several years you may wish to remove all entries made there in order to get back some disk space). You may also reset table of statistics to start from scratch.
 

On the "Restructure" screen of concerned system table, there is a button named with "Edit table parameters" which leads you to the table layout parameters screen.

Usage note: The shown table parameters may not be available for all system tables.
 

* These are required (and important) fields; double-check them for containing correct values.

Search layout parameters:
 

* These are required (and important) fields; double-check them for correct values.

Behavior:
 

Permissions:
 

Important note: If you run a referral program, "Add" permission must be granted. Otherwise, new people cannot register online. For increased security, "Moderate additions" should be enabled in this case.

Technical note: If you wish to modify records that are currently in moderation queue, mark the button "Remind to update" when approving these records. On the moderation result screen, you can edit them right away (new browser window opens).

Menu layout:
 

Database script pages headers / Login script page headers:

Customize the headlines of generated pages; also usage of images (IMG tags according HTML) is allowed.

Table modifications logging:

Check this button in order to log all table modifications (add, update and delete records) to TABLENAME.modif.log located in the "data" directory (TABLENAME is replaced with the name of the concerned table).

In this way, you are able to manually recover lost data or track IP addresses of users trying to cheat your system.

Technical notes: Content of memo / image / binary field types is not logged.

Table automatic maintenance:
 

Data file backing up:

What exactly is backup generation ?

YourAffiliates is able to generate backups of its data files automatically to allow restoring them later. Generated backup files (extension .db.bak) are located within the "data" directory.

Pre-requisites for generating backups:

Maintenance interval: Ensure that a maintenance interval is specified. Please see screen "Table parameters", "Table automatic maintenance". Recommended range: 3600 to 43200 seconds (1 to 12 hours).

Important note: The backup update period must be longer than the specified maintenance interval.

Enable / disable backup generation:
 

Technical notes: In order to disable the backup feature, set "Number of backup files" to 0 or leave it empty. New backups are not generated for unchanged files (since backup already exists).

Recommended backup settings:

Maintenance interval = 3600; number of backup files = 4; backup file #1 update period = 6
Rename backup file #1 to #2 after this number of updates of backup file #1: 4
Rename backup file #2 to #3 after this number of updates of backup file #2: 5
Rename backup file #3 to #4 after this number of updates of backup file #3: 6

<TABLENAME>.db.bak1 holds 0 to 6 hours old database content.
<TABLENAME>.db.bak2 holds 6 to 24 hours old database content.
<TABLENAME>.db.bak3 holds 1 to 5 days old database content.
<TABLENAME>.db.bak4 holds 5 to 30 days old database content.

<TABLENAME>: Name of the table, concerned backup file belongs to.

Retrieve data from backup:

If you wish to roll-back a corrupted data file, just replace the original file with the latest error-free backup copy.

Before doing so, please ensure that the table definition did not change recently (e.g. by adding new fields). In this case, the table definition needs to be set to the configuration of the data file to restore.

Important note: Restoring data files should be managed by an experienced system administrator only. In case of emergency, SunnyScript can provide you with special assistance to professionally handle this task (optional fee-based service).

Helpful hint: In order to create a backup of an entire database, you may use the "Download/upload table package" feature.

"Password reminder" utility:

If a member forgot the password to access the affiliate lounge, it can be re-send automatically by the system at request.
 

Important note: Since the admin password is saved encrypted for higher security, it cannot be restored. See chapter "Helpful hints and technical reference" about information on how to reset the admin password.

Templates substitution:

If you wish to use your own templates instead of the pre-defined ones, please select your desired templates here (more details about templates are available in the next chapter). "--use default--" will activate the standard template for concerned output.

Helpful hint: If you're unable to find your recently created templates within the lists, hold CTRL or SHIFT key and click on the "Reload" button of your browser software to reload the browser window (to replace an old copy in cache).
 

You can send out mailings either to all record owners of a selected table (recipients filter set to "Send to all") or just mail such people who have allowed you to do so (recipients filter set to "Send to subscribed users only").

Mark "Do not send duplicate e-mails" in order to send only one single mail, even a particular address is found multiple times.

Custom recipients filter:

You can specify a search query that filters only recipients matching particular criteria. It is possible to use any field available in the table this mailing is intended for. Click on "view filter results" to get a listing of all selected records.

For example: income>=3000 AND education="high"
Only recipients will receive this mailing which have an income of more than 3000 currency units and a "high" education level.

Usage note: For more details about how to perform search operations, please refer to "Searching of databases (tables)" below.

Personalized mailings:

Personalized mailings contain an individual "To:" field for each recipient. In addition, you can include fields from the concerned table  (format: <!--$FIELDNAME-->) which are replaced by appropriate content.
 

Sample personalized mailing:
 

Dear <!--$first_name--> <!--$last_name-->, you recently added your website <!--$URL--> to our database. If you would like to increase the popularity of your <!--$BUSINESSTYPE--> company, you should take a closer look at our valuable offers ! With kind regards, John Smith (my sample company).

Technical note: If "Do not send duplicate e-mails" is marked, a recipient with multiple records receives mail for the first found record only (and so will just see content of table fields for this specific record).

Quick mailings:

Quick mailings are used to send identical messages to all recipients (faster processing). However the usage of personalized elements is not possible (included table tags are removed automatically).
 

Intelligent mail content delivery:

The most powerful feature is the delivery of intelligent message parts based on a record's content and "if/then/else" conditions. So a mailing can be written absolutely targeted, which leads to higher response rates and increased user convenience.

Important note: This works only with "Personalized" mailing method. "Quick" mailings will ignore intelligent message parts.

Each "intelligent message part" has the following structure:
 

<!--if <expression>--> Message delivered when <expression> is true. <!--else--> Message delivered when <expression> is false. <!--endif-->

Usage notes: "if" and "endif" tags are required, while the "else" part is optional. Recurrent tags may also be used.

<expression> can contain these operators:
 

Format of field values: $fieldname (field names are handled case-sensitive).

Sample applications (non-recurrent tags):
 

<!--if $gender eq "m"--> Ties for 5 Euro only. Just a limited time, buy now ! <!--else--> Parfums starting at 10 Euro. <!--endif--> <!--if $income < 20000 AND $intelligence_quotient <= 30--> Hi <$name>, participate in our "get rich fast" special offers ! This is your chance to live like the <rich & beautiful>. <b><i>So start acting now - start today.</b></i> <!--endif--> <!--if $index * 10 / $basetax + 0.03 == 2 AND $taxstatus eq "high"--> Save taxes by ordering our book "1001 (il)legal tax tricks". <!--else--> Increase your income by ordering our book "1001 ways to get wealthy". <!--endif-->

Usage notes: Second sample does not have an "else" tag, which means that a false result will lead into not displaying anything. Should a field value be unavailable (spelling error, non-existing field), then the argument is considered as being empty.

Technical note: It is also possible to use HTML and client-sided scripts (like JavaScript) within intelligent message parts.

Sample application (recurrent tags):
 

<!--if $gender eq "m"--> Special offer for <b>men</b> from our drug store: <!--if $age > 50--> Gray hair remover for just 9,99 Euro. <!--else--> Shaving foam - just 3,99 Euro. <!--endif--> <!--else--> Special offer for <b>women</b> from our drug store: <!--if $age > 50--> Wrinkle remover for just 9,99 Euro. <!--else--> Lavender bath salt - just 3,99 Euro. <!--endif--> <!--endif-->

Usage notes: Parts in green text belonging together. Do not forget to close all "if" tags avoiding malfunctions.

How to perform a test of personalized and intelligent mailings:

In order to let the system process a sample message, click on the button "Send test message to admin". The system then generates a mailing, which is sent to the administrator under real life conditions.

And these default values are used: Numerical = 0; date/time related fields = actual date/time; URLs = http://test.<fieldname>/; e-mail addresses = test@<fieldname>.test; fields in general = test-<fieldname>.

Smart tip: Have a look at MailingStar (plus) - professional mailing list management and e-mail marketing software.
 

The followingaffiliate actions, which requires your decision. Click on the appropriate button at the end of each record to approve, decline or hold the concerned requested task.

Technical note: If you wish to modify records that are currently in moderation queue, mark the button "Remind to update" when approving these records. On the moderation result screen, you can edit them right away (new browser window opens).
 

Click on "Statistics recalculation" in order to process a recalculation of the statistics.

Important note: Under normal conditions this is done by each data maintenance automatically. However in some cases you may wish to get up-to-date statistics without wanting to wait till next data maintenance.

Brief statistics:

Click on "Brief statistics", alternatively you can click on "Statistics" in the upper left corner of each screen. The brief statistics give you a clear comprehensive overview of click-throughs, leads and sales sorted by date and payment periods.

In order to go into more detailed statistics, click on the appropriate links (within date columns). Use the page flicker at the end of each page to jump directly to a later page of presented statistics.

Affiliates family tree:

Click on "Affiliates family tree" to show the relationships between your affiliates. This genealogy report is useful when running a multi-level affiliate program, because it uncovers the referring structure between affiliates.

Additionally when viewing an affiliate record detailed, then near the field "Referrer ID" a link may appear that shows the referrals of the concerned affiliate. In this way, a particular referral branch can be displayed easily.

It is also possible to search for specific affiliates by looking for any searchable content within the profiles. Found records are highlighted within the tree.

Usage note: By clicking at a linked affiliate ID at the tree, you will come to the update screen of this profile. There it is possible to delete the relationship by emptying (or changing) the field "Referrer ID".

Important note: "Recursion detected!" warning near an affiliate profile notifies you that at least two affiliates refers each other (may happen when manually changing the "Referrer ID" of a profile). Please correct such profiles by adjusting their referrer IDs.
 

Process payments to affiliates:

Click on "Pay affiliates" and you'll see an overview about all affiliates currently unpaid. You can decide each single affiliate to get paid or not (if kept unpaid, affiliate's earnings are taken over to the next payment period).

Important note: Affiliates who are above the max. fraud risk are not selected to be paid by default. You should carefully check their profiles and fraud risks before selecting them for payment to prevent abuse of your affiliate programs.

Click on the button "Pay affiliates and close period" in order to process payment. Depending upon your settings, you'll receive a payment report as well as a text file for printing cheques (see below in this chapter).

This comprehensive report contains all details about the current payment period. By using it, you are able to process payments to affiliates in a convenient way (you may customize this report at the templates editor screen).

Technical note 1: The table of payments shows a list of all done payments. So if you lose the mailed payment report, you can process payments by taking all data from this table.

Technical note 2: Before payments can be made, the moderation queue must be empty and the last data maintenance finished completely. In case you have pending moderations or open data, YourAffiliates will ask you to manage them first.

Technical note 3: Commissions for referring new affiliates are not granted, if concerned new affiliate profiles becomes closed before the first payment period ends or in case of declined affiliate actions (moderation features).

Clear databases:

There may appear a section called "Clear data for following payment period(s)". Selections are offered basing upon your settings made for "Data maintenance", parameter "Store clicks, leads and sales data for this number of payment periods".

Clearing the databases does destroy only raw log data to save some disk space on the server. All statistics are kept untouched (e.g. the ones displayed in the affiliate lounge).

Anti-fraud-scanner (real-time):

This screen shows possible fraud alerts as they happen in real time (updated each data maintenance). Profiles with higher fraud risks appears first, so you can investigate possible fraudulent actions at earliest time and are protected against criminals.

YourAffiliates' built-in anti-fraud scanner generates fraud alerts depending upon unusual profile behavior and cheaters trying to cover their original network data; this protects your company from losing money to criminal affiliates.

The more alerts a profile has assigned, the higher is the risk of a possible fraud. You should carefully investigate all profiles showing a fraud risk of more than 20 %.

High fraud risk - and now ?

Before closing a profile and lose a honest affiliate, you should contact the person first and tell about this fraud risk report. The chance is high that cheaters will close their profile and disappear forever while innocent people try to discuss the alerts.

How the fraud scanner works:

Each time data maintenance is executed, the fraud scanner checks all data for fraudulent actions. Whenever a possible risk is detected, the fraud risk percentage value is increased depending upon the level of found risk.

Technical note: In order to avoid invalid alerts, the anti-fraud scanner has a research minimum rule. This rule suppresses alerts for days, which had less than ten clicks for a particular profile and payment periods having less than 30 click-throughs overall.

1. Unique click-throughs:

The minimum ratio of click-throughs coming from unique IPs is expected to be at least 50 %. Daily and overall ratios are calculated and examined for possible cheats.

2. Click-throughs from proxies:

The maximum ratio of click-throughs coming from proxy servers is expected to be not more than 30 %. Daily and overall ratios are calculated and examined for possible cheats (e.g. people trying to cover their original IP addresses).

3. Activity jumps:

Unusual profile activity (higher or lower than normal) is detected by calculating the average activity ratio for a given time period and comparing it with the daily activity of the concerned profile.

4. Multiple proxy servers:

One unique computer (IP address) is allowed to use a maximum of two proxy servers for directing click-throughs. Otherwise the risk is high, that there is a possible abuse of your system.
 

Modify cheque template:

YourAffiliates will use the template cheque.txt by default to generate printable documents. Since cheques and payment documents in general differ from country to country, you must customize this template first according your needs.

If you have modified it and want to test the correct print layout, please generate a test print file: Go to "Pay affiliates" and follow the instructions at the end of the screen. In this way, you don't lose active affiliate data when just running a test.

How to receive the generated print files:

A copy of this file is attached to the consolidated payment report.

Alternatively, open a ftp session to your server / hosting account and take a look at the directory "cheque.prn" located within the software directory of YourAffiliates. There you'll find all files sorted by date and ready for being downloaded.

Outdated files can be removed from this directory at any time to keep it clear; but you may also let them stored as long as you like to have backups for later references.

Print documents (cheques, address labels & payment formulae):

After you've received the print file, open it with your favorite word processor to print cheques or other payment documents.

By the way: If you like to manage payment documents manually, the admin's payment report contains all data necessary to fill out cheques, process banking transfers and print address labels.
 

Go to the table of registered affiliates, select the profile you wish to modify and click on the linked ID field to view a profile more detailed. On the upper right corner of the screen, click on "Update"...

The following fields will hold the individual commission settings:
 

Technical note: If you leave the <Program> parameter, the concerned individual commission applies to all active programs.

Usage notes: Keep the concerned field empty to disable individual settings and use the standard ones. Custom commission settings have higher priority than program-wide ones.

Multi-level affiliate program commissions:

In the case that an affiliate was referred "offline" or you want to remove a particular affiliate profile from the multi-level system, then you need to modify the field "Referrer ID" found within each affiliate profile (see table of registered affiliates).

The field "Referrer ID" holds the ID of the affiliate who brought the concerned profile. So you can remove or change an existing affiliate ID (e.g. to take out this profile from the multi-level program) or type in an affiliate ID to link two profiles together.
 

You can add general affiliate statistics to web pages located on the same server / hosting account as YourAffiliates resides.

This feature is suited especially to attract people interested in joining your affiliate programs. In this way, they can see right away how successful your current affiliates are and what kinds of sales they can expect when subscribing.

And if you allow to show top affiliate ratings, it is also attractive for your existing affiliates to achieve high earnings, because the top rated affiliate profiles are named with the ability to visit their websites.

Configuration - software settings:

In order to enable this feature, go to "Edit YourAffiliates parameters", section "Public statistics information pages" and fill in the required parameters:
 

Configuration - add statistics to HTML pages or other online docs:

Now edit all files specified above by adding the following two lines wherever you want to include these statistics:
 

<!--youraffiliates_public_stats--> <!--/youraffiliates_public_stats-->

Each data maintenance, the statistics are updated; so the data shown there can be considered as being available in real-time.

Important notes: These lines must be entered as shown, their content is case sensitive. Ensure to set correct file permissions for static web pages to allow page modifications through CGI (ask your server admin for details).

The statistics are generated based upon the templates pub_stat.htm and pub_top.htm. If you wish to customize the layout, go to the screen "Edit templates" (from main admin menu) and look for these files.
 

Import data into database:

Click at the button "Start data import..." to begin reading in an existing 3rd-party database.
 

Click on the button "Import data" to start the importing process. After it is finished successfully, please check the read in data for consistency first. It is also recommended to keep a backup copy of all original database files for later references.

Technical note: Data formats "... with field names" requires that the first line of the importable file holds the names of the fields. Alternatively, default names are chosen you can rename later at any time.

Importing already uploaded source files:

This feature is useful especially when trying to import huge databases, because the file size allowed to read in through the admin panel may be limited by your server or webbrowsing software...

Just place the source file into the directory data/import.tmp. Now go to the admin panel, click on "Import / export data" and select the concerned file from the list (see parameter "Determine data file being uploaded").

Export data from database:

Select the appropriate source table and click on "Continue..." to go to the next screen.
 

Now click on "Export data" to start the exporting process. A "save file" dialog is shown by your web browsing software to store the exported data file on your computer.

Advantages of the "EasyData exchange format":

The "EasyData exchange format" is a tab-delimited text-based format also storing binary field content, like images or software files together with the textual data (URL-encoded).

Where possible, this format should be used for data import and export tasks to ensure best results when handling non-textual contents (all other supported formats cannot handle binary fields).

Technical note: If you are a programmer interested in implementing our exchange format into your own applications, please let us know. We are able to provide you with additional information upon request.

Helpful hint: Should you wish to manually back up an entire database or to carry an existing one over to an other YourAffiliates installation, you may decide to create a "table package" as described more closer in the following.

Table packages - overview:

A table package contains an entire database (the table and all related elements) in one single file (TABLENAME.ede). So table packages are ideally suited for carrying an entire database to an other server or for generating manual backups.

Download table package:
 

Now click on "Download table" to save the table package. A "save file" dialog is shown by your web browsing software.

Upload table package:
 

Now click on "Upload table" to copy the table package to the server.

Technical note 1: Should there already exist a table with equal name, YourAffiliates chooses a new name for the uploaded table (may be changed later at "Restructure table" screen).

Technical note 2: The choices "Use internal GZIP compression" respectively "Use internal GZIP decompression" for table package down- and uploads are only available, if there is the Perl module "Compress::Zlib" installed.
 

How to access the affiliate lounge:
 

In order to get access to the affiliate lounge, new users must sign-up first to get their own profiles. Members already having a profile can use their affiliate ID and password pair to get access. Both is done on the first affiliate lounge screen:
 

Affiliate lounge content:

After you have logged in, you'll see a revenues report which gives you a comprehensive overview about your status and success. In addition, the top menu line provides links to other places of interest (depending upon the current system status):
 

By default, a standard template scheme is used. It's the ideal basis to create your own templates or modify the existing ones. More detailed information will follow later in this chapter. You have two choices of modifying the lounge templates:

1. Modify color and font schemes only:

You may adjust the color and font schemes to achieve a similar layout as the one of your business website...

Go to the admin menu, click on the button "Edit templates" and search for "main template" labelled entries. These contains various layout settings taking effect to all sub-templates connected with the concerned main template.

2. Full set of freely configurable templates:

Beside of just customizing color and font schemes with style sheet commands, you can create your own set of templates or re-write the standard ones (they are a good basis for your own templates).

Each template is written in HTML and contains special tags which will be replaced by appropriate content. There's nothing you cannot customize, however you should have a familiar understanding of YourAffiliates and HTML programming.
 

There are three kinds of templates: Main templates contain the master layout; sub-templates hold the layout of output blocks appearing in these main templates; independent templates stand alone.

A detailed list with comprehensive descriptions of all template files is available from the admin panel (see "Templates editor" screen). Please contact our customer service for pre-sale inquiries asking for this list.

Helpful hints: If you create your own template sets, start creating the main templates first to have a better overview. After each single template is ready, run a test-drive to check correct functionality.

Important note: We strongly recommend to keep backup copies of the original template files for later referencing purposes.

Location of templates:

All template files are physically located in the templates directory you specified during installation of YourAffiliates.

As long as you create or modify templates using the admin panel, you don't have to care about. However if you create templates manually, you must copy them to this location, because YourAffiliates only recognizes files in this directory as templates.
 

For some advanced functions, Perl code is used on the templates together with internal script variables. You may just surround these codes with additional HTML tags or modify them as desired (suggested only if you are familiar with Perl).

Important notes: Some tags are specific for selected templates. If you add a tag to a template which cannot use it, concerned tag will be simply ignored. However a missing tag can cause that users are not able to get access to selected features.

If you wish to customize templates, go to the admin menu and click on the button "Edit templates".

List of tags and Perl script variables you can use on templates:

A detailed list with comprehensive descriptions of all valid variables and tags is available from the admin panel (see "Templates editor" screen). Please contact our customer service for pre-sale inquiries asking for this list.

Expert note: Common script variables available in all templates are $in{<form_var>}, which gives access to form variables submitted by the user (<form_var>) and $namespace->{'TAG'}, which offers access to special tag variables.

Custom software solutions:

Contact our sales department to request a free quote for our individual programming and customization services. Our team of experienced programmers and website designers looks forward to take over your project at affordable rates.
 

In the following, we show how to configure these products to work together with YourAffiliates. If you own a different 3rd-party application, please refer to the chapter "Advanced features, tasks and applications" above.

Smart tip: Have a look at SunnyScript - intelligent software technology for today's Internet commerce.

SunnyShop (shopping cart, e-commerce application):

SunnyShop allows to pay commissions for generated sales made by customers coming from affiliates.
 

AccessGuardian (access management):

AccessGuardian allows to pay commissions for selling memberships managed by the software.
 

AdvertisingSuite (ad space management):

AdvertisingSuite allows to pay commissions for selling advertisement space managed by the software.
 

MailingStar & MailingStar plus (mailing list management):

MailingStar allows to pay lead commissions for people creating subscription profiles.
 

PowerForm (form processing):

PowerForm allows to pay commissions for form submissions (versatile applications supporting leads and sales).
 

General notes about integration of SunnyScript products:

The instructions shown here are only valid for SunnyScript software. Please refer to the chapter "Advanced features, tasks and applications" for information about 3rd-party products and services.

Paying only a click-through based commission doesn't require the special configuration above or any pre-requisite, since this task is handled by YourAffiliates independently.

Sale tracking notes (where applicable):

SunnyScript products tracking sales (SunnyShop, AccessGuardian and AdvertisingSuite) allow to cancel or modify existing orders. Depending upon the made modifications, this may also affect granted commissions for your affiliates:

If commissions have not been paid yet (open payment period), cancelled or modified orders take influence to their concerned commissions, while for closed payment periods canceled or modified orders have no influence any longer.
 

In order to manage this task with highest possible compatibility to different server systems, YourAffiliates uses "fork" function to prevent killing of resource consuming processes by running clone processes with other PID (process identification).

So the allowed CPU time on your server isn't exceeded, but YourAffiliates can manage all tasks without disruptions. In this way, you don't have to take care about the size of your affiliate programs nor deep technical details of your server configuration.

However sometimes "fork" function is not available (this is detected automatically when running the admin panel first time, see "System parameters" screen). In this case, please refer to the chapter "YourAffiliates settings adjustment" ("Data maintenance" of "Edit YourAffiliates parameters" screen) for more details about how to workaround this problem.

Usage note: Even if you lose your Internet connection or your web browser crashes, the background processes are kept alive. Just wait some time (ca. 15 minutes) and then log in as admin again to check for the concerned task done.
 

YourAffiliates will round each single amount correctly using business rounding rules. However calculations made with rounded amounts may show slight different results than using the original float typed strings.
 

In order to do so, just go to the concerned system table and click on "Add" in the upper right corner of the screen. Now a form opens, which requests the required information to pay manual commissions.

Usage note: This works also well when you want to grant regular commissions (e.g. during a contract lifetime); in order to do so, initialize a recurring commission sale by setting the "Recurring status" parameter to "Recurring host".
 

Recurring commissions are sale commissions granted regularly during a certain time period, e.g. for magazine subscriptions or other long-term contracts to reward affiliates based upon the duration of these generated sales.

Each affiliate program can have its own recurring commission system. In order to configure an affiliate program for this kind of commission, please refer to the chapter "YourAffiliates settings adjustment".

For each generated sale, a defined pay-per-sale commission is granted immediately. The first recurring commission is paid after the number of days passed by as specified at "Recurring sales generation interval".

Usage note: Recurring sales are also supporting the multi-level commission feature in full extent.

Managing recurring commissions - table of sales:

There are two types of recurring sale commission records - "recurring host" and "recurring child".

A "recurring host" record is the parent record created for a recurring commission event (sale). Starting from this record, all following commission payments (children) will be generated.

A "recurring child" record is created by its concerned host record depending upon the "Recurring sales generation interval" and "Generate this total number of recurring sales" parameters. It reflects a paid instance of recurring commissions.

You can update or remove a child record at any time by keeping the recurring commission payments alive. However removing a host record will stop paying further recurring commissions for this particular sale. Already paid commissions are not touched, but normal sale commission will not be granted, if the payment period, host sale was generated in, is still open.

Modifying a host record (especially the total sale amount) leads that newly created child records will take over the updated information. This may be useful when a running contract (or general sales event causing recurring commissions) is altered.

Technical note: It is advised to alter the field _add_datetime defining the date/time stamp of host record addition with care only, since this could lead to calculating wrong commissions.
 

In order to pay your affiliates for signing up, go to the table of registered affiliates, screen "Restructure table" and edit the field total_carryover by setting the desired start-up payment as "Default value".

It is advised that the granted amount should be lower than the min. payable commission amount to prevent abuse (people may register as affiliates to get the reward, but not bringing any new customers to you).

How to provide co-branded webpages ?

When doing special cooperations with some of your affiliates, they may wish to get a co-branded page on your website showing their company name, logo and other specific information. Also for this task YourAffiliates offers a good solution:

1. When creating such a co-branded webpage, add an image HTML tag calling click.cgi; for example:
 

<IMG SRC="http://www.sunnyscript.com/cgi-bin/ya/click.cgi?prg=abc&affil=100" BORDER=0 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1>

This will set a cookie on the visitor's computer for the affiliate "100" and program "abc".

2. Upload the co-branded webpage to your server and instruct the concerned affiliate to refer their visitors to the URL of this page, never to the affiliate URL assigned by YourAffiliates during sign-up.

In this way, each time a visitor comes to this co-branded webpage, the correct affiliate ID is set automatically in the background (when calling the pseudo-image). So all types of commissions (click-throughs, leads and sales) will work fine.

Technical note: The "created" image may be noticed as being broken, but since it is just 1*1 pixel in size, it never appears visible on the webpage. Its only intention is to call click.cgi placing the affiliate ID.

Static HTML pages as shortcuts for referring links:

In some cases it may be intended to provide "true URLs" for affiliate links; either just for achieving an improved "look and feel" of your affiliate URLs or better marketability (e.g. business cards or brochures).

YourAffiliates provides the ability to use such URLs by letting you specify a directory and filename scheme when generating affiliate links on the affiliate lounge (HTML generator).

In order to set up the system for this task, please go to the screen "Edit YourAffiliates parameters", section "Static affiliate pages as shortcuts for referring links" (see chapter "YourAffiliates settings adjustment" for details).

For each affiliate and program, one static HTML page is generated (and regularly updated). When clicking at such an affiliate URL, the matching static HTML page is called, which immediately redirects to the intended affiliate program URL.

Important note: After you have configured the system, it is absolutely necessary to perform a test first ensuring that all made settings are correctly - otherwise the entire affiliate system may not work as intended (e.g. producing wrong affiliate URLs).

Enable / disable this feature on the fly:

You can switch to this "true URL" scheme at any time; existing affiliate URLs will still work concurrently to the new ones.

Whenever changes apply to your affiliates or the affiliate programs (program / affiliate added, updated or deleted), then these pages are automatically modified during the next data maintenance.

Turning this feature off later is also possible, but you should keep the existing static pages on the server. Also note that the system then no longer updates these pages, so it is recommended to think thoroughly about having such shortcut pages or not.

How can I show the affiliate ID in printable forms ?