Referring Shoppers to Specific Categories and Products

Affiliates often recommend a shop to their customers, generally, perhaps via a link saying something to the effect of "You might also enjoy Lauren's Wind Chime Emporium." That is great, as far as it goes, but there is more capability available, and taking advantage of it increases the benefits for all concerned.

Show your affiliates how they can send shoppers directly to certain categories or products. By doing so, you enable them to earn higher commissions, while increasing your sales, and helping your mutual customers find the products they need more easily.

Commissions from Multiple Visits

When an affiliate refers a shopper to your store, whether to the storefront, or to a specific category or product, they are credited with the referral, and with any order placed by that shopper during the time the basket is active.

If the shopper were to return to the affiliate's site, and click the link to your store a second time (or many times), while their basket was still active, the affiliate would not be commissioned for additional referrals. The store recognizes that they are the same shopper for as long as their basket is active.

Likewise, if an affiliate has several links to different products or categories in your store, and a shopper clicks each one, the affiliate will be credited just one time, for having referred the shopper. While an affiliate cannot earn more referral commissions by their shoppers simply clicking more links, they can earn more by sending more customers your way. It is likely that when a shopper is offered several opportunities to visit your store, each with a different focus, they will be more likely to find something of interest, and give your store a look. Even better, shoppers might be more likely to place an order. In this way, the affiliate can earn higher commissions, while you gain new customers and increase sales.

With any affiliate links, once the basket expires, or a purchase is made, the process starts over. So if a customer were to visit your store another day, with enough time between the visits to allow their basket to expire, the affiliate would be credited for sending them to you again, and for any sale resulting from that visit. This means your affiliates are motivated to give their customers fresh reasons to be interested in going to your store.

A Starting Point

When each affiliate logs in to your store, their affiliate account screen provides them with a generic URL for sending shoppers to the storefront screen of your store. The URL begins with the domain information, then specifies the storefront screen, &Screen=SFNT, the store code, &Store_Code=ABCD, and finally their affiliate code, &Affiliate=WXYZ. (Note that ABCD and WXYZ are placeholders, indicating where actual information will go.)

For example (broken into several lines here, for easier reading--normally this would be one continuous line, with no spaces):

http://www.yourstorename.com/mm5/merchant.mvc
   ?Screen=SFNT
   &Store_Code=ABCDE
   &Affiliate=WXYZ

It is the &Affiliate=WXYZ, following the store code, that provides the information used to track the referrals.

Similarly, if you are providing graphics for affiliates to use as referral links, the affiliate information is added onto the end of the URL in the HTML - in this case, immediately following the store code:

Refer Shoppers to a Category

A cake decorating supply company might want to refer their customers to a home decor store that offers an attractive line of crystal cake dishes. Rather than send the shoppers to the storefront, where they are left to search for the cake dishes on their own, the affiliate can deliver them directly to the category where cake dishes are located.

To do this, the affiliate (in this case, the cake decorating supply company) can simply locate the category screen they want, and copy that URL from the address in the browser window. To create and affiliate link on their site they just append their own &Affiliate=WXYZ to the end of that URL.

http://www.yourstorename.com/mm5/merchant.mvc
   ?Screen=CTGY
   &Store_Code=ABCDE
   &Category_Code=CakePlates
   &Affiliate=WXYZ

Notice that the type of screen is now a category screen, ?Screen=CTGY, and there is now a category code in the URL, &Category_Code=CakePlates.

Each affiliate can refer shoppers to as many categories as they like. So, in our example, the cake decorating supply company could have a second link sending their customers to the category where baking pans are sold.

Refer Shoppers to a Product

There may be cases when an affiliate wants to recommend specific things that you sell. For instance, a ergonomics consultant might recommend that their customers buy a certain chair from your chair store. On their Talking About Chairs page, they could include a link directly to your product page for the chair they recommend.

http://www.yourstorename.com/mm5/merchant.mvc
   ?Screen=PROD
   &Store_Code=ABCDE
   &Product_Code=ComfyChair
   &Affiliate=WXYZ

Notice that the type of screen is now a product screen, ?Screen=PROD, and there is now a product code in the URL, &Product_Code=ComfyChair.