(Also known as a Publisher) an Affiliate is a site that is actively promoting the products or services of another companies web site through banners advertisements, advertorial copy or text links. These 'referrals' are tracked and commission paid on sales generated.
(Also known as a Advertiser) a Merchant online retailer who sells their products and services through an Affiliate Network. these companies pay a percentage of their sale income to the Affiliate that initially referred the customer.
In short yes, most sites that wish to be a Paid On Results Affiliate can sign up to do so, however the decision as to which Merchants you can advertise on your site is up to the individual Merchants who have the option to review your site prior to accepting you as one of their Affiliate sales team. Ideally your site would be popular and 'on topic' to what the Merchant promotes. For instance a photography website might be a good place to sell cameras.
Can I see a list of the Affiliates that are currently signed up to promote your Merchants?
No, we have found it impractical to provide a list of Affiliates that have chosen to sell for Merchants as many of our Affiliates prefer to retain confidentiality as to the sites they own. However I can tell you that we currently have in the region of three thousand active Affiliates signed up to sell for our Merchants.
Yes as well as a wide selection of banners most Merchant sites have text link code provided including the ability to deep link to specific product pages.
What exactly is deep linking and how does it work?
Deep linking simply means that a banner or text link on the Affiliates site is set up to take the visitor directly into a specific page other than the home page of the Merchants site.
Using our browser based Deep Link Generator you can now create Deep Links for
any Paid On Results Merchant at a click of a button.
To do this you can add a special page to your browsers Favourites or Bookmarks menu and then, when you want to create a Deep Link you simply browse to the Merchants web site, navigate to the page you want to deep link to and click the link in your Favourites or Bookmark menu. You're then taken to the Paid On Results web site and shown the Affiliate URL you require in order to deep link to the Merchant. This tool requires either Internet Explorer or Firefox, with Java Script enabled. To see the deeplink tool working: Click Here for Internet Explorer Example Click Here for Firefox Example
Are product feeds from Merchants available within your Network?
Yes we facilitate the use of product feeds from Merchants who have them available. To view a list of the Merchants who have feeds simply login to the Affiliate Control Panel. We also have ready made content units for many of our Merchants. These are easy to add to your site and provide a simple way to add self updating content that deep links direct to the product page of the Merchant which improves conversion. Ideal add and forget money makers!
Or alternatively you can use our Advanced Content Creation tools to customise feeds and add dynamic content from multiple Merchants to your site.
To find out more about our advanced product feeds Click here
This is a payment made to you for any Affiliates you recruit to a Merchants program. It is generally a residual commission meaning that you will receive payment any time that the 2nd tier Affiliate you have introduced makes a sale.
I am already an Affiliate of another Affiliate Marketing Network, can I still be an Affiliate with you?
Certainly we are happy for Affiliates to work with other networks as well as our own. Many Affiliates will promote merchants from multiple networks simply because the merchant they want to promote is not with any other network. We encourage you to compare statistics reporting, product feed options and general usability of the system and are confident that as an Affiliate you will see many benefits in using our network.
When will I get paid for the sales I have made for Merchants on your network?
You get paid every month 6 weeks after the month you made the sale provided it has been validated by the Merchant . So if you make a sale in January you can normally expect to be paid middle of March. This is provided that the total for your sales (all your merchants commissions aggregated) is over the £25 thresh hold. If this is not achieved your commission rolls over to the following month. Affiliates outside of the UK are required to reach a £50 (fifty pounds) threshold in their account or joint accounts before payment is made.
What exactly is the void rate that is shown against Merchants in the stats? I'm trying to clarify things before I start an expensive PPC campaign.
Void rate is the percentage of sales (or leads) that are pending with the Merchant that then go on to be made void. Another way to look at the report would be validation rate i.e. If you have 100 pending sales and 2 of them are made void and the rest valid then the void rate is 2%. Now if someone such as an Affiliate commits fraud against a Merchant then these won't be counted (provided the Merchant is voiding sales correctly) so if you see someone with a high void rate you have to ask yourself, "as an Affiliate do I want to promote them?".
The idea is to be transparent with Affiliates and let them see exactly which Merchants do convert and do validate sales, as this is how we all make money. As you can imagine Merchants with High void rates are not happy that they feature in the voids table, but our simple reply to them is 'void less sales or tighten up your website' so more buyers who don't fail credit checks can place orders.
Can I promote any Merchant I choose on my website?
This really depends on the individual Merchant, Some auto-accept affiliates whereas others prefer to see who wants to promote them prior to accepting them as a Merchant. The network reserve the right to stop an Affiliate promoting a Merchant if we deem the Affiliate's site to be unsuitable or to have inappropriate content.
Can we promote Merchants we are currently signed up for on our new site which is soon to be launched?
We can only answer this after the site has been built and we are able to see it. Permission to promote non auto accept merchants is given on a site by site basis
Can you tell me how you make payments to Affiliates and in which currency?
To receive payment you need to firstly to submit an invoice to us , once this is submitted the invoice is paid within 14 days. You submit the invoice though the Payment Center and is simply a case of clicking a few links. You can submit an invoice between the 10th and 24th of each month by logging into the Affiliate Control Panel, click Payment Center and follow the links to submit the invoice.
To assist you once we are in the payment period, and if you have money to invoice for, (i.e. you are owed over £25) when you log into the Affiliate Control Panel you will see a button appear on the right hand side "Request Payment" You also are given a copy of the invoice to view and print for your own records.
We currently make all our Affiliate payments in UK £'s sterling.
Does setting up a sub-account allow us to group sites, companies, payees, etc. And how can I set one up?
Not quite - basically a sub account allows Affiliates to create additional accounts which are linked to there Master Account. Each additional account has its own login plus its own stats, only accessing the Master Account allows you to view stats over all your Additional Accounts.
Also only 1 payment is made - all money made by the Additional Accounts is paid out though the Master Account. For example lets say your company has number of staff which work on different sites the company owns, using the 'sub accounts' option you can set up additional accounts that gives each member of staff their own account, each staff member would only see their stats but not the others. All money however would be paid via the single account.
What exactly are product feeds and how do they help me to make money?
Product feeds are great for maximising sales from your visitors. While some affiliates may just stick a banner on their web page, others may just use a text links conversion. From click through to sale will be higher if you use a Merchants product feed. Feeds allow you to create content for your site based on their best selling products. Having a product feed increases the ways in which you can feature and promote a Merchants product range. Indeed many affiliates use our highly customisable feed system to combine product from multiple Merchants into consolidated units on their sites creating related product offerings that can be found no where else on the web. Also a product feed is a simple way for you to have auto updated content with minimum effort, and that can't be bad!
URL - does this have to go directly to the product - or can it go to the section on the website?
The URL should go straight to the product page and not a listing page if possible. Also the Image URL for the product should be the biggest image (size wise) you have available and not a thumbnail.
Can you tell me how you get more than one page on the feeds?
It is possible to create a way of navigating though more than 1 page of content, but you either need to use an iframe (which is the recommended way) or use a scripting language such as PHP or Perl - if you can do any of these, then let us know and we can take you through it.
How do I formulate a single url for all Merchants?
Log into our 'Control Panel', click 'View Feeds', and then download the name of the Merchant you wish to use. Next the options box appears, select 'Fields Supported by all Merchants' in the drop down menu. Next just click Download.
Now if you wanted to change that to another Merchant, just change feedid(for example =M108) in the URL to feedid(for example =M45). You get the same fields, but this time for products from the new Merchant.
A complete list of Merchant ID can be downloaded though 'Link Overview' (click Download as CSV) just add a M to the id in the first column. Remember to join the Merchant before using there feed. Also when you do join a Merchant take a look at the URL, within that you have “site_id=X” where X is the Merchant ID, this can be used to download the feed - but for only Merchants that have feeds.
How can I keep up to date with a Merchants products and prices?
When Merchants provide us with a CSV feed, we recommend they upload a copy of the .csv file to their web site, and keep that updated. We download this as required (depending on how often its updated), we then update our database. Affiliates use this system to keep their content units up to date.
Custom Tracking ID allows you for example to see if a certain user has bought something via your link, you can do this by putting in a username or email address (in fact anything that lets you match the tracking ID to your own user database).
This can be anything you like up to 256 characters in length, however you cannot have any spaces.
We are using the Merchant 'Prezzy Box' as an example:-
Here is a normal link to Prezzy Box http://www.paidonresults.net/c/1000/1/10/0
And a link with a Custom Tracking ID added http://www.paidonresults.net/c/1000/1/10/clarke
Any sales that come from this link will have the Custom Tracking ID of "clarke". To get this all you had to do was change the "0" at the end of the link URL to "clarke". If you don't want to use Custom Tracking ID's simply leave the link as it's default setting with "0" in place and nothing will show on that table in the reports.
Custom Tracking ID is also known as Network Tracking ID, EPI, Click Reference, NWK, LID and SID depending on who you ask and what other networks call them, but they are all the same thing, just some have more limitations than others.
For a printable PDF with information about this and other features of the Affiliate CP click here
We have introduced (Dec 05) a new, easy to use tool for making deep links to any Merchant on our network.
This tool makes it so anyone can deep link to any product any of our merchants are selling. This in turn should help generate more sales as an Affiliate can now write about a product and link directly to it instead of the home page. While this was possible before, this new simpler way is intended to make it easier for everyone regardless of skill level.
This tool should be of great use to PPC as well as SEO affiliates.
Simply visit the page on the Merchants site you want a deep link for, click the link in your browser bookmarks and 'hey presto!' your deep link is made and ready for you to use.
Can I use your 'Content Creator' to create a datafeed? What I actually want to do is download the data feed so I can import it into Excel. How would I do this?
Not quite. You can use the Content Creator to create Content using products from feeds, but if you want to download the product feed itself (for importing into Excel as you said) then all you need to do is click 'View Feeds' on the menu, find the Merchants name in the table and then click 'Download'. An options box appears, select any options and then click 'Download Feed'. You are then given the required URL you can visit to download the feed, and that is also linked up for you to just click to download.
I'm about to set up several different campaigns within one Affiliate program. Can I use Tracking URLs to test the effectiveness of each campaign?
Yes you can, and as you get sales from these links the tracking id will show next to the sales allowing you to see which ones are converting. Note we have an exception and that is recruiting new Affiliates to the Paid On Results Network. This is simply because all commission is 2nd tier and so you won't see a tracking ID next to 2nd tier commissions as these were generated by the Affiliates you recruited to Paid On Results and it is this that we base 2nd tier payments on.
Yes, provided the Merchant is an Auto accept program, otherwise you must send a request which the Merchant will reply to once they have had a look at the site/sites you propose to advertise them on.
Do all your Merchants have creative and product feeds available for me to promote them.
All our Merchants have creative available for you to use. If they do not we will supply creative for you. We normally provide 468x60pixel and the 120x60pixel banners for Merchants who need initial help with creative to get them kick started. Product feeds are available for most of our Merchants which you can access from your Affiliate Control Panel. If a Merchant has no feed available you might wish to contact them through the control panel and request that they create one which we will be happy to add to the system.
How do you monitor how well I am selling for each Merchant I promote?
Upon becoming an Affiliate through the Paid On Results system (this is free), you will receive an 'Affiliate Account id' and password. Once logged in you will be able to add creative through the Control panel in the 'Add Creative' area. Doing this allows us to correctly track visitors that you are directing to each Merchant and the way you will receive commission you have earned You can track all of the click throughs and sales (as well as much more statistical detail) here. To sign up as an Affiliate you should go to www.paidonresults.com/affiliates-sign-up.html.
Is there a reason why the Merchant banners don't include the site URL?
Yes, In the Affiliate marketing industry this is a bit of a ‘no no' from the Affiliates point of view. A big concern is that any interested viewer may just type in the URL rather than clicking on the banner. We know you work hard to get traffic to your site and we try to ensure that you get all the commission due to you from sales that your leads generate. To sign up simply click here.
Signing up as an Affiliate is absolutely free and allows you access to the Merchant information on the system and to use all of our bespoke reporting software to see just how your sales programs are going.
When commissions move to pending approval, how long do they normally take to confirm to a guaranteed payment?
Generally our Merchants are required to validate sales within 6 weeks of the sale being made, as per our terms of business. Most are fortnightly but there are some exceptions where longer validation times are allowed. These will be detailed within the Merchant information on their sign-up page. None of our Merchants currently have an extended validation time.
Can you tell me your payment terms. e.g. leads created in December will be paid when?
You are paid based on the date the commission happened, so if you made commission in December then you would be paid that commission in Feb 2006 should it be validated (i.e., is a valid commission and was not voided, or cancelled). The Payment Center in the Affiliate Control Panel gives what you will be paid and when.
Some Merchants validate daily, some weekly and some only once a month - within the Affiliate Control Panel in the 'Performance Reports' we have a useful 'Validation Report' which gives the average length of validation time for individual Merchants.
Even if a Merchant takes 6 weeks to validate a sale, you should still be paid on time, for example:- Commission made on the 17th December must be validated by Merchant on the 28th January and will then be paid to you in February.
We do encourage Merchants to validate as regularly as is practical to help Affiliates see exactly where they stand. Most of our Merchants hold a positive cash balance with us, therefore we have the money for your commission from the Merchant in advance.
Can I stop being an Affiliate without giving notice?
Yes you can stop being an Affiliate whenever you choose although it is unneccesary as there is no cost in remaining an Affiliate member if you think you may choose to start promoting Merchants again in the future.
I now have several 2nd tier affiliates. Will any money made from them be included when their sales have been validated in real time, or will it be added at the end on the month?
When any of your 2nd Tier Affiliates have made a sale, it will show on your 2nd tier page in real time with the name of the Merchant and showing the pending/valid or void commission due to you. When a sale is made valid it is added to the payment run for your account as normal. i.e. A valid sale in January is paid with the March invoice.
Do you have an affiliate scheme for recommending members(and they earn monies)? Two people have recently asked for suggestions from me about advertising on their websites.
Yes we do. For any New Affiliate that joins the network after being referred by you becomes part of your 2nd Tier. You will then earn 5% of the Affiliates validated commission for life.
This money is not taken from the Affiliate, but paid by the network.
To refer people to Paid On Results you need to use an Affiliate link as normal, to get these, log into your Affiliate Control Panel and click '2nd Tier' which is under 'Reports'. From there you can get the linking options you need.
General Questions
