IMPORTANT: This article is only relevant if you are NOT integrating SB using an Infusionsoft order form or shopping cart. With these methods the SB script can read the Infusionsoft cookie and hence no set up is required, so just leave the default settings.
However if your order form is in the WordPress site, then the Infusionsoft cookie is not available and hence you need to do something different as described below.
Overview of Affiliate Sales
Infusionsoft credits an affiliate with a sale based on the existence on the affiliate cookie that is present when the order is placed. If, when the contact was originally created, a different affiliate cookie was present then this ‘lead affiliate’ as well as the ‘sale affiliate’ may receive some credit.
So how does SubscriptionBoss know who is the affiliate on a particular sale? Well this can be based on three different mechanisms.
- An affiliate cookie on the WordPress site that can be read by the plugin
- A hidden form field containing the affiliate code on the sales form sent to the plugin
- A parameter on the plugin URL containing the affiliate code
The default setup is to use cookies and you can just skip to the cookie method below unless you have a more involved sales process.
Which of these mechanisms is used is determined by the configuration on the SubscriptionBoss Settings page.
SubscriptionBoss Affiliate Parameters
If any of the the first 3 following parameters is not specified then that mechanism of obtaining the affiliate code is not used. So for example, if you leave the Affiliate Cookie Name as blank then SubscriptionBoss will not look for the affiliate code in a cookie.
- Affiliate Cookie Name – the name of the cookie dropped on the WordPress site that contains the affiliate code
- Affiliate Form Field Name – the name of the hidden form field that contains the affiliate code
- Affiliate URL Parameter – the name of the URL parameter that contains the affiliate code
- Affiliate Parameter Priority – the order in which the plugin should look for the affiliate code – the default order is URL parameter, then hidden form field then cookie. The priority is required in the case where say the affiliate code in the cookie is different from the affiliate code on the URL and hence the plugin has to be able to choose correctly which affiliate code to use
- Affiliate Cookie Expiry – the number of days before the cookie expires – default is 365 days
Affiliate Code On the URL
With this mechanism you want to place the affiliate code on the URL when you send an order to the plugin typically using a button or a link. For example http://www.yoursite.com/?subb_action=submit&subscription=yoursub&a=youraffiliatescode
- Set up the Affiliate URL Parameter name on the SubscriptionBoss settings page as say something like “a”
- At runtime on your sales page, derive the affiliate code (either from a cookie, or from the URL) and append it to the destination of the link or button click – this derivation could be done in either javascript or PHP. I will provide some code examples in a later release.
Affiliate Code In A Hidden Form Field
With this mechanism you want to place the affiliate code in the hidden form field when you send an order to the plugin typically form a button or link. For example <input type=”hidden” name=”affliate” value=”youraffiliatescode” />
- Set up the Affiliate Form Parameter name on the SubscriptionBoss Settings page as say something like “affiliate”
- On your sales page, create a hidden form field to hold the affiliate code: <input type=”hidden” name=”affiliate” value=”” />
- At runtime on your sales page, derive the affiliate code (either from a cookie, or from the URL) and populate the affiliate field value – this could be done in either javascript or PHP. I will provide some examples in a later release.
Affiliate Code In A Cookie
With this mechanism you want to read the affiliate code from a cookie on the WordPress site. For example, the cookie might be: affiliate=”youraffiliatescode”; expires=Wed, 23-Oct-2024 12:00:00 UTC
This approach requires no special coding on the sales pages: instead it requires a small amount of additional set up within Infusionsoft.
- In Infusionsoft Misc Settings under Affiliates in the Tracking section set up the field called “Custom affiliate link URL” to be http://www.yoursite.com/affiliate-redirect/ where you replace “www.yoursite.com” by the URL of the site where you have installed the SubscriptionBoss plugin. SubscriptionBoss “affiliate-redirect” will drop the cookie on the WordPress domain and then redirect to the infusionsoft page, http://yourapp.infusionsoft.com/go/product/affiliate/ad, which will then redirect to the sales/order page. You do not need to set up the affiliate.html as described on that page.
- Set up the Affiliate Cookie name on the SubscriptionBoss settings page as say something like “affiliate”
- Set up the Affiliate Cookie Expiry on the SubscriptionBoss settings page as say “365” to give a cookie expiry period of 365 days
Check out these training videos for more on setting up Infusionsoft Afffiliate Programs
The Affiliate Tracking page looks like this:
Set Custom Affiliate Tracking Link to yoursite.com/affiliate-redirect/
To an affiliate, their tracking links appear as follows:
Affiliate's List of Tracking Links
Leave a Reply