1. Ask me for the “WP Affiliate and Shopp Integration plugin”. Once you get it upload and activate the plugin.

2. Open the “checkout.php” file from the “templates” directory of the shopp plugin then add the following bit of code just after the line “<form action ……”

<?php
if (function_exists('wp_aff_shopp_get_referrer'))
{
$referrer = wp_aff_shopp_get_referrer();
$referrer_string = "type=hidden&name=referrer&value=".$referrer;
shopp('checkout','order-data',$referrer_string);
}
?>

That should do the job. Perform a test purchase to make sure commission is awarded after the purchase correctly.

Note: If you are using your own theme-templates for the Shopp plugin then you need to change the “checkout.php” file in the “theme-folder”.

This integration was done and documented by Yvette Kwei from www.magnumip.com.au

Little Background

I created a form with the popular Cforms II plugin (version 11.1).

In my form, users enter their contact details and then choose between one of four packages that I offer (“Basic”, “Standard”, “Premium” and “Custom”). Each package has a different price (in this example, $95, $195, $295, and $395). I wanted to pay my Affiliates for sending me these leads. Further, I wanted the “Unique Transaction ID” in WP Affiliate to be the ID given by Cforms to the particular submission.

The Integration Steps

1. Insert the following code into the “my-functions.php” file within cForms:

2. Insert a single line of code in “../wp-content/plugins/cforms/lib_nonajax.php”:

Notes:

• Cforms v.11.1 allows you to place the “my-functions.php” file in a folder called “cforms-custom” rather than “cforms” itself. This allows you to protect your custom scripts from being over-written when upgrading cforms. If you’ve taken advantage of this option (recommended) make sure the code you insert in step 1 is in the “../wp-content/plugins/cforms-custom/lib_nonajax.php” file.
• Obviously, you can rename the packages to whatever you want, and set the prices to whatever you want, but if you change the packages, you’ll need to manually update the data in the “my-functions.php” file.
• If you upgrade Cforms, you’ll need to re-insert the code in the lib_nonajax.php file.

How will referring new affiliates to an affiliate program make me money in the future? the answer is tier affiliate program. A tier affiliate model is an Affiliate program structure whereby affiliates earn commissions on their conversions as well as conversions of webmasters they refer to the program.

So with a two-tier affiliate tracking system, not only are your affiliates rewarded for sending direct sales to your web site, they also get rewarded for encouraging other affiliates to join your affiliate program.

Using a tier affiliate structure potentially attracts more affiliates and hence more referrals to your site which means more sales for your products or services.

Tier Affiliate Model Example

Say for example, Person A is an affiliate. Person A sends Person B to the site. Person B becomes an affiliate too. Person B referes Person C who buys a product.

In the normal scenerio Person B will receive a commission for referring the sale.

In the tier affiliate model Person B still receives the commission but Person A also receives a small commission since Person A originally referred person B to this site.

How to use a Two-Tier Affiliate Model in the Affiliate Platfrom Plugin

All you have to do is enable it and specify the values from the settings menu of the WP Affiliate Platform plugin.

2 Tier Affiliate Model Settings

So if you had the “2nd tier commission level” set to 10% and the duration to 30 days then Person A in the above example will receive 10% commission of all sales made through Person B’s referrals for 30 days from the date when person B joined the affiliate program. You can leave the “Duration” field empty in which case Person A will receive the commission indefinitely.

Yes

• What license or licenses are you using for the WP Affiliate Platform plugin?

At the moment I only offer Single License. The single License allows you to install a copy of the WP Affiliate Platform plugin on a single site/blog and comes with free updates. Contact me if you are interested in getting a multi-site license.

• Does the affiliate software prevent buyers from purchasing with their own affiliate link?

No, the affiliate software doesn’t prevent buyers from purchasing with their own affiliate link. This is so they can buy more for other people if needed(eg. if the customer is a web developer and building a site for someone else). This in my opinion is a very good practice as it also gives the potential customer incentive to buy the product and be an affiliate.

How do you stop people who become an affiliate purely to get a discount on the product? Most people handle this by setting the minimum payout balance to an amount that requires an affiliate to make a few sales before getting paid out. For example, the minimum payout balance of my site is $25, so you will have to make a few sales before you get any money (which will prove that you are a genuine affiliate promoting the product and not just trying to scam the system to get a discount on the price). There is nothing more I like than to pay my affiliates who promote my products.

• Does the affiliate software has the option to manually award commission?

Yes,

• Can the affiliate software automatically reverse the commission for refunded products?

Yes, the affiliate platform plugin can automatically reverse the commission for refunded products when used with the WP eStore plugin. If you are using it with any other ecommerce solution then you will have to call the commission reversal API or do it manually.

• Majority of my customers prefer to pay for my product manually through bank transfer instead of paying by paypal. Is there a way to track the affiliate commission in this manual transaction?

Yes, the affiliate commission is tracked even when your customers use the manual checkout option of the WP eStore plugin.

i) The Easiest Option (Works for Standard PayPal Payment)

To integrate the WP Affiliate Platform simply check the “Enable 3rd Party Cart Integration” field from the settings menu.

3rd Party Shopping Cart Integration Settings

ii) The Not So Easy Option (Works for Most Payment Options)

This option is still easy but requires a little bit of code manipulation:

Step 1: Ask me for the “WP-eCommerce affiliate integration plugin”. Once you get it upload and activate the plugin.

Step 2: Open the “transaction_result_functions.php” file from the WP-eCommerce plugin (“wp-e-commerce” directory) and search for the following line of code:

if(($email != '') && ($purchase_log['email_sent'] != 1))

Once you find that line, add the following bit of code just before that line:


if(true === $echo_to_screen)
{
do_action('wp_affiliate_process_commission', array("sale_amt" =>$total, "txn_id"=>$purchase_log['id'], "buyer_email"=>$email));
}


Step3: Save and upload this recently edited file overwriting the existing one.

Remember to test it after you do the integration to make sure everything is working fine before you go live.

I get a lot of queries regarding the integration of the WordPress Affiliate Software with a 3rd party plugin. This page explains what is involed in the process so you can get a picture of what is possible and what is not.

Before I start I would like to make one thing clear… If you want to use the WP Affiliate Platform with the WP eStore plugin then you do not need to worry about any integration work as these two plugins are integrated by default.

The WP Affiliate software tracks referrals (knows who is a referred customer and who is not) and manages all the affiliates side of things but it depends on the e-commerce plugin (eg. WP eStore) that does the actual payment processing for the awarding of the affiliate commission. The reason is that you want to award the commission after a confirmed sale (this prevents customers from clicking the checkout button and getting commission without going through the full checkout) and only the plugin that processed the payment knows when the customer’s payment has been processed successfully.

The same principal applies to “Rewarding affiliates when they refer a customer and he/she registers” situation. The affiliate software will be able to track who is referred by who but the script that handles the registration will have to award the commission after a customer successfully registers. You just need to add a small bit of code that I will provide you in the registration handling script so it can award commission to the affiliate after someone registers.

So the first thing you have to ask yourself is when (for what action of the customer) do you want to award the affiliate with the commission and then identify where in your 3rd party plugin it is handlling this action. Once you can identify that then it is just a matter of adding a small bit of code (I will provide this) in that place that will do the commission awarding for you.

Integrating Instinct’s WP-eCommerce Plugin

• See the affiliate platfrom integration with the WP-eCommerce Plugin post.

Integrating Shopp Plugin

• See the affiliate platform integration with the Shopp plugin post.

Integration PHPurchase Plugin

• The PHPurchase plugin is integrated with the Affiliate plugin by default.

By using the software, you agree to be bound by the terms of this license. If you have any questions
about the terms below, please contact tipsandtricks-hq.com for clarification.

1. You must have paid tipsandtricks-hq.com to use the software.
2. The copyright holder retains all intellectual property rights to the software.
3. You are granted the right to install the software on a single website.
4. You are granted the right to freely modify the software for your own personal use.
5. You may not use code snippets from the software elsewhere.
6. You may not re-distribute (either freely, or for any kind of compensation) the software, in whole or in part, to any 3rd party.
7. You expressly acknowledge and agree that use of the software is at your sole risk. No warrantly is provided, either express or implied.

If you want to customize this URL (eg. you want your affiliates login page to be at http://www.your-domain-name.com/affiliates) then you can achieve this in two ways:

Option 1 (The Redirection method)

1. Download the ‘index.php‘ file that has an automatic redirection to the affiliates page.
2. Update the file and put in your domain name where is says ‘www.your-domain-name.com’.
3. Now upload this file to the directory where you want your affiliates to go and signup. (eg. www.your-domain-name.com/affiliates)

Now when someone visits ‘http://www.your-domain-name.com/affiliates’ he/she will automatically be redirected to ‘http://www.your-domain-name.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-affiliate-platform/affiliates/’

Option 2 (The Copy Method)

1. Copy the affiliates directory and put it where you want it.
2. Update the ‘misc_func.php’ (located inside the affiliates directory) to have the correct relative location of the ‘wp-load.php’ file.

The ‘misc_func.php’ file uses a wordpress system file called ‘wp-load.php’ so you will have to update the ‘include’ statement at the top of the file (misc_func.php) and enter the correct path of the ‘wp-load.php’ file relative to the target URL. the ‘wp-load.php’ file is located on your wordpress installation directory.

So, for example if you want to move the affiliate URL to http://www.your-domain-name.com/affiliates and your wordpress is installed on the root directory then change the following:

to

Please leave a comment if you don’t understand a step.

1. Visit the following URL and sign up for an affiliate account after you have setup this plugin following the Usage instruction:

2. Navigate to the ‘Banners/Links’ page after you log in. Get a banner/link code from this page and put it on any of your other website/blog (if you have any) or just put it in the same site. You can simply make a link that looks similar to the following if you don’t want to get the full banner/link code:

3. Now click on that banner or link and go to Stats->Referrals page to make sure that the click is being tracked.

4. Now make a purchase using an ‘add to cart’ button that you have on your site. Visit the Stats->Sales page to make sure the sale has been registered.

5. Verify all these data from the WP Affiliate Admin panel inside the WordPress dashboard too.

General Settings

reCAPTCHA Settings

All the options are pretty self explanatory so you won’t have any problem filling them up.

The next thing you need to do is configure some banners/links for the affiliates to use. The banners/links can be configured from the ‘Add/Edit Banners’ Menu.

Now you need to make sure that the ecommerce plugin you are using notifies the WP Affiliate Platform when a sale is made. If you are using the WP eStore plugin then you don’t need to worry about anything as the WP eStore (v2.1 and above) plugin is pre-configured to work with this plugin. If you are using some other ecommerce plugin to sell your products/services then you need to contact me before you can use this plugin.