Create and customize an affiliate program

Navigate to the Programs page and click Create program. Select “Affiliate” as the program type.

 Then enter the following information:
  1. Program name
  2. Website URL
  3. Partner portal URL
  4. Commission type and currency
  5. Payout threshold
  6. Commission review period and rounding
  7. Click Create.
Don’t worry, you’ll be able to edit all of these details later.

Program: Overview

Once you complete the initial setup, you will land on the Program Overview page.
First, you will be presented with the main information about your program:
  1. Program type, name and partner portal URL.
  2. Commission structure.
  3. Cookie lifetime.
  4. Payout threshold.
Than, you’ll see a performance overview of your program:
  • Partners - the number of partners who have signed up for your program.
  • Signups - the number of referral signups generated by your partners.
  • Paid accounts - the number of paid accounts created by referrals.
  • Purchases - the number of purchases made by referred accounts, including initial and recurring purchases.
  • Program revenue - the total revenue generated by partners in this program.
  • Rewards - the total amount of rewards your partners have earned and the amount already paid out.
Afterwards, you’ll find quick links to manage pending approval requests and payout requests.
Manage approvals will take you to the list of pending partner approval requests if you have approvals enabled for your program. For more information on building a custom approval form, click here.
Manage payouts will take you to the list of pending payout requests. Learn more about payouts here.

Program: Settings

The Settings section gives you the option to view and edit the main details of your program:
  • Program name - this name will be visible to your partners when they sign up and is used in program emails.
  • Website URL - the default page that your partners’ affiliate links will lead to.
  • Partner portal URL - the partner portal login page. You can use our default link or connect your own domain.

Setting up a custom Partner portal domain

When you create a program, a Partner portal URL is generated with our default domain partneroapp.com. You can change the website URL by adding your custom domain.
To connect a custom domain for the Partner portal:
  1. Navigate to the Program Settings page and click the Connect domain.
  2. Enter the URL of the domain you’d like to connect and use for your partner portal, e.g., partners.yourdomain.com. Click Next.
  3. A Domain Verification window will appear with a CNAME record. Go to the DNS page of your domain management platform and create a CNAME record with the values of the NAME and CONTENT fields.
  4. Once the records have been correctly set up with their respective Name and Value fields, enable the “I have added DNS records” toggle and click Check DNS records.
Note: It may take up to 24 hours for your DNS settings to become active worldwide, depending on your hosting provider.

How to access the DNS settings of your domain

The following steps have to be completed on the DNS settings of your domain. For assistance with these steps, we recommend contacting your hosting provider. 

  1. Log in to your domain provider (usually on your hosting).
  2. Find the DNS settings for your domain. You can find instructions on doing this by searching “DNS settings” + your hosting provider's name on any search engine (such as Google). 
  3. Create a DNS record with CNAME type and fill out the Name and Value fields given to you on your Partnero account.

Remember that hosting providers may refer to the Name and Value TXTs differently. They can be referred to as:

  • Name and Host
  • Domain and Value
  • Domain and Host

In some cases, the CNAME record might be referred to as the Domain Alias record.

Setting up the commission structure

Partnero allows you to fully customize how you want to reward your partners. Navigate to Program Settings and scroll down to Commission.

You can set the Commission type to Percentage or Static. 
  • Percentage -  automatically calculates a reward based on the transaction amount. E.g., if the commission is set to 30% and a referral makes a purchase for $100, the automatically generated reward will be $30.
  • Static - creates a fixed reward (e.g., $20) for any transaction regardless of the sale amount.
Commission and currency allow entering the percent amount for percentage-based rewards or a specific monetary amount for fixed rewards. You can also select the currency in which you will reward your partners.
Commission period setting is to determine how long your partners will be rewarded. It can be set to a specific number of times, days, months, years, or a lifetime.
Payout threshold creates a condition on how much commission a partner has to earn before they can request a payout.
Commission review period can be enabled if you’d like to add a delay before the earned commission will reach your partner. E.g., if your service has a 14-day money-back guarantee, you may want to set a 14-day commission review period in case the purchase gets canceled or refunded.
Commission rounding allows you to avoid paying partners in decimals and automatically rounds up all reward amounts.

Tracking and cookies

Referral link suture can be set to Query or Link, which changes the format of the referral link:
  • Query: yourdomain.com/?ref=xxxyyy
  • Link: yourdomain.com/a/xxxyyy
Note: This setting is important if you’re migrating an existing affiliate program that already has a specific referral link structure in place. With brand new programs, it’s a matter of preference as both formats work identically.
Here you can also select how long the cookies will remain active (e.g., 30 days or lifetime). A referral will have to signup during the indicated number of days to be associated with the partner.

Custom referral links

By default, your referral links will use your main program URL from the Program settings. However, you can customize it by adding a subdomain:

Default: yourdomain.com/xxxyyy
Custom: subdomain.yourdomain.com/xxxyyy

To customize your referral link domain:

  1. Go to Settings under Program.
  2. Scroll down to the Custom referral links section.
  3. Click Connect domain:

  4. Enter the URL of the domain you’d like to connect and click Next.
  5. A Domain Verification window will appear with a CNAME record. Go to the DNS page of your domain management platform and create a CNAME record with the values of the NAME and CONTENT fields.
  6. Once the records have been correctly set up with their respective Name and Value fields, enable the “I have added DNS records” toggle and click Check DNS records.
Note: It may take up to 24 hours for your DNS settings to become active worldwide, depending on your hosting provider.

Other settings

This section offers additional options for your program:
  • Approval form for new partners - if enabled, new partners will have to fill out a form and get approved before accessing your program. Read more about approvals here.
  • Automatically approve commissions - if enabled, all earned commissions will be approved immediately. Leave this option disabled if you’d like to review and approve commissions manually.
  • Allow payout requests using bank transfer and PayPal - possibility for your affiliates to request paying out rewards via wire.
  • Email notifications for partners - if enabled, your partners will have the possibility to allow email notifications about new signups, sales, and others. Learn more about program emails here.
  • Onboarding description for new partners - if enabled, your new partners will get a description sidebar tabs below their profile settings. Read more about onboarding here.
Make sure to click Update after you make any changes!

Deleting a program

To delete your program:
  1. Navigate to Program and then Settings.
  2. Scroll down to Delete program and click Delete.
  3. A confirmation window will appear where you will have to type “DELETE” and click Yes, Delete. This additional step ensures a program isn’t deleted by accident since this step cannot be undone.

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