Let’s say that there is a local author in town, and that author has a website where they are promoting their book. However, the author’s website does not have e-commerce capability, so when they want their readers to purchase a copy, they send them over to Amazon, through a link on their site. In fact, the author is an Affiliate of Amazon, and through a mutual agreement, the author sends potential customers to Amazon, while Amazon agrees to reimburse the author a percentage of sales that result from the author’s link. This is essentially a “win-win” situation: Amazon has thousands of Affiliates driving traffic to their site, and Affiliates can earn referral fees from Amazon whenever their website links result in a sale.

 

The IndieCommerce Affiliate Program allows you to offer the same sort of arrangement to anyone with a website of their own. Once you have accepted someone as an Affiliate, they will set up a very specific link on their site that will drive traffic to your site. The nature of the link allows IndieCommerce to track customers that follow the link, and if a sale results, IndieCommerce will calculate how much the Affiliate has earned (in the end, the store is responsible for paying the Affiliates directly). For a sale to be 'eligible,' the customer must follow the Affiliate link to your site, and place their order before leaving the site. In other words, the customer cannot arrive at your site, leave, and then come back again. They must place the order during the original visit to your site.

How is it set up?

First, you’ll need to let IndieCommerce know that you are interested in the program so that we can enable it for you. Once it has been enabled, you’ll need to visit your 'Blocks' page (Site Building > Blocks), and arrange for the disabled 'Affiliate' block to appear on the site.

 

Having the Affiliate block visible on your site will allow customers to click the invitation link, and start the process by which they sign up for the program on your site. They will be sent to a page where they will fill out an application and read the Affiliate agreement. The potential Affiliate must have an account through your site. If they don’t, they will be instructed to create one before they can submit an application.

 

Once they have submitted the application to you, you'll need to review it (Store Admin. > Affiliates > Affiliate Applications), and either accept or deny the application.

 

Once you have accepted the application, an email is automatically sent to the Affiliate letting them know that they have been accepted. The Affiliate can then log in to their account and begin generating the links that will drive traffic to your site. By clicking the Affiliate Center tab, they can either use the generic link code that will drive traffic to your home page, or they can input an ISBN and generate a specific link for that item.

When you enable the Affiliate block, you are essentially posting a contract on your site for anyone to read. Because of this, it is important that you read this document thoroughly before enabling the block.  The Agreement that is posted to your site by default will automatically fill in the name of the store wherever appropriate.  You may write your own agreement if you prefer.  Go to Store Administration > Affiliates > Contract Settings, to write your own.

 

Again, keep in mind that any potential Affiliate can see the Agreement posted on your site by beginning the application process. You can see the Agreement by logging into your account, and clicking the 'Apply for Affiliate' link. On the next page, scroll down to see the Agreement in the small text box near the bottom of the page. 

 

In addition to the Agreement, there are other settings that you will want to review, including the Default Affiliate Commission Structure and the email address. To view these settings, go to Store Admininstration > Affiliates > Settings.  The Default Affiliate Commission Structure is the default text of the email that is automatically sent to the affiliate upon approval. The email address refers to the account in which alerts are sent when new Affiliate applications are submitted. Regarding the other settings on the page, it is probably best to leave those as they are. 

After the Affiliate block has been placed on your site, potential affiliates can click on it and begin the process of applying. First, they will be asked to either create a new account or log into an existing account. Potential affiliates cannot apply for the program without first having an account on your site.

 

After creating their account and/or logging in, they will then be able to access the application. On the application they will be asked for the following:

Before submitting the application, they will be asked to read the Affiliate Agreement, posted at the bottom of the application page. They must click the check box, indicating they have read the document, before they can submit the application. Submitting the application will bring them back to their account page, with a short message that their request was received. 

 

After the application has been submitted, the store will receive an email alerting them that a new Affiliate is awaiting approval. To check on new applications, go to Store Administration > Affiliates > Affiliate Applications. On this page, click the name of the Affiliate on the left to view and/or edit their application. After reviewing their application, click the 'Affiliate Applications' link at the top of the page to return to the Affiliate Applications page, where you can then approve or deny them.

 

If you approve an affiliate, they will be sent an email with a stock response. If you wish to modify the response email, go to Store Administration > Affiliates > Contract Settings. Be aware that the original email uses tokens to automatically populate the email with specific information, such as the Affiliate’s User Name/ID, and a specific link to their Affiliate account.

 

If you deny an application, the rejected affiliate will not be able to submit the application again.

 

After approving the application, the rest of the work is up to the Affiliate. By approving the application, the system automatically creates an Affiliate ID from the Affiliate’s user name. Again, that information is sent to them automatically. They are also given a link to their account. Once there, they will need to click the 'Affiliate Center' link, where they will find several resources, including a Link Generator, Commissions Report, and a Click Count. 

 

At this point, the Affiliate must use the link generator to create the links that will be posted on their site. They can create a generic link to your homepage, or they can create a link directly to a specific ISBN. Neither the store, nor ABA can help with this process, since placing the links requires access to the administration side of someone else’s website.

Once the affiliate has been approved, and they have set up the necessary links on their site, there is little left to do. If a customer clicks on the link on the affiliate’s site, they will be brought to your site, and the system will already be “tracking” them. If they make a purchase during that visit, a referral fee will be calculated by the system, in favor of your Affiliate (by default, this would be 5% of net proceeds on any particular qualifying sale.) Keep in mind that if the customer leaves your site for any reason before completing their purchase, the “session” will have ended, and the referral fee will not be calculated. The customer must complete the sale after following the affiliate link, and before leaving the site.

 

While the site will automatically calculate the necessary referral fees and keep track of them in a report, it is up to the store to check the report on a regular basis to see if any particular Affiliate needs to be paid. It is up to the store to provide payment to the Affiliate. You can check the report by going to Store Administration > Affiliates > Reports.

A few points to keep in mind:

• Build relationships with your local community online. Being a local, independent bookstore actually puts you in position to provide a better Affiliate experience than Amazon. For instance, you could promise a local author that you will always have two copies of their title in stock. If the author is amenable, you might also be able to offer signed copies, even personally inscribed.

• Drive traffic to your site, and increase search rankings.

• Depending how you configure your agreement, generally it is pretty rare to actually have to pay your affiliates.  As stated in the default contract, stores are not required to pay an Affiliate until that Affiliate has accrued $50 or more in referral fees.  However, you may choose to pay Affiliates what they have earned at any time.

• Stores can re-negotiate the referral fee percentage with existing Affiliates. To do this, go to Store Administration > Affiliates > Contract Settings.

• Authors are not the only possible resource. Consider you local school district. If the school system has a website where they are posting a summer reading list for example, you can let the school know that if they link to you, you will make sure that you have 2 copies of each book in stock at all times, and that the school will receive the referral fee.

• You can have traditional affiliates where an organization will link to your site from their webpage, or you can create an internal page to manage donations.

Examples:

• Kepler's
• Books & Books