# Affiliates

> Let other people sell for you — programs, offers and creatives, tracking the numbers, and the agreement affiliates sign.

Source: https://knowledge.estage.com/commerce/affiliates/
Part of the ESTAGE knowledge base (https://knowledge.estage.com). Full corpus: https://knowledge.estage.com/llms-full.txt

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The **affiliate** section turns other people into a sales channel: they get a link and materials,
you pay a commission on what they bring in.

Five pieces fit together:

- **Program** — the deal: who can join, what they earn.
- **Offer** — a specific thing to promote, with creatives.
- **Affiliates** — the people in your programs.
- **Earnings** — what they've earned.
- **Agreement** — the terms they accept.

## Programs

A **program** is the commercial arrangement. Creating one:

**The basics** — program name, description, cover image and a list of features (what you're
offering an affiliate, in their words).

**Permissions** — who gets in and what they see:

- **Tags** — [tags](/commerce/catalog/#tags) that grant access to the program.
- **Private Group** — a group affiliates in this program belong to.
- **Redirect if user does not have access** — where to send someone who lands on program pages
  without access: a **Genesis page**, a **Legacy page**, or a **Custom URL**.

**Commissions** — what they earn. A program earns on **products**:

| Field | |
| --- | --- |
| **Actual Commissions (%)** | What you really pay |
| **Commissions (as displayed to an affiliate)** | What's shown on their side |
| **Included in commissions** | The products this program pays on |
| **Ecosystem** | Keeps a buyer with the affiliate who first brought them: a later purchase in this project made without a referral link is credited to that same affiliate |
| **Active** | Whether the program is running |

A product only pays out if it's marked **commissionable** and attached to the program — see the
[Commission tab](/commerce/catalog/#the-product-editor) on the product.

How a sale's commission is worked out:

- It's a percentage of what the buyer actually paid for the product — after any coupon, not the
  list price. A free order earns nothing.
- An affiliate never earns on their own purchase.
- When an affiliate belongs to several of your programs, the one highest in the **Priority** order pays.
- A buyer whose purchase applies a program's access tags is added to that program as an
  affiliate.

**Affiliate Programs** lists them with their **Priority**, creation date and status. Drag rows to
change the priority order.

## Offers and creatives

An **offer** is a specific thing to promote. It carries a name, description, cover, the
**program** it belongs to, and optionally a **Redirect to upgrade program**. Beyond that:

- **Offer Details** — a title, subtitle, content and video for the offer's details page.
- **Referral links** — one or more links, each with a **Referral Link Title** and a **Redirect**:
  a page of your site, a **Custom Link**, or **No Link**. **Add Another Link** adds the next.
- **Active** — whether the offer is live.

The valuable part is the **creatives** — the material affiliates actually use, in four tabs:

| Tab | |
| --- | --- |
| **Banners** | Images you upload, per banner size |
| **Videos** | From your video library, grouped into categories |
| **Email** | Ready-made subjects and content to send to their list |
| **Social** | Post copy for social channels |

Videos, emails and social posts are organised into categories you create as you go.

:::tip
Affiliates promote whatever is easiest to promote. An offer with three good email templates will
outperform one with a link and good intentions, every time.
:::

## Affiliates

The **Affiliates** list is everyone in your programs:

| Column | |
| --- | --- |
| **Affiliate** | Who they are |
| **Program** | Which program they're in |
| **Agreement** | Whether they've accepted the current agreement |
| **Commissions** | What they've earned |
| **Refunds** | What was clawed back |

Sort by commissions to see who's actually driving revenue. Click through for the individual's
full record: the same metrics as the dashboard for that person (by period or a custom range, and
by offer), a chart, and their **Referred users** — who they brought in, the product, type, when
they joined and the commission.

**Remove affiliate** (in the record's **⋯** menu) ends their role in this project: they leave every
program here and their signed agreement goes with them. Their contact, their community membership
and the commissions already earned are untouched.

## The dashboard

**Affiliate Dashboard** is the program-wide view:

| Metric | |
| --- | --- |
| **Visitors / Unique visitors** | Traffic your affiliates sent |
| **Referrals** | People they brought in |
| **Sales** | Purchases from those referrals |
| **Commissions** | What you owe or paid |
| **Refunds** | What came back |

Pick a period — today, the last 7 or 30 days, 3 or 12 months, or a custom range. A chart plots
these over time, and three tables sit underneath: **Top Affiliates**, **Top
Referrals** (date, name, product) and **Latest Activity** (date, name, commission).

The pairing to watch is **visitors against sales**. A lot of traffic and few sales usually means
the offer page, not the affiliate.

## Earnings

**Affiliate Earnings** is the line-by-line record: affiliate, product, type (**Sale**,
**Refunded**, **Cancelled**, **Chargeback** and so on), commission and date. Totals for **Sales**,
**Commissions**, **Refunds** and **Referrals** sit above it. Narrow it by offer and period (up to
**All time**, or a custom range), group it by week, month, quarter or year, and sort by affiliate,
commission or date. This is what you reconcile against when it's time to pay out.

## The agreement

**Affiliate Agreement** holds the terms affiliates accept, kept as **versions** so you have a
record of who agreed to what.

- **New version** — a title and the document, uploaded as a PDF.
- **Mark as current** — the version affiliates accept from now on. Affiliates who haven't signed
  it are asked to on their next login. The current one is badged **Current**.
- Each version can be opened as a **PDF** or previewed in place.
- Old versions stay in the list, with their published date, until you delete one — which can't
  be undone.

The **Agreement** column on the Affiliates list tells you who has accepted — worth checking
before a payout run.