# Affiliates

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

Source: https://knowledge.estage.com/crm/affiliate/
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](/crm/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:

| Field | |
| --- | --- |
| **Earns commissions on** | Which parts of your catalog count |
| **First / Second period commissions (%)** | Different rates for initial and later payments on recurring products |
| **Actual commissions (%)** | What you really pay |
| **Commissions (as displayed to an affiliate)** | What's shown on their side |
| **Included in commissions** | What counts towards the total |
| **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](/crm/catalog/#the-product-editor) on the product.

## Offers and creatives

An **offer** is a specific thing to promote. It carries a name, description, cover, a
**commission type**, the **programs** it belongs to, and optionally a **redirect to an upgrade
program**.

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

| Tab | |
| --- | --- |
| **Banners** | Images at standard ad sizes |
| **Videos** | From your video library, grouped into categories |
| **Emails** | Ready-made subject lines and bodies 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 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 |

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, commission and date.
Sort by 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** — write or upload the next one.
- **Mark as current** — the version new affiliates accept from now on. The current one is
  badged.
- Each version can be viewed as a **PDF** or previewed in place.
- Old versions stay in the list, with their published date.

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