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Mals mTracker affiliate program

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Description

This is the Mals affiliate program which is built into the cart. It is called mTracker. The affilate puts an affiliate link on his website. The customer clicks on it and is redirected to your site. If the customer buys something, the affiliate earns a commission.

Mals Affiliates

First you set up the links to your site which shows the program where it will be sending the customers.
Then you give your customer a link where they will sign up to be an affiliate.
Once they sign up they are given a userid and a password and they sign in at https://www.aitsafe.com/mtracker/ where they will collect their personal code with their affiliate number in it. You must set the affiliate to active for the tracker to begin to collect sales information.

https://www.aitsafe.com/mtracker/index.htm?userid=

mTracker affiliate programs
One of the best ways to increase sales is to recruit other websites, affiliates, to send you customers.
Main Content
What it does

The purpose of mTracker is to provide the basic functionality required to log click-throughs from those websites by potential customers and then register their order. Affiliate commissions are calculated automatically.

How it works

First off, it's your job to recruit the affiliates. You send them to a special Join-up page where they create their new account. This gives the affiliate access to a simple Admin area where they can view statistics of their click-throughs and the commissions they have earned. They can also view the code for any buttons, banners or text links that you wish them to use.

Before an affiliate can start to earn commission, you have the opportunity to vet them first. If you approve, then you can make their program "Active".

Tracking is done by cookies. You can choose how long the cookie remains available in the customer's browser. Any purchase a customer makes after the cookie has expired will not be registered. All transactions may be edited manually before you allocate the commission.

Third-party affiliate programs

The main difference between mTracker and program third-party programs is that they recruit the affiliates for you. This is a major part of the work! They also make all the arrangements to pay them. In other words, even though mTracker will record and calculate the monthly commissions earned by affiliates, it's still your job to actually cut the checks and put them in the post...

You can also add many other third-party programs by pasting their tracking code into the cart setup

Sequence of Events

The following steps take you through setting up slscart and Mals for affiliate capability, the affiliate joining your program, the customer interaction, and administration of affiliate payments. Many of the steps are links where you can click for more detailed information.

Set up affiliate program

1. On your site, create a page for prospective affiliates.

2. Enable affiliate program at Mals.

3. Set up mTracker at Mals.

4. Set up your affiliate links at Mals.

5. Activate affiliates page in slscart store admin under Site Extras > Affiliates

Affiliates join

1. An affiliate joins the program.

2. Activate affiliate at Mals.

3. Affiliate gets and adds affiliate link(s) to their website

Customer interaction

1. customer clicks on affiliate's link which takes him to slscart site (wherever the link was set). The affiliate cookie is set.

2. customer buys something. This must be done before the cookie expires.

Transaction handling

1. The order will show up in your Mals management account

2. An affiliate transaction will appear under mTracker > transactions > new transactions

3. If you are satisfied with the affiliate transaction, check 'Allocate' and click 'Allocate now' button . Now the affiliate can see it in the affiliate admin screen. The transaction is now moved to mTracker > transactions > Allocated

Paying affiliates

1. Physically pay affiliates

2. Close out allocated transactions.

3. You can download the completed transactions.

mTracker admin screens

Resides on Mals.

transactions

You can edit a transaction up to the point that it becomes status Paid. Allocated transactions are visible to affiliates in their statistics area. Note that paid transactions are automatically deleted after 8 weeks.

new transactions

All transactions that have not been allocated show up here.

You can edit a transaction up to the point that it becomes status Paid. Allocated transactions are visible to affiliates in their statistics area.

Edit Primary Secondary
ID Date Sale Aff ID Pay Aff ID Pay Allocate
18196272 2019-09-21 3.98   29361 2.00   0 0.00  
Check All   Clear All

Note that the affilate cannot see this transaction in the affiliate admin screen until it has been allocated.

allocated

All allocated transactions show up here.

paid

All paid transactions show up here.

all

All transactions, new, allocated, and paid, show up here.

List affiliates

Shows a list of affiliates.

Month end

month end

The transactions listed have been allocated to their respective affiliates and are ready to be paid. You can still edit them at this stage. Submitting these transactions for processing causes the following actions:

  1. Transactions are marked status Paid. They cannot be edited anymore!
  2. The payment history of individual affiliates are updated with the total amounts to be paid to them.
  3. A batch file of the payments is created which you may download now or later.

It's very important to understand that this action cannot be reversed! Once a transaction becomes set to status Paid it is subject to automatic deletion after eight weeks. Only the payment histories are retained.

 

Edit Primary Secondary
ID Date Sale Aff ID Pay Aff ID Pay

No records found!

Clicking 'Process now' button

Download payments

Download batch file of payments in csv format or as a web page.

Here's a csv (comma separated value) example. You can import it into Excel.

29361,"Bill E. Goat","333 Baaa Blvd","Munster, IN","46321","USA","111-11-1111","test@myonlineemails.com",2.00,"Active"

field# explanation
1 affiliate id
2 name
3 street address
4 city, state
5 zip code
6 country
7 tax id
8 email address
9 commission
10 status

Setup

setup program

mTracker setup.

Use mTracker

You cannot delete an mTracker account because it may contain data that belongs to your affiliates. But you can stop the cart from tracking further orders by unchecking the check box below.

Tracking by mTracker.

 

This information is presented new affiliates (in their affiliates admin screen) when they sign-up. You can enter a maximum of 250 characters of text.

Program name:

Description:

URL for more information about your program:

Commissions

slscart only works with fixed amount.

You can set-up payments for Primary and Secondary affiliates, sometimes called two-tier programs. The Primary affiliate is the one who actualy sent you the customer. A secondary affiliate's commission is typicaly much smaller and is paid to someone who helped recruit the Primary affiliate.

Pay the Primary affiliate:
either a fixed amount of or % of the sale (pay per sale programs only).

Pay the Secondary affiliate:
either a fixed amount of or % of the sale (pay per sale programs only).

Leave the secondary payment rates blank if you don't want to run a two tier program. Enter an amount as a number; 2.00 not $2.00.

Tracking

Tracking of customers is done by using a cookie which is handed to them at the time they click through from the affiliate. You can specify how long that cookie lasts and this is checked at the time of the sale. Set it to zero if you want to use a session cookie; one that dies when the browser is shut down.

Persistent cookies live for days.

mtracker has a cookie in domain aitsafe.com called 'mtracker'. Probably used for

mTracker uses a cookie: mtracker with value: affiliate id - 10 digit number (e.g. 12345-8833221199. Can set #of days cookie is valid or 0 for

Setup links

Affiliates place buttons, banners and links on their website. Enter the URL you would like these to click through to:

https://www.mydomain.com/catalog.php OR

https://www.mydomain.com/pages/affiliate_link_starting_page.php

You may want the link to go directly to your shopping catalog or to a page with some explanation for the person who clicked on the affiliate's link.

Buttons, banners, and links

Most merchants present an affiliate with a number of different buttons, banners and text links that they can use on their website. The HTML for these is generated for them in their Admin area.
With text links, wrap the special strings {a} and {/a} around the part of the text you want to be clickable. For example, you could enter:

My own personal text link, {a}click here{/a}.

For an image link, fill in the image's URL, its width and height, and alternate text. Most likely, the affilate image will be kept in the general images directory (under Web Site > Images > General Images Directory) so the image URL might be something like:

https://www.mydomain.com/images/affiliate_image.jpg

Help

Mals help. The userid mentioned is found in Administration > Catalog Setup > Mals-e Cart ID.

Recruiting affiliates

Potential new affiliates should be directed to the join form at:

https://ww4.aitsafe.com/mtracker/new.htm?userid=nnnn

It is very important that this link contains your username (userid). Otherwise we don't know who's affiliate program they are trying to join...

Affiliate's admin area

Each affiliate has their own admin area where they can update their personal details, pickip the code they need to link to your website and view their statistics. They can login at:

https://ww4.aitsafe.com/mtracker/index.htm?userid=nnnn

So you will need to provide a link to it on your site.

Affiliate's admin screens

Each affiliate has their own admin area where they can update their personal details and view their statistics.

mTracker home

Affiliate's admin home page. Shows the affiliate the program name, description, and more information URL (set up in mTracker setup),  along with links to change your details, statistics, and get links.

Your details

Change affiliate's personal details.

Statistics

Shows allocated transactions, second tier commissions, and payment history.

Get links

Affiliate can get affiliate links to put on his website.

4. Affiliate logs into mTracker through link or clicking on Affiliate Program link on store then filling out 'Already in our system?' form (provide affiliate user id and password).

5. affiliate gets an affiliate link from their admin screen and adds it to his website.

Logout

Logs out of affiliate admin.

slscart screens

admin

Activate/Deactivate slscart affiliates under Site Extras > Affiliates

store

When activated an affiliate page is available. Two forms are automatically generated: one to login to Mals affilate admin screens and two a form to fill out for a prospective affiliate. The affiliate page is available under Web Site > Pages > Affiliate Program. You can add content above and below the two forms.

Prospective affiliates page

Create a page on your site that explains to prospective affilates what the program entails. Perhaps commission structure, how and when they are paid, links.

Detailed Explanations

Detailed explanations of some of the tasks. Includes Mals and my insight.

Enable affiliate program at Mals

To setup the shopping cart to use mTracker

1. Login to your Mals account

2. Under Orders tab, check the box 'Show mTracker affiliate program' then click 'update'. An mTracker tab will appear.

Activate affiliate at Mals

To activate an affiliate,

mTracker > List affiliates

click on ID of affiliate to activate

Set Status to Active

Click 'change' button

Affiliate joins the program

 An affiliate can join affiliate program by filling out form on affiliates page. An affiliate user id and password will be provided on completion of form. Also, a welcome message with the user id and password (so they can login to the affiliate admin screen) will be emailed to them. An email will also be sent to the email used for Mals orders (Mals > Cart Setup > Email Settings > Order notifications).

Affiliate login

Affiliate can login to the affiliate admin screens several different ways:

1. The 'already in our system?' form on the affiliate program page

2. The following link (note ww# needs to be replaced by your Mals server number which can be found at Administration > Catalog Setup > Mals e-server)

https://ww#.aitsafe.com/mtracker/

So you will need to provide a link to it on your site.

3. Click on the link sent in the welcome email.

Signing up affiliates

Potential new affiliates should be directed to the join form at:

https://ww#.aitsafe.com/mtracker/new.htm?userid=XXXXX

It is very important that this link contains your username (userid). Otherwise we don't know who's affiliate program they are trying to join.

Creating affiliate links

Creating affiliate links

My stuff <a href="https://ww4.aitsafe.com/go.htm?go=1&afid=29361&tm=&im=1" target="_top">click here</a>

afid - affiliate userid

tm=

im = link# (as shown in "setup links"

go =1

when someone clicks on this link, the Payment history shows the click, but Paid column isn't updated. It brings user to aflliliate link under > setup links

Paying affiliates

How and when you pay affiliates is up to you.

Close out allocated transactions

When you are ready to close affiliates transactions (mark as paid), click on Month end > Month end. A list of affiliate transactions will be shown and marked as Allocated. If everything looks correct, click 'Process now!' button. The transactions will disappear and the amount owed to each affiliate will be displayed. The transactions in the affiliate admin area will show up as paid. The individual transactions have been promoted to paid. mTracker > Transactions > Paid

Affiliate transaction

An affiliate transaction is generated when a buyer has purchased something after clicking on the affiliate's link. The transaction has 3 stages: new, allocated, and paid.

Warnings

1. All paid transactions are deleted after 8 weeks.

2. When you get notified of a new order from Mals, you need to check the affiliate transaction, if any.

Bugs & Limitations

A list of known bugs and limitations.

1. If you login to the affiliate's admin area via slscart's affiliate program page and your site is using https in its url, then when you logout of the admin area, an error occurs (because there is no : after https in the logout url).

2. slscart can only handle fixed commissions at this time.

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