Does affiliate code appear in browser address bar?

[ellenfinkl]

I have an affiliate who's trying to check if the code is working. I've never had an affiliate sale show up, so I want to test it too. When she clicks (or I click) on the link she put on her site, it goes to my sales page, but the affiliate code doesn't show in the browser's address bar. Should it? Only the base URL for the page shows. I've seen these types of codes in the past for other affiliate programs, and the affiliate code always appeared in the URL in the address bar.



Ellen

[E-junkie_Guru]

Affiliate link URLs should always look something like this:

https://www.e-junkie.com/ecom/gb.php?cl=XXXXX&c=ib&aff=YYYYY



There may be some additional or different parameters in the second half, depending on what type of link and how old the link code is (last year we made some changes to the link code we issue, but old links still work fine); however, the URL should always start with https://www.e-junkie.com/... and should always have an aff=YYYYY (where YYYYY is the affiliate's E-junkie account ID number) somewhere in the latter half.



It sounds like that affiliate never obtained their proper link code from the E-junkie affiliate admin -- this help page explains the basics of how to do that for new affiliates:

http://www.e-junkie.com/ej/help.for-affiliates.htm

[ellenfinkl]

Her affiliate code looks just like that, so I think it's correct. I'm using a hop page, so the link goes to the sales page for that product. But in the browser, all that shows is the page's regular URL. Is that the way it's supposed to work? Or is the affiliate code supposed to be tacked on?



Her affiliate code is https://www.e-junkie.com/ecom/gb.php?ii=43009&c=ib&aff=55162. Try it, and you'll see that it goes to http://www.ellenfinkelstein.com/estore/101tips2003.html. Is that right? If so, does e-junkie track the code some other way, by using cookies, for example?



Ellen

[E-junkie_Guru]

What you described is exactly how it's supposed to work. Clicking an affiliate hoplink sets a cookie in the buyer's browser that expires in 6 months, so any product the buyer purchases (which has affiliate sharing enabled) from you during the life of that cookie will earn a commission for the referring affiliate.



You may be interested in this discussion from our site's Community Forum which goes into more detail about how our affiliate system and the various link types actually work:

http://www.e-junkie.com/bb/topic/2690

[ellenfinkl]

OK, that helps.



One more question. I looked at the Common Affiliate Settings, and it seems that there's only one URL, so it would work only if you sent people to your estore's home page. If I want affiliates to send people to a different sales page for each product, I can't use that, right?



Ellen

[E-junkie_Guru]

Right, if you don't want your affiliates to be able to obtain just one easy link to refer buyers to your site's main shopping page, then you should not configure any common affiliate program settings.



You can setup product-specific affiliate settings with a unique landing URL for each product's own hop link, and then your affiliates would have to choose which specific product(s) they want to promote when sending buyers to your site.

[ellenfinkl]

If I create a new landing page for a new product, how do my affiliates get code for that new page? Sorry for all the questions, but this is new to me.

[E-junkie_Guru]

The same way they get link code for any other product -- from their Affiliate Admin.



This page explains the basic functions of using the E-junkie Affiliate system from an affiliate's standpoint:

http://www.e-junkie.com/ej/help.for-affiliates.htm



You may wish to join your own affiliate program by clicking your own sign-up link (you can use your existing E-junkie login for this), so you can see exactly what your affiliates would be seeing in their own Affiliate Admin.