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An affiliate is essentially an advertiser. The affiliate gets paid for successful advertising based on sales that the affiliate "drove." To get credit for the sale there must be a way to identify that the link the customer used was a link created by the affiliate. This is done by attaching an identifying code to the link. A script reads the code and sets a cookie on the customer's machine. When the customer orders the system looks for the cookie and credits the affiliate. The identifying code is required to track sales to a particular affiliate. You have to be signed up for the affiliate program to get credit for affiliate sales.
This tutorial explains how to create links and attach that affiliate tracking id to links. The links can be placed anywhere they are allowed: websites, blogs, forums, email. Do make sure to ask whether they are allowed. Do not assume that they are. Affiliate links are not allowed, for example, in hosted blogs (e.g. Blogger) nor in social networking (MySpace, Facebook etc) and not in Yahoo, L-soft and similar hosted forums. Chances are if you aren't paying for the site your affiliate links will be unwelcome.
When you click on a link with a tracking code attached you usually will not see the code in the browser bar. It disappears. It is supposed to disappear. If you see it staying in the browser bar then usually there is something wrong with the link. If you use Firefox as your browser you can easily check that the link is working and properly setting the cookie.
This tutorial assumes no HTML knowledge. To use it you need to know that a "URL" is what appears in the address bar of your web browser when you are looking at a web page.  For basic linking this is what you will copy and paste to create your link. You can watch a video on How to create an affiliate text link in a Blog. The link shown in the video is a little different, but the basic process is the same.
Link Basics
An affiliate link is just a normal link with your affiliate id attached. Exactly where you attach the affiliate id depends upon the affiliate program.
A link starts with an anchor tag that holds the link in place.
<a
The type of anchor tag is hypertext reference.
<a href="
for Commission Junction you add the CJ URL,
<a href="http://www.dpbolvw.net/
There are several different URL's that work. This one is in the CafePress affiliate linking best practices example.
Now add the action code
<a href="http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-
next is your own Commission Junction PID. Do not use your CafePress PID. Do not use your Commission Junction Account number. That number that is along the top of the page when you log in to Commission Junction is your account number, not the PID.
To get your Commission Junction PID log into Commission Junction. Click on Account. Click on Website Settings. You will see the PID listed. If you registered more than one web site with Commission Junction then you will have one PID for each web site. You can use the PID even if it is not for the same web site. You can pick just one of them to use for all your links if you choose. When you are done it will look like this:
<a href="http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-1234567
next is the merchant id - in this case for CafePress. CafePress has more than one. Each one represents a different advertising campaign. So you should stick with a number that won't change. The one given in the CafePress affiliate linking best practices example is 10463747
<a href="http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-1234567-10463747
Just that alone is enough to get someone to the front page. You could now close the tag.
<a href="http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-1234567-10463747">
BUT you probably want to send your visitor to a specific place on CafePress. You do that by adding the address (URL) for that specific page.
This uses a question mark to indicate you are sending additional information.
<a href="http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-1234567-10463747?
Next identify what kind of information with URL=
<a href="http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-1234567-10463747?URL=
and then add the page address.
<a href="http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-1234567-10463747?URL=http://www.cafepress.com/sk/agility
Now you can close the tag (see information on the XID below)
<a href="http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-1234567-10463747?URL=http://www.cafepress.com/sk/agility">
Type the link text, what your visitor's will see.
<a href="http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-1234567-10463747?URL=http://www.cafepress.com/sk/agility">DogPlay's Agility Stuff
Type the ending anchor tag.
<a href="http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-1234567-10463747?URL=http://www.cafepress.com/sk/agility">DogPlay's Agility Stuff </a>
Put your link code in a place that accepts HTML code.
<a href="http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-1234567-10463747?URL=http://www.cafepress.com/sk/agility">DogPlay's Agility Stuff </a>
You can use the same technique with a banner or product image. See the tutorial on image linking. Note: affiliate linking works only for products that are in the marketplace. I do not know if "shop" links are still supported. To be sure you get credit for your links use the marketplace versions only.
What about the XID?
Didn't I hear something about an XID? Well, yes, but the XID is only useful for people who also have their own CafePress shop.
The XID passes your CafePress shopkeeper account ID to ensure that you don't accidentally get affiliate credit for your own stuff. For people who were in the old CafePress affiliate program this is the same as the old CafePress PID. Log in to your CafePress account. In the upper right corner under the welcome message is your account ID. That is the number you use with the XID.
The XID is absolutely needed if any of the following apply:
- You use more than one Commission Junction PID (if you register more than one web site you will get a different PID for each web site) and you are also a CafePress shopkeeper.
- You were never an affiliate seller under the old CafePress affiliate program and you are also a CafePress shopkeeper.
- You were a both a seller under the old CafePress affiliate program and a CafePress shopkeeper but you did not enable the redirect.
If you have only one CJ PID and you enabled the redirect you don't need an XID. You may choose to use it even if you are not required to use it. If you are uncertain, go ahead and add it.
Here is how to add the XID:
Use the & character to indicate that you are adding additional information
<a href="http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-1234567-10463747?URL=http://www.cafepress.com/sk/agility&
then the code to say what kind of additional information, in this case an XID
<a href="http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-1234567-10463747?URL=http://www.cafepress.com/sk/agility&XID=
then the information itself
<a href="http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-1234567-10463747?URL=http://www.cafepress.com/sk/agility&XID=7654321
and then you continue as above.
There is no particular order required so I prefer to have the URL last. That way I can copy and paste the first part, then add the second from the browser bar. So the first part I copy and paste looks like this:
<a href="http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-1234567-10463747?XID=7654321&URL=
I can just keep that in a handy little text file and then add the URL for the particular page:
<a href="http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-1234567-10463747?XID=7654321&URL=http://www.cafepress.com/herding
and close it and continue on
<a href="http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-1234567-10463747?XID=7654321&URL=http://www.cafepress.com/herding">
And SID?
An SID is strictly optional. It is similar to the tracking ID. It helps you identify the particular link or ad that was clicked. You add it the same way as the XID. Remember, the order doesn't matter.
<a href="http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-1234567-10463747?XID=7654321&SID=mysite3&URL=http://www.cafepress.com/herding
I just put this information here because I didn't know where else to put it.
API key?
Don't even think about this unless you are pretty technically minded. API=application programmer interface - it is a way for you to pull information from the CafePress site. You need a "key" to pull that information. You can get the XML feed "key" by logging into your CafePress account then putting this address in your browser's address bar. http://www.cafepress.com/cp/members/affiliate/xml_feed.aspx
It is NOT supported. It is left over from the original affiliate program.
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Tutor Tanith
