Important Affiliate Information - phones2udirect

[phones2udirect]

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Some of you may be aware at Phones 2 U Direct we have been developing a more reliable way of tracking affiliate sales through our site and the various programs and affiliate networks. Having tested we are ready to role out on Tuesday 16th Nov. If any of you have missed the email you can read most of it below and check any technical information of interest.

Thanks.


AFFILIATE TRACKING CHANGES - 16TH NOVEMBER

On Tuesday 16th November at 09:00 we will be uploading an important change to our website for tracking Affiliate sales through the site. This is primarily to increase the accuracy of tracking Affiliate links and sales, and therefore streamline the validation of commissions. After extensive testing we have found the new tracking method we are putting into place will eliminate many of the duplicate sales across our Affiliate programs and make verification of commissions easier and more reliable.

NEW DEEP LINKS

An Affiliate referrer will now need to be added to deep links. As an Affiliate of Affiliate Window your referrer is 'affiliatewindow'. Please see the example deep links below (text in ALL CAPITALS you will need to add to your existing links - /AFFILIATE/AFFILIATEWINDOW/).

Example deep link to the LG L1100 phone page:

http://www.phones2udirect.co.uk/Products/type/phones/ProductID/2656/AFFILIATE/AFFILIATEWINDOW/LG_L1100.asp

Example deep link to the Mobile Phones page:

http://www.phones2udirect.co.uk/products/type/phones/AFFILIATE/AFFILIATEWINDOW/

HOMEPAGE LINKS

As above, any links to the homepage of www.phones2udirect.co.uk will need the Affiliate referrer of 'affiliatewindow' added. Please see the two options below (text in ALL CAPITALS including the question mark (?) you will need to add to your existing links to our homepage - ?AFFILIATE=AFFILIATEWINDOW).

http://www.phones2udirect.co.uk/?AFFILIATE=AFFILIATEWINDOW

or

http://www.phones2udirect.co.uk/home/default.asp?AFFILIATE=AFFILIATEWINDOW

IMPORTANT NOTE

Please remember this is the deep links in any links you may have created to Phones 2 U Direct. To create fresh links you will still need to login to Affiliate Window, go to your current merchants, select Links from Phones 2 U Direct, and get the Affiliate link provided to you by the Affiliate Window system (this contains your Affiliate Window ID and our Merchant ID to track your clicks and sales through the Affiliate Window system). From there you can also customise and generate deep links by entering a URL as show above. An example of what a complete deep link should look like, with your Affiliate Window ID, is shown below:

http://www.awin1.com/awclick.php?awinmid=315&awinaffid=22836&p=
http://www.phones2udirect.co.uk/Products/type/phones/ProductID/2656/AFFILIATE/AFFILIATEWINDOW/LG_L1100.asp

Where 'awinaffid=' is your Affiliate Window ID, and following '&p=' is the deep link to our LG L1100 page.

CREATIVE

The banner links on Affiliate Window will be updated by us at an appropriate time before the new tracking goes into place.

If you have chosen a banner from our creative and created a deep link you must remember to edit the deep link and add /affiliate/affiliatewindow/ in the appropriate place as detailed in the examples above.

CSV DATAFEED

A new CSV datafeed can be downloaded from our site from 09:00 Friday 12th November. The datafeed will automatically contain the Affiliate referrer 'affiliatewindow'. As an Affiliate Window Affiliate the URL to get your new datafeed will be (as of 09:00 Friday 12th November):

http://www.phones2udirect.co.uk/open/affiliatewindow.asp


Sam
Phones2UDirect.co.uk

[Jon]

I for one would strongly prefer that the identifier code within the url is changed so that the fact it is an affiliate-driven visitor is better disguised from the visitor's perspective.

Having the word "affiliate" in the url - twice - doesn't come close to meeting that aim.

I would respectfully suggest a change along the lines of the following instead:

http://www.phones2udirect.co.uk/Prod...f/LG_L1100.asp

http://www.phones2udirect.co.uk/prod...e/phones/a/af/

(ie subsitute "a" for "affiliate" and "af" for "affiliatefuture" / "aw" for "affiliatewindow" respectively).

[Rich]

Also its a pity this isn't handled at the networks end. They could have easily rewritten the url to include the refferer details at their end, which would have saved your current affiliates having to change every link to you and would have also saved time dealing with affiliates when they have forgotten to add this in.

[ryan]

Originally posted by Rich
Also its a pity this isn't handled at the networks end. They could have easily rewritten the url to include the refferer details at their end, which would have saved your current affiliates having to change every link to you and would have also saved time dealing with affiliates when they have forgotten to add this in.

This is true Rich, I have contacted the merchant today to get this resolved so affiliates will not have to modify their links. Cheers

[Jon]

Thanks Ryan.

When doing so, could you please bear in mind my suggestion in respect of what is actually added as the referrer code?

Cheers

[phones2udirect]

Thanks for all your feedback, it has been most valuable. Some of these things we were not aware of. So in speaking to our developers, affiliates, and the networks, we are putting any changes on hold.

A solution from the affiliate network side is far more ideal and we will start testing this. In previous conversations with the networks this wasn't made clear.

Thanks for your help.

Sam
Phones2UDirect.co.uk