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This article provides an explanation of the settings found in AffiliateWP » Settings » Affiliates. When making changes here, remember to click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page.
Registration & Management
Affiliate Account Page
When AffiliateWP is installed and activated, it will automatically create a page on your site called Affiliate Area. This is the page where affiliates will manage their affiliate account. The default URL for this page is yoursite.com/affiliate-area/.
On this page in the WordPress editor, you’ll see the Affiliate Area parent block, along with the Affiliate Registration and Affiliate Login blocks contained within. You can customize the blocks to add, remove or change the fields within.
If you wish to change the page where your Affiliate Area and registration/login forms appear, you can do this by creating a new page, place the Affiliate Area block on that page, and then select that page from the drop-down menu in this setting. The drop-down menu will show a list of pages on your site. Click Save Changes, and your Affiliate Area will now appear on your newly defined Affiliate Area page.
Terms of Use Page
Most affiliate programs have a Terms of Use, Terms & Conditions or Code of Conduct which provide guidelines and often legal boundaries of expected and allowed behavior from affiliates when they register. By default, AffiliateWP does not create a Terms of Use page on your site, as every site and affiliate program is different.
To set up a Terms of Use page for your affiliate program, you can create one using a template.
Next, in the drop-down menu next to the Terms of Use Page setting, select the page which has your affiliate program terms.
Setting a Terms of Use page will add a required checkbox to your affiliate registration form that reads “Agree to our Terms of Use” with a link to your Terms of Use page.
Note: This drop-down menu setting only affects the [affiliate_area] and [affiliate_registration] shortcodes.
Allow Affiliate Registration
When you first install AffiliateWP, users will not be able to register to become an affiliate on your site (however, affiliates can be manually added at any time). This is to allow you time to set up your affiliate program before you open it to the public.
When you enable this setting, AffiliateWP’s default affiliate registration form will be visible on your site. By default, the page this affiliate registration form will appear on will be yoursite.com/affiliate-area/ (this can be changed in the AffiliateWP » Settings » Affiliates tab). Enable this option when you are ready to start receiving affiliate applications on your site.
Require Approval
By default, when an affiliate registers on your site, or is manually added, their affiliate account status is automatically set to Active. This means they can start earning referrals right away.
If you wish to review or screen users before they become an affiliate, enable this setting to force new affiliate applications to go to a Pending status so you can review and Approve (or Reject) affiliates based on your policies, requirements, or judgment.
Starting Affiliate ID
The Starting Affiliate ID add-on allows you to set the ID of the first affiliate who registers for your new affiliate program, or set the ID for the next affiliate who registers for your existing affiliate program. Setting your starting affiliate ID to a higher ID allows you to portray a more established affiliate program.
reCAPTCHA Type
Google reCAPTCHA is a free security tool provided by Google that allows you to prevent spam bots from registering false user accounts on your site. AffiliateWP integrates with Google to prevent spam bots from registering false affiliate accounts on your site when you use AffiliateWP’s default registration form (i.e. when you have enabled the Allow Affiliate Registration setting).
Enable this setting by clicking on reCAPTCHA v2 or reCAPTCHA v3 to require new users to complete the reCAPTCHA security check when registering to become an affiliate.
Once enabled, the sections will appear to enter your two keys from Google to finish setting up Google reCAPTCHA. Find out more about Google reCAPTCHA.
reCAPTCHA Site Key
If you enable reCAPTCHA, you will need to enter the Site Key provided by Google for your site.
reCAPTCHA Secret Key
This is used for communication between your site and Google reCAPTCHA. Be sure to keep it a secret.
If you enable reCAPTCHA, you will need to enter the Secret Key provided by Google for your site.
reCAPTCHA Score Threshold
This setting will be visible only when reCAPTCHA v3 is used selected, which will return a score value that you can set. If the score is less than the amount you have set, the affiliate registration will be blocked.
Additional Registration Modes
Automatically register new user accounts as affiliates will create a new affiliate anytime a WordPress user account is created on your website.
The Convert customers into affiliates using the affiliate signup widget setting be displayed if you are integrating with WooCommerce, and have a Professional license key. This feature will assist in recruiting new affiliates by displaying an affiliate signup option in various WooCommerce screens, with the ability to register as an affiliate with one click of a button.
Affiliate Links
Referral Variable
The referral variable is part of the affiliate referral link. It is used to identify that the link is an affiliate referral link, and that it should be tracked by AffiliateWP. For example: yoursite.com/? ref=123. The default the referral variable is ref but can be changed to whatever you like. We recommend making the referral variable 3 or more characters to avoid any potential conflicts with WordPress variables.
Here are some examples of potential referral variables you could use:
- ref
- aff
- partner
- refer
- friend
- hello
You can leave the referral variable as ref or enter your own referral variable. Make sure and let your affiliate’s know to check their affiliate area dashboard if their default affiliate referral links have changed.
Note: When setting your referral variable, make sure you do not use a reserved keyword or term in WordPress as it may conflict with core functionality. For example, you would not want to use “p” since it is reserved for pages and posts. View this link for the complete list: https://codex.wordpress.org/Reserved_Terms.
Default Referral Format
By default, when a user becomes an affiliate on your site, they will be assigned an affiliate ID. When they are creating and using affiliate links for your site, they can use either their account username on your site, or their affiliate ID (for example, yoursite.com/?ref=jane or yoursite.com/?ref=123).
This setting allows you to choose whether the affiliate’s ID or the affiliate username will be shown to affiliates in their referral links when they are logged into the Affiliate Area.
The affiliate can still use either their affiliate ID or their username in their referral links at all times; this setting simply allows you to determine which format is shown by default in the Affiliate Area.
Note: Since your affiliates will be assigned a numeric affiliate ID, if your WordPress usernames are created with all numeric digits , you will not be able to use ID as the default format. Instead, you would need to select the username option.
Pretty Affiliate URLs
A “Pretty URL” is a URL format that does not require query strings (i.e. ?ref=), so a URL looks neat and tidy when customers visit your site. It removes the characters in the query string and replaces them with slashes (for example, yoursite.com/ref/123 or yoursite.com/ref/jane). By enabling this setting, Pretty URLs will be shown to affiliates when they are logged into their Affiliate Area.
Affiliates will still be able to use affiliate links with the regular query string (i.e. yoursite.com/?ref=123 or yoursite.com/?ref=jane) if they wish, but by showing Pretty URLs in the Affiliate Area, you can help encourage your affiliates to use Pretty URLs.
Note: When first enabling this setting, or, if you are sent to a 404 page when using a Pretty URLs link, it is recommended to visit your WordPress » Settings » Permalinks page in your admin. You do not need to make any changes; simply visiting the page will refresh all links on your website.
Affiliate UI
Logout Link
When this setting is enabled this will show a logout link in both the Affiliate Area and the Affiliate Portal.
Affiliate Landing Pages
Landing Pages
This setting will enable the Affiliate Landing Pages pro addon, which adds a feature to assign a WordPress page or post to an affiliate. This allows the affiliate to promote the page link instead of their standard affiliate link.
Note: Access to Pro addons require a Professional license.