Notice: There is no legacy documentation available for this item, so you are seeing the current documentation.
This article provides a detailed explanation of each setting found in AffiliateWP » Settings » Misc.
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 » General 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.
Auto Register New Users
If you allow visitors to register a WordPress user account on your site through some other means (via an integration, or via a regular user registration form), and you would like all new users to become affiliates, enable this setting. All new users who register a user account on your site will also have an affiliate account created for them when they register.
Logout Link
By default, there is no logout link shown in the Affiliate Area. If you would like affiliates to be able to sign out directly from the affiliate area, enable this setting and click the Save Changes button.
Default Referral URL
By default, the referral URL shown to affiliates in the Affiliate Area is your primary domain URL. If you wish to change the default referral URL shown in the Affiliate Area, enter your preferred default URL in this field and click the Save Changes button. The default URL shown to affiliates in the Affiliate Area will then show the URL defined in this setting.
Enable reCAPTCHA
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 reCAPTCHA 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 to require new users to complete the reCAPTCHA security check when registering to become an affiliate.
You will also need 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. Enter the Site Key in this field and click the Save Changes button.
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. Enter the Secret Key in this field and click the Save Changes button.
Reject Unpaid Referrals on Refund
On your website, you may be using an integration to sell your products or services that may be purchased, and potentially refunded or returned if they don’t work out for the customer. In some of these instances, a customer’s purchase may have been referred by an affiliate, and that order has a referral/commission attached to it.
By enabling this setting, you can ensure that if a refunded purchase has a referral attached to it, and the status of that referral is Unpaid, the referral will automatically be rejected (the affiliate cannot be paid the commission, as the purchase was refunded). Enable this setting if you wish to automatically reject Unpaid referrals if a purchase is refunded, revoked, canceled, or failed. Automatically reject referrals if an order is refunded with these integrations.
Note: This will only reject referrals with an Unpaid status. Any referrals that have already been Paid cannot be recalled from your affiliates or their accounts. For this reason it’s best practice to wait to pay your affiliates until after your refund policy period, to allow for potential refunds to come in and be processed.
Learn more about Referral Statuses.
Use Fallback Referral Tracking Method
This setting uses an alternate method of tracking. We recommend leaving this setting disabled unless you or your developer understand JavaScript errors which can eventually be fixed, or you have been instructed to enable this setting by AffiliateWP support.
If you are having issues with referrals not being generated, please view our troubleshooting article first: Visits or Referrals are not working.
Ignore Referrals with Zero Amount
In some instances, you may have free products on your site which you do not want to track referrals for. Or, you may simply want to hide all zero amount referrals so they do not skew your data, or so affiliates aren’t confused by referrals with a zero amount.
To enable this setting, check the box next to Ignore Referrals with Zero Amount and click the Save Changes button. From this point, all referrals with a zero amount will no longer be tracked and will not be saved in AffiliateWP.
If you are using one of AffiliateWP’s supported form integrations for lead tracking, general referrer tracking, and/or will be paying your affiliates outside of AffiliateWP or via an alternate method, you may want or need your forms to generate zero amount referrals. If this is how you wish to use AffiliateWP, do not enable this setting, as this setting will prevent all zero amount referrals from being saved in AffiliateWP.
Note: If this setting is enabled and a referred visit results in a zero referral, the visit will be considered not converted.
Enable Debug Mode
When you first set up AffiliateWP, we recommend testing everything is working so you can see exactly how the system works. AffiliateWP provides a Debug Assistant to help you identify potential issues while you are testing the system.
Check the box next to Enable Debug Mode and click the Save Changes button to turn on error logging for the referral process. This will add a new tab called Debug Assistant under Affiliates → Tools. The Debug Assistant will log both successful and unsuccessful referral processes, as well as plugin update routines, and will help you capture any issues should they arise whilst testing.
Referral URL Blacklist
If you wish to block specific affiliates’ websites or pages from generating referrals for any reason, enter the URL of the website or page to block in this input field, and click the Save Changes button. Enter one URL per line if entering multiple URLs.
Note: This will only apply to new visits from a website after the URL has been saved.
Remove Data on Uninstall
ONLY enable this setting if you are about to completely delete AffiliateWP. Checking this box and clicking the Save Changes button will delete all data saved by AffiliateWP.