Combine "order anywhere" with associates?

[gkrehbiel]

If I create an "order anywhere" link, can I attribute purchases from that link to an associate by simply adding "&name=[associatename]" to the URL?

Thanks,

Greg

[Jim]

No that is not possible. The add to cart buttons go to the order.cgi and the associate links go to the ref.cgi.

[PatG]

Jim, could you add more detail to this reply please. As is, I might conclude that someone using order anywhere links couldn't use affiliates?

Seems to me if you have a third party affiliate system, like ShareASale or Commission Junction, the tracking cookies (and their mechanisms) wouldn't be affected at all by choice of order anywhere (or not).

Might your reply just be applicable only to people using the built-in affiliate functionality of ShopSite?

[Jim]

Yes the comment is only for using the ShopSite Associate feature and not a 3rd party affiliate program.

Here is how the ShopSite feature works.

When you set someone up as an associate in ShopSite you give them a link to put on their page. When that link is clicked it takes the shopper to your store. On the way to your store page the shopper is taken to ref.cgi in your store and a shopping cart is opened for that person with the referrer information in it. Then anything that the shopper orders from your store is added to the shopping cart that contains the referrer information. When the shopper checks out the referrer is given credit for the order. The length of time that the shopping cart remains active, so the referrer gets credit, is set by the Commerce Setup > Order System > Shopping cart > Keep unfinished shopping carts: setting. I believe the default is 7 or 14 days after which the cart will be deleted and the referrer information lost. If the shopper finishes an order a new cart is created with the referrer information in it so the associate will continue to get credit for the orders.

Where you have the Associate link direct the shopper to is specified in the Default landing page (full URL): field when you create their link. That URL can be anything in your store so if you are using Order Anywhere links it would be to one of the pages that has your product add to cart buttons on it.

[PatG]

Ahhhh!

So this poster doesn't really need to add anything to their order anywhere links.

And the situation is not applicable to third party affiliate networks.

Thanks for clarifying!

[gkrehbiel]

I use the associate feature to attribute orders to specific email campaigns. If I'm understanding you properly, there's no way for me to do that and have an "add to cart" link in my email. Right? All the associate links need to go to a page that has an "add to cart" function on it.

[loren_d_c]

Not quite. One of the optional parameters for the Associate URL is '&url=http://yourdomain/whatever/page/you/want' and the shopper will be redirected to that URL when they click through the Associate link. You can use a OrderAnywhere href link as the value for this URL as long as you urlencode the ? and & characters in the OrderAnywhere URL so that they are not interpreted as additional delimiters in the Associate URL.

-Loren

[gkrehbiel]

That's a good point. I had considered that but was worried about the query parameter messing things up. Encoding the delimeters solves that problem. Thanks much!