AwesomeGrades.com - Affiliate Program FAQ

Affiliate Program FAQ

»	What is an affiliate program? An Affiliate Program is a referral-based revenue sharing strategy where companies (like ours) reward affiliates (like you) for referring people to a Web site who then make a purchase.
»	How do I get paid? We use PayPal to pay affiliate commissions. PayPal is the world's largest online payment service, with over 20 million registered users worldwide. PayPal enables businesses and individuals to send and receive money online, reliably and securely. PayPal gives you the option of having payments deposited directly into your bank account or having a check sent to you in the mail. All payments are in US funds. You will need to sign-up for a PayPal account to receive commission payments from us. The process is quick, easy, and best of all it's free. You can sign-up now if you like, or, you can wait until you have earned your first commission payment (which you'll be notified of by both us and PayPal via e-mail) and sign up then. Please note that PayPal's service is available to individuals and businesses residing in 38 countries, including the US and Canada. If PayPal service is unavailable in your country, then we will mail you your commission check.
»	When do I get paid? Commission payments are sent on or before the 15th of each month for the prior month's commissions, so long as you've accumulated at least $50.00 in unpaid commissions. Amounts owing less than $50.00 will be held and paid when the balance reaches $50.00 or more.
»	How do I know when I've made a sale? We'll notify you by e-mail every time your affiliate site makes a sale. This e-mail will show you details of the sale, including the date of the sale, amount of the sale, and the commission you earned. Plus, you'll have access to your own private, affiliate Web page where you can log-in anytime and get a variety of real-time click-through stats, commission reports, and more. You'll always know exactly how you are doing.
»	How do you track sales from affiliates? Every affiliate is provided a URL that contains a unique affiliate number. The URL is of the form... http://www.awesomegrades.com/?xxxxx where "xxxxx" is the affiliate number. When someone clicks on a link containing that URL (or types the URL into his browser), a "cookie" (which is a small text file) is placed on his computer which identifies the affiliate who had referred him. Then, when he orders from us, whether during his initial visit or anytime within the next 10 years, our software reads the cookie from his computer, gets the referring affiliate number, and credits the affiliate for the sale.
»	How can I be sure I'll get credit for all my referrals? We use one of the most advanced affiliate tracking systems available... 1. We use cookie technology as our primary method to track sales (as explained above). This is the only reliable method of ensuring that affiliates get credit for sales that occur not only on a referral's initial visit to a site, but also on subsequent visits to a site. Our program has set cookies to last for 10 years. In the unlikely case where a visitor's browser does not accept cookies or his cookies have been deleted, we have a back-up system that automatically kicks-in utilizing IP tracking technology... more on this below. 2. Our system tracks orders you refer no matter how they are placed... online, by phone, fax, or postal mail... When a customer orders online (which is 95% of our orders), our system automatically credits your affiliate number with the sale in our database. If the customer orders by phone, we request a "Reference Number" that is encoded on our Web site's order page with our phone-in instructions -- this Reference Number is your affiliate number. If an order is faxed or mailed, the hard copy order form the customer must send us has your affiliate number encoded on it. The bottom line... we go out of our way to ensure that you get credit for every sale you refer.
»	What if someone visits your Web site via my affiliate link, doesn't buy, and then later returns to your site via one of your own "in house" links and makes a purchase... Do I get credit for the sale? Yes! When deciding who to credit for a sale, the first thing our system does is look for the presence of an affiliate-generated cookie. If such a cookie exists, the system reads the cookie and the corresponding affiliate is given credit for the sale. This means we can follow up with your referrals and you will receive credit for any resulting sales, whether the sales are made via a link in an e-mail we send them, a link in their favorites, or any number of different ways. In the unlikely event that no such cookie exists, a back-up system is automatically employed using IP tracking technology... The visitor's IP address - an address unique to that person's computer - is logged with the corresponding affiliate's affiliate number. If the visitor makes a purchase during that visit (or a subsequent visit if he re-visits the site via the affiliate's link), the system reads the IP address and the corresponding affiliate is credited for the sale. Only if no cookie or match of an IP address exists does our own "in house" account receive credit for the sale. In other words, we give affiliates first priority.
»	What if my visitor's Web browser doesn't accept cookies or his cookies have been deleted? Studies show that more than 99% of browsers these days are configured to accept cookies, so the chances of this being a factor are remote. Some cookies may eventually be deleted due to new computer purchases, manual deletions, and other infrequent or unlikely factors. But for the average web surfer a cookie remains in his browser for a long time. If, however, for whatever reason the cookie is not present, the affiliate may still receive credit for the sale as the IP tracking system (discussed in the previous question) will automatically be activated. The IP tracking method works so long as the visitor makes a purchase upon arriving at our site via the affiliate's link. If he re-visits the site directly (as opposed to via the affiliate's link) and then makes a purchase, the affiliate number cannot be logged. The presence of the cookie on the purchaser's browser or a match of the IP address with the affiliate number is necessary though to track the sale back to the referring affiliate. Subject to the possible (but unlikely) limitations pointed out, affiliates will receive the credit they deserve. This combination of cookie and IP tracking has proven to be the most reliable method of affiliate tracking over both the short and long term.
»	Suppose a school administrator arrives at your site via my affiliate link and requests a free trial of AGMS via your "AGMS Preview Form" for schools. The school later decides to make a purchase. My concern is that with most schools having so many different computers, the purchase may be made on a different computer than was used for the trial request, so I may not get credit for the sale as no cookie will be present on the computer used to make the purchase. Will I actually get credit for the sale if this happens? Yes! Every time a school trial request is submitted, we capture the referring affiliate's affiliate number via a hidden field in the form's HTML code. Then, when the school makes the purchase, we check if the sale came through as an affiliate sale or an "in-house" sale. If it is an affiliate sale (i.e. an affiliate number came through with the order), then that affiliate automatically gets credit for the sale. If it shows as an "in-house" sale, then we check if a trial request was submitted by the school. If a trial request was submitted, we look at the trial request to see if an affiliate referred the school to our site and credit that affiliate with the sale. In cases where no trial request was submitted, then we simply ask the purchaser (or other appropriate contact at the school if necessary) how they found our site. We do this either at the time of sale or via a post sale follow-up, as applicable. Either way, they are always happy to tell us how they came to our site. This procedure is followed with every school sale, even if a school buys months or years after they requested a trial. The bottom line... affiliates are assured of receiving the credit they deserve.
»	Is there anything you do to help ensure that I receive credit for any sales of new products to existing customers that I referred? Yes! Whenever we send out a mailing to existing customers, such as the "Awesome News" newsletter or any other special customer mailing (which occasionally will include new product announcements), we "merge" each affiliate's affiliate number into the AwesomeGrades Web site URL. So, any customer who was referred by you will see your affiliate URL in any e-mails he receives. While this is probably unnecessary as the cookie containing your affiliate number will most likely still be present in the customer's browser, it ensures that the customer receives a "fresh cookie" with your affiliate number, just in case for some unlikely reason his originally cookie was deleted. It also serves to "reset" the 10 year cookie duration. This practice of using our affiliates' affiliate URL's in customer mailings is just one of the things we do that we feel separates us from other affiliate programs, and reinforces our commitment to "go out of our way" to ensure that our affiliates get compensated for not only a referred customer's first purchase, but subsequent purchases as well.
»	What if someone clicks through to your Web site via another one of your affiliate's links and then via my affiliate link? The most recent affiliate to refer someone gets credit for the sale. This is because the most recent cookie overwrites the prior cookie. Just like in the real world, it's the person who ultimately makes the sale that is rewarded.
»	Is the AwesomeGrades.com Web site P3P compliant? Yes. Insofar as you as an affiliate of this or any other affiliate program is concerned, P3P (Platform for Privacy Preferences) compliance means that visitors using some of the newer browsers (like Microsoft IE 6.0 or higher) will not automatically have cookies "blocked" from entering their browser when they arrive at a Web site via your affiliate link. As a P3P compliant site, we have taken the necessary steps to ensure that cookies are automatically accepted by these newer browsers just as they are in earlier browsers.

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