Enhanced Affiliate Registration and Management System: Merchant FAQ
General
Legal Entity
Affiliate Channel
Affiliate Registration Pages
Affiliate Management
Registration Referral Rules
General
What is the enhanced affiliate registration and management system?
The enhanced affiliate registration and management system is designed to provide a greater understanding of whom everyone is working with inside of our network.
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How does LinkShare validate and authenticate affiliates?
LinkShare validates and authenticates in real-time key affiliate registration information against one or more third party database. The validation and authentication of affiliates will ensure that merchants can be more certain of the identity of affiliates and will ensure a verifiable unique identity for all U.S. based affiliates. Merchants will be better equipped to stay ahead of any questionable activity.
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How will validation and authentication affect communication with affiliates?
Affiliates will have updated and verified contact information so merchants can be more effective in reaching out to their partners.
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Which affiliates will be authenticated?
This process will apply to all new and existing U.S. based affiliates and any changes these affiliates make to their account profiles on a go forward basis.
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What are some future capabilities of the enhanced affiliate registration and management system?
This will set the stage for our consolidated payment and direct deposit service designed to benefit all members of the LinkShare Network. Given the size of the program powered by the LinkShare system, it is important for us to have sophisticated processes in place to screen affiliates.
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Legal Entity
What is an "affiliate legal entity" and why do affiliates need to create one?
An "affiliate legal entity" is a master account that all affiliates must register with LinkShare. By consolidating affiliate accounts and channels under one master account, affiliates will be able to access all related channels through one username and password. Further, if affiliates manage multiple accounts they can easily create new channels or accounts through a single master account interface. If affiliates currently have multiple accounts they will be required to aggregate all of their accounts under one master account. This is a necessary first step toward paving the way to future enhancements that will give affiliates and their merchant partners better tools for managing your affiliate programs.
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What happens to affiliates who do not register their legal entity?
All existing affiliates must register a legal entity so that we can be certain any payments from you are going to a valid business entity. LinkShare will allow existing affiliates to continue to manage their LinkShare accounts. However, beginning in May, affiliates that have not updated their registration information to obtain a master account will no longer be eligible to receive payment of commissions.
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What must affiliates with multiple affiliate accounts do?
Affiliates that have multiple accounts will aggregate their accounts under this one legal entity.
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Affiliate Channel
What is an affiliate "channel?"
An affiliate channel represents the method that affiliates use to promote your business.
Creating separate channels enables affiliates and merchant to track transaction activity on a more channel-specific and targeted basis.
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What affiliate channel categories are available?
Affiliate channel categories will include:
- Web-site
- E-mail
- Adware/Browser plug-in
- Blog
- Search
- Mobile
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Can affiliates select multiple channel categories?
Affiliates can select one or more of these categories as they apply to their businesses.
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Affiliate Registration Pages
What do merchants need to do with regard to their affiliate registration pages?
For merchants that use the LinkShare hosted registration page, merchants are not required to take any action. LinkShare will automatically redirect the affiliate registration link located on merchants' websites to the new registration page. Merchants do not need to change any links.
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Will merchants be able to customize the affiliate registration pages?
In order to provide the above capabilities, all new and existing affiliates will need to follow a consistent registration process. As a result, LinkShare will no longer support custom formatting of the registration pages.
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Will merchants be able to include customized questions in the affiliate registration pages?
Yes, the affiliate registration process will support merchant specific inclusion of the customized question fields.
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What do merchants that host their own registration pages need to do?
Please note we will no longer support merchant hosted registration pages. Hence you will have to update your web site to link to the new registration page, https://ssl.linksynergy.com/php-bin/reg/sregister.shtml?mid=XXXX&no_r=1. Please be sure to replace the XXXX with your merchant ID (MID).
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Where do merchants' customized registration questions appear in the affiliate registration process?
The merchant customized registration questions appear on the affiliate registration channel creation process. Please note that the questions are only visible for those users that originate from the merchant specific registration link and not from the www.linkshare.com site.
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What do merchants need to do with regard to reminding affiliates to register?
LinkShare asks for your assistance in reminding all affiliates to please update their registration as soon as possible.
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Affiliate Management
Do merchants review affiliate applications on a channel or a legal entity basis?
Affiliates apply as affiliate channels to merchant programs and not as affiliate legal entities, so consequently merchants review affiliate applications from affiliate channels.
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Can merchants approve just one affiliate channel without approving all other associated affiliate channels?
Yes, merchants review affiliate channel applications only per affiliate channel.
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Can merchants see the legal entity information of their approved affiliate channels?
Merchants have visibility only on their approved affiliate channels an not of the affiliates associated legal entity information.
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Do merchants have visibility on the interface of the status of their affiliates' legal entity registration?
No, this information is not available to merchants.
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Will the names or number of affiliates change from the merchants' perspective?
As many affiliates will review their registration information, they may update their business names or change the status of their partnerships.
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Are there any changes to merchant SynergyAnalyticsTM?
There are no initial changes to SynergyAnalyticsTM. LinkShare will continue to present data on an affiliate channel basis.
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Is it possible to identify affiliate channels based on their channel category type?
Initially no, but this may be a future capability.
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Registration Referral Rules
How has the registration rules referral feature changed?
The affiliate registration rules referral feature also known as the "Member Get A Member" feature will be updated to reflect the new legal entity concept. We will assess the referral bonus per legal entity based on the sum of activity of its affiliate channels.
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Will this change affect all merchants that already have this offer in place?
Yes, since the old affiliate registration will no longer be supported at all, this is the only option.
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When will LinkShare start calculating the referral bonus under the new method?
LinkShare will start calculating the referral bonus under the new method immediately upon launch of the enhanced affiliate registration and management system.
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