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Getting started as an affiliate

At the beginning of your online career, you should first internalize how to earn money with Digistore24 and what you should pay attention to in order to advertise as efficiently as possible.

All pages in this guide are in affiliate view!

You can switch between Vendor View and Affiliate View in the top left corner. When you log in to Digistore24 for the first time, you will automatically be in the Vendor view.

An example of a sales process

  1. An affiliate goes to the Digistore24 marketplace. There he finds all products created by vendors.
  2. Now the affiliate finds a product he wants to promote and gets a so-called promolink.
  3. The affiliate sends this promolink to many potential customers or builds it directly on his website or in his social media posts. His goal is to get customers to click on the link and buy the product. In which way he promotes the product (e.g. through social media campaigns, promotional emails, etc.) is irrelevant.
  4. When a customer now clicks on this promo link, an HTTP cookie is stored in their browser. This allows you to track which affiliate the customer came through for up to 180 days. What is an HTTP cookie? A cookie is figuratively like a bookmark for internet browsers. A website can place a cookie in your browser and can identify you the next time you visit.
  5. When the customer buys the product, Digistore24 registers the deposited HTTP cookie in his browser and can read out from which affiliate the product was advertised.
  6. Digistore24 automatically sends the seller the money earned from the sale and deducts the affiliate commission from it, which is forwarded to the affiliate.

1. Use marketplace

Vendors make their products available for marketing on the Digistore24 marketplace. You can then promote these products as an affiliate.

You can access the marketplace by clicking on the Affiliate view menu item Marketplace in the top right-hand corner.

Vendor's products are displayed on the marketplace as marketplace entries. When you open the marketplace, you will see a list of marketplace entries.

The marketplace offers you various functions that allow you to quickly find a suitable product to promote:

  • You can filter the list of marketplace entries, e.g. by product categories or payment method.
  • You can filter the list of marketplace entries, e.g. by "Earnings/sale".
  • You can quickly locate marketplace entries by entering the name of a product or vendor in the search box.

You can view information for each marketplace entry that will help you choose a suitable product:

  • Headline
  • Product image
  • Detailed view with product description and lots of key figures, e.g. "Net earnings/sale" or "Cart conversion".
  • Links to the vendor's sales page and affiliate support page

Once you've found a suitable product to promote, you can click on the Promote now button to send a request to the vendor asking to begin an affiliate partnership. Once the partnership is formed, the Promote now button will be replaced by the Copy promolink button. This button will generate the promolink that you can use to promote the product.

Detailed information about the benefits of the marketplace can be found here.

2. Criteria for good products

There's a wide range of products on Digistore24. As a result, it can also be difficult for you to find the right products to promote. To filter out successful products, pay attention to the following criteria in the marketplace entries:

  • Is there a selection of advertising media or an affiliate support page? Almost every good product provides you with a selection of ready-made advertising media on Digistore24 or an external affiliate support page. This is a matter of quality assurance, which makes your job easier and ensures that the vendor's product is promoted with the correct information.
  • Sales pageTake a close look at the sales page. As a general rule, a professional sales page stands behind a professional product.
  • Cart conversionPay attention to the cart conversion in the marketplace entries. The higher this percentage is, the more in demand the product is.
  • Cancellation ratePay attention to the cancellation rate in the marketplace entries. The lower it is, the less common it is for a customer to return the product. In the event of a return, your affiliate commission will be refunded to the vendor.
  • Earnings/SalesThe most important metric for you is "Earnings per sale". It shows you how much you'll earn as an affiliate for a successfully referred sale.

3. Get and use promolink

As explained above, you can request the promolink by clicking on the Promote now button for the marketplace entry of your choice.

You'll usually get your promolink as soon as you click on that button. However, it may be that a vendor has specified that they want to accept affiliates manually before promoting their product.

The promolink always leads to the product's sales page. If a potential customer clicks on this promolink, a HTTP cookie is stored in their browser cache and is valid for 180 days.

The cookie can be deleted! It may happen that the customer clears their cache before making the purchase. If this happens, Digistore24 unfortunately cannot verify your referral.

Promolink structure

https://www.checkout-ds24.com/redir/PRODUCT-ID/AFFILIATE/CAMPAIGNKEY

Promolink explanation:

  • AFFILIATE: Replace this with your own Digistore24 ID if the vendor hasn't already done this for you.
  • PRODUCT-ID: The product ID of the product you want to promote will be automatically inserted by Digistore24.
  • CAMPAIGNKEY: A campaign key is an optional addition to the link that helps you to distinguish different advertising campaigns (e.g. "Email", "Facebook" etc.). You can freely set this text. This will then be displayed to you under Reports > Transactions for a referred purchase.

Example:

Your Digistore24 ID is "JohnSmith"

The ID of the product you want to promote is "220831"

You create a campaign key "Product1"

Your promolink will therefore look like this:

https://www.checkout-ds24.com/redir/220831/JohnSmith/Product1

4. Show promolinks

  1. In the affiliate view, go to Sales & partners > Content links.
  2. Click on the button Show promolink.
  3. Select a product in the For product field.

Now your promolink will be displayed.

Please do not use link shorteners (such as bit.ly or goo.gl) for your promolink. We cannot guarantee that affiliate tracking will work with a shortened promolink, because link shorteners transform the link. We ask you to only use the normal promolink.

5. Create and use content link

In contrast to the promolink, the content link must be created by you. In addition, the content link does not lead to the sales page, but rather to a website of your choice. This is useful if you want to forward the customer to another page and not directly to the sales page, but still want a cookie to be placed in the user's cache.

An example of usage:

  1. You send the potential customer to a webinar page via a content link. This is how a cookie is set in the visitor's browser.
  2. The visitor receives a link after the webinar (e.g. by email). It is only with this link that the visitor will be taken to the vendor's sales page.
  3. On the sales page, the customer then clicks on the link to the order form where they purchase the product. Even if the customer purchased the product indirectly, the customer is correctly assigned to you thanks to the cookie set at the beginning.

Compiling a content link

https://www.checkout-ds24.com/content/PRODUCT-ID/CONTENT-LINK-ID/AFFILIATE/CAMPAIGNKEY

Content link explanation:

  • "AFFILIATE": Replace this with your own Digistore24 ID if the vendor has not done this yet for you.
  • "PRODUCT ID": The product ID of the product you want to advertise is automatically present in the link.
  • "CONTENT LINK ID": The content link ID is inserted automatically by Digistore. You must not change it.
  • "CAMPAIGN KEY": A campaign key is an optional add-on to the link. This helps you to distinguish between different advertising campaigns (e.g. "Email", "Facebook" etc.). You yourself can choose the text for this. This is then displayed under Reports > Transactions when you broker a sale.

Example: Your Digistore24 ID is "JohnSmith". The ID of the product you want to advertise is "220831". The ID of the content link is "20581". You create the campaign key "Product1". Your content link will therefore look like this:
https://www.checkout-ds24.com/content/220831/20581/JohnSmith/Product1

6. Create content link

  1. In the affiliate view, go to Account > Content link.
  2. Click on the button Create content link.
  3. For Target URL, enter the URL of your content page/webinar page.
  4. In the For product field, select the product for which you want to create the content link.
  5. Finally, click on Save.

Your content link will now be displayed under Your promolink. Despite it saying Promolink, it is your content link, so please don't be confused!

Finally, go to Account > Content link and click on Request approval now. A content link is usually approved within 24 hours on weekdays (Monday to Friday). Unfortunately, no approval can be granted on weekends.

7. View Affiliate Commissions

If you successfully encourage a potential customer to make a purchase, you will receive a percentage of the revenue set by the vendor after the payment is made. This percentage is called "affiliate commission". You can find your commissions under Reports > Commissions.