How does the Affiliate feature work?

I apologize if this has been answered elsewhere. I have been scouring through the forums, and have not yet found a complete answer, so here goes.

Ok, so let's say I want to track orders that came in through an affiliate link, so I can pay that source website out a percentage of my sales.

1) I go into the Admin area, and go to: Promotions -> Affiliates
2) I click "Add New"
3) I fill out the form and click "Save"
4) Now I have an "Affiliate URL", like this:   http://www.mysite.com/default.aspx?affiliateid=1

Ok, so far so good.

Question #1
Now, let's say my affiliate wants to link to one of my products as the landing page. Would they do it like this:
http://www.mysite.com/products/My-Example-Product.aspx?affiliateid=1

Question(s) #2
Let's say a customer actually buys something on the site, after coming in on the affiliate URL. How do I, the storeowner, know the customer did this off of an affiliate link, so I can properly pay the affiliate his/her commission? Will I also know which affiliate to pay? Do they have to buy the product that was directly linked, or can it be credited from any product?

Question #3
When a customer hits the website on an affiliate link, how is this persisted in the customer's web browser? Is there a cookie just for this purpose with persistent expiration, so that it will last indefinitely until replaced by a new one? Is it a session cookie with only a 20 minute lifetime? Or something in between?

Thanks very much for any help that can be provided!!!

#1. Sure, you can use such URLs
#2. Go to an order details page (admin area) and you'll the appropriate affiliate on 'Order info' tab. Or you can go to an affiliate details page (admin area) and see all "affiliated" orders.
#3. If a customer is not registered, then it's stored in a cookie. After he's registered, the appropriate value is stored into database.

Excellent, thank you for the quick response! I will start testing this out on a new affiliate site that links back to my store.

does anyone know the default cookie duration for affiliate referrals?

PETMYWIENER wrote:
It's set to 10 days (\NopCommerceStore\Controls\BaseNopFrontendMasterPage.cs file)

Hi Andrei,

nopCommerce version 3.30

I want to use an affiliate program for customer registration.
I use the following link: /register?affiliateId=1

AffiliateId field is filled (workContext.CurrentCustomer.AffiliateId), but AffiliateId value is't stored in the cookie
in case if the customer did't register immediately.
It would be nice if AffilateId store and retrieve from cookies.

Maybe it is, but I have't found this opportunity in the code.

Thank you.

a.m. wrote:

Hi
How can an affiliate inform from commission earned by himself? only admin can view his/her "affiliated" orders or who promote a product or introduced the site can inform from his activity himself in admin aria of his account?

[email protected] wrote:

Hello,  for that you can use our plugin/software.

https://www.nopcommerce.com/p/1267/socialbug-mlmparty-plan-affiliate-plugin.aspx

Hi,

I just downloaded the platinum affiliate plugin.
The problem is : I can not set different commision rates depending on the affiliate.

I just need to adress a specific commission per affiliate, coupons code and pay them online.

What do I need ?

Thank you in advance

Hugo