Thread: Affiliate tracking & Commission Junction

I have a client that is currently running a a ML v7.1.0.0 storefront and is looking to start using affiliates. I pretty much understand how affiliates work and to configure them, however there is one feature of affiliate tracking that the client would like changed.

What the client would like to to track only the initial sale an affiliate referral brings in. Subsequent sales by the affiliate's customer would not be credited as an affiliate sale unless the customer again was referred directly from the affiliate. As stated in the manual, once a customer has been assigned an affiliate, that customer will remain with that affiliate until they hit the site with a different AFFILIATEID query string or the association is manually changed.

They currently don't use affiliates so I thought about just clearing the affiliateId field for the customer after the transaction is complete, but that seems to be a hack, breaking the intended purpose of affiliates and might limit future use. It also possibly would give credit for a customer that was referred, did not make a purchase initially, but later revisited and made a purchase.

To fix the latter problem, I thought about not clearing the affiliate at the completion of the transaction, but rather when the session is started. If an AFFILIATEID query string is passed in it will use that, otherwise it will clear the id. Again though it seems kind of a hack.

Has anyone implemented affiliate tracking but only for the first initial referral, not for subsequent ones?

Also, the same client is planning on using Commission Junction for tracking their commissions on an individual basis. A Google search found a few old threads that mentioned CJ but some of the links are no longer valid and the remaining one is sparse on details other then saying that some larger customers have integrated. The transparent tracking image code seems straightforward enough go generate via an template in the order confirmation XML package, but I'm just checking if anyone have any tips or suggestions?

You are changing the way that the affiliate handling works within the store. I don't think what you are suggesting is a hack... It is just a modification required to allow the software to conform to specific business rules. I would say that the way to handle this would probably be to store the affiliateID in the customer session as opposed to the customer table, in which case it would only be valid while the session was active (eg. usually 15-60 minutes depending on your AppConfig settings). If you wanted to make sure that you did not break existing functionality, then add some checks for a specific affiliate ID before changing the behavior. This is not a trivial modification though, as you are going to need to input logic tests in multiple places, and decide what rules will be followed if the custom has multiple active affiliate IDs.

Regarding Commission Junction, there are multiple ways to implement the functionality. If they allow for a transparent image, that is typically the easiest route as it is just an XML package mod in most cases.

As I need to integrate CJ Affilate - pixel Integration. Can you please explain the steps to use the transparent image through xml package in order confirmation page.

Thanks in advance.