The FourGates.com Affiliate Program
What is an Affililate?
Affiliates are companies that refer business to us in exchange for a referral fee or commission on sales. Affiliates can send shoppers to our homepage or directly to particular categories or products in our store.
Potential affiliates include our satisfied customers, suppliers and manufacturers, and related businesses.
We welcome affilates related sites for which traffic would be significantly meaningful, i.e., spirituality, spiritual teachers, recovery, yoga, meditation, prayer, healing, personal growth, self-improvement, gardening, health and beauty. We do not accept affilates with tobacco, medications, adult products, pornography, and businesses unrelated to the overall product and service offerings of Four Gates.
We reward affiliates by paying them a percentage commission of 10% on the orders generated, where orders placed during the shopper's initial visit are commissioned. Each affiliate can log in to our store to update their information, and to see how their account is doing. We have set a threshold amount of $50.00, and will send a check to each affiliate when their accumulated commissions reach that amount.
How Referrals are Tracked
When you set up an affiliate account, we provide you with a customized URL (Web site link). You use this URL when you create a link to your site. When a visitor on your site clicks the link, and goes to our site, the unique URL enables our Miva Merchant software to recognize a shopper referred by you, the affiliate.
When the shopper arrives at our store, a cookie is sent to their computer. We use this to identify the shopper as they move through our store, to properly credit the affiliate who referred them. If a shopper has cookies turned off, their orders cannot be tracked and their visit will not be recorded. The affiliate referring them will not be credited for the referral, or for any order they may place.
Commissions on Visits and Orders
When any shopper visits our store, a basket is created for them. When an affiliate refers a shopper to our store, a basket is created, and identified as belonging to a customer referred by that affiliate. Because we are paying commissions based on the order amount, that is calculated when the shopper checks out.
The basket remains in existence for as long as the customer is actively browsing in our store, plus the time specified for basket timeout in our store settings. A cookie on the shopper's computer identifies them as they move through our store. It also enables the store to recognize the customer if they leave, then return while their basket is still active - even if they have not added any items to the basket.
Default Application Status
Our Account Manager will review each affiliate before accepting them into your affiliate program.
During this approval process, your account status will be Pending. A not-yet-approved affiliate will be able to access their account, and update information, but no commissions will be credited until we approve them. You will be notified either way. Once approved, you will begin receiving commissions as soon as you start using the customized URL to refer shoppers to our store.
Default Commissions
Our commission method uses a Default Commission Percent of Order to pay our affiliates based on the value of the orders placed by customers they referred to our store, where 10% of the Subtotal (before tax and shipping) is commissioned to the affiliate.
Payout Threshold
It would be inefficient to pay affiliates based solely on a regular time period. Some affiliates will accumulate commissions faster than others. The active affiliates will be eager to collect their earnings, while it would be inconvenient for both us and the quieter affiliates to deal with checks for only a few dollars. Instead of paying at a certain time, regardless of commissions, we pay out the affiliate's earnings when a threshold of $50.00 or more has been reached. Only the affiliates whose accounts have reached the payout threshold will be presented for our attention for payment.
Link Text and Link Image
We make the link to our store stand out on an affiliate's page by providing a professional-looking Link Image, with our logo and store name. The image is stored on our server, and remotely linked into the affiliate sites. This means that if we change the image or if we design a new store logo, it will appear from that point onward on each affiliate's site. The size of the image is 185 x 68 pixels and can be resized on your site by using the width and height parameters in the <img> tag. However, we require that affiliates use the remotely-linked image we provide on our server, without any modifications, and with a minimum of 15 pixels of space surrounding it.
The Link Text provided to you becomes the alternative or alt, text for the image. This is an important accessibility issue, because shoppers using screen reader software rely on this text to describe where the link goes. For example, "Visit Sandy's Seashell Shanty" would be preferable to "Get great deals here!"
Terms
In any business deal, things go best when both parties clearly understand the agreement. For that reason, we describe our affiliate program in the Terms field, which is displayed when a new affiliate is signing up, and again on the affiliate's account screen. We include information on the commission rates we pay, and when the affiliate can expect to be paid.
Spamming
Spamming to generate affiliate sales is strictly forbidden. If we get notes from customers or potentional customers that spamming is taking place, all commissions will be null and voided. We want to ensure that customers are being treated with consideration.
Lost Password E-mail
If an affiliate forgets their password, they can request that it be sent to them, at the Lost Password E-mail address they entered when they signed up. This message will be sent automatically.
Click here to Create an Affiliate Account >>.
