Overview
Note: Email-based affiliate attribution may require the assistance of a developer. If you are not familiar with some of the terms and instructions in this article, we encourage you to seek out a developer for assistance.
Email-based affiliate attribution is an alternative method of providing affiliate attribution. Unlike HopLinks, email-based affiliate attribution can give a commission to an affiliate up to 60 days after the email is provided, even if the customer does not use a HopLink to access your pitch page. If you are planning a webinar, multi-layer content-based funnel, or other lead-generation campaign, you can use email-based affiliate attribution to more reliably give credit to affiliates who are involved.
This articles contains the following sections:
- Enabling the Feature
- Passing the Email Address
- Attribution Priority
- Implementation
- Additional Resources & Related Articles
Enabling the Feature
Once the feature is enabled, you will be able to associate customer email addresses with affiliates, and affiliates will be able to use the customer email parameter.
Step 1: Log in to your ClickBank account.
Step 2: Click the Vendor Settings tab.
Step 3: Click My Site.
Step 4: Locate the Managing Your Affiliates section.
Step 4: Check the Enable Email Based Attribution box. The change will be saved immediately.
Passing the Email Address
Once the feature is enabled, you or your affiliates can pass a customer email address to ClickBank to trigger the attribution. The email can be passed in one of two ways:
- You (the seller) provide the customer email address and the affiliate nickname to link together with your seller nickname using URL parameters.
- The affiliate provides the customer email address as a HopLink parameter.
If a customer email address has been passed to ClickBank and associated with an affiliate, then when the customer purchases your product and uses the specified email address, the specified affiliate receives the commission. The email is retained and associated with the affiliate for 60 days.
Email-based affiliate attribution works regardless of platform or browser, and does not depend on the link used by the customer to reach your product page.
In the Transaction Reporting section, the Commission Attribution column shows what method was used to make the affiliate attribution.
Attribution Priority
Other methods of affiliate attribution, such as HopLinks, take precedence over email-based affiliate attribution. For example, if you associate a potential customer's email address with Affiliate A, but the customer follows a HopLink from Affiliate B, then Affiliate B receives the commission.
Implementation
To use email-based affiliate attribution, you must first enable the feature, then link the affiliate's account nickname with one or more customer email addresses.
Performing Email-Based Affiliate Attribution Using a URL
You can establish the attribution relationship between customer, affiliate, and seller by making a call to the ClickBank URL endpoint. Each relationship must be added using a separate call.
The syntax for this endpoint call is:
https://ea.clickbank.net/?vendor={vendor_nickname}&affiliate={affiliate_nickname}&custemail={customer_email_address}
For example, with data:
https://ea.clickbank.net/?vendor=cbvendor&affiliate=cbaffiliate&custemail=customer@gmail.com
Performing Email-Based Affiliate Attribution Using the HopLink
An affiliate can initiate email-based affiliate attribution by passing the customer's email address as a parameter on the HopLink. When the affiliate uses a HopLink with this parameter, they receive a commission even if the user revisits the site later and makes a purchase without using the HopLink again.
The default format for a HopLink with a customer email is:
https://hop.clickbank.net/?vendor={vendor_nickname}&affiliate={affiliate_nickname}&custemail={customer_email}
For example:
https://hop.clickbank.net/?ddbd1l-h1qv8540hu5d88z0u42.?custemail=customer@example.com
Additional Resources & Related Articles
- KNOWLEDGE BASE ARTICLE: HopLinks Guide