Once your partner program is set up, your partners need something to share. That's what promo tools are for. A promo tool is anything you give partners to promote your products: an affiliate link, a banner, a lightbox, or an email. Each one carries that partner's tracking, so you know who sent every lead and sale.
When someone clicks a promo tool, Ontraport sets a cookie in their browser and sends them to the page you chose. If they then fill out a form, the partner gets the credit. For a new contact, that partner becomes both the first referrer and the last referrer. For an existing contact, they become the last referrer. How long the cookie lasts depends on the "Cookies will expire" setting in your partner global settings.
Make sure your program has at least one commissionable product. Then click Partners, click your program, open Promo Tools, and click New promotional item. Give it a name. For the URL to promote, use the order page or opt-in form for your commissionable product. Product group, Campaign name and Ad name are optional, and help you organize your tools. Then choose the promo tool type, and click Save.
There are five types. A standard link is the one we recommend. It redirects through your Ontraport tracking domain, so you can change the URL later without sending partners a new link. A direct link sends visitors straight to the URL. If you change the URL, links partners already have won't update, so save direct links for short promotions. A banner is an image partners can use in their marketing. A lightbox is an image they can use as a pop-up. And an email is a draft message partners can send to their own lists. Include the affiliate link merge fields in it so each partner's link is filled in.
Affiliate links are the most common promo tool, and you don't need a partner center to share them. In an email or page, click the merge field icon, scroll down to Affiliate links, and click the item that matches your partner program and promo tool name. When it goes to a partner, it fills in their own unique link. You'll also see an "Ontraport Affiliate" link there. That one is for promoting Ontraport itself.
With a partner center, partners can log in and grab their tools themselves. The Partners app includes a Promo tools page with each partner's links. Banners, lightboxes and email promo tools need a WordPress partner center.
Partners who promote in several places can add a Sub ID to the end of their link, like "sid" equals "dec-newsletter." That shows them which channel drives their traffic and sales. They see the results on the Reports tab of a WordPress partner center.
To see how your promo tools perform, click Partners and use the column editor to add columns like Visits, Leads, Sales and Commission Amount. Visits counts unique visits from your partners' promo tools.
On Ontraport pages, there's nothing extra to set up. If you take orders through a third-party shopping cart, add the partner tracking pixel to its checkout confirmation page. Click your profile icon, then Administration, then Developer preferences and resources, and click Get partner tracking pixel. This is an advanced setup, so if you're not comfortable with tracking code, an Ontraport Expert can help.
So: create a promo tool for each product you want promoted, use standard links when you can, and send each partner their own link with a merge field. That wraps up partner programs. Next up, we'll move on to other features, starting with Facebook Custom Audiences.