I need a tutorial on creating FHG for my paysite

[ponyman]

My paysite has been live for several years, now and I'd like to start offering FHG & FHS for my affiliates.

Does ayone know of a tutorial out there that I could learn from?

I've searched a lot for some kind of help, but I can't find any.

Thanks, yo |bow|

[Chop Smith]

Specifically, what are you looking for?

[ponyman]

I want o be able to create TGP and FREESITES that promote my Paysite, host these pages on my server, and then provide link codes to my affiliates so they get credit for any sales they make by sending traffic to those pages.

Really, just the typical thing you see here at your cool site: http://hfslinks.com/

That's what I want to offer my webmasters. Thanks Chop!

[Alliance]

I don't see any problem to do this. You don't need any tutorial.

Just do it. :)

[ponyman]

But how do I make these pages so they retain the webmasters affiliate id link code?

[ponyman]

like this: http://galleries.sweetmoney.com/gallery.seg/sl100/?r=ponyman2

So when I use that link, all links on that Sweet page have my refer code in them.

[Toby]

You just need to insert some relatively simple PHP coding into the pages to retrieve the affiliate ID from the incoming URL and insert it into the appropriate place within links on the page.

[ponyman]

Thanks, Toby! But, uh, I don't know shit about PHP coding :) can you point me to a beginners guide to do this? It sounds pretty easy.

[Toby]

I'm not aware of such a guide, but I think I can get you started. Lets assume your FHG has a URL like this:
http://www.yourpaysite.com/fhg/gallery1.php?ID=ponyman2

Wherever you have links in the gallery that go to your site tour, place the standard affiliate link but use the PHP code below in place of the actual affiliate ID.
<?= $_GET['ID'] ?>

[Toby]

For hosted free sites it gets a little more complicated, but only because you have to add the codes to the navigation links so that the affiliate ID gets passed from page to page.

[Useless]

Check your PMs ponyman.

[ponyman]

Holy shit, DUDE! That worked like a f'in charm! That was all I needed, man you rock! I owe you, Toby!

[Toby]

I keep tellin' people that this scripting stuff isn't that hard. :D

If you'll be at Internext, I drink Long Island Iced Teas. ;)

[emmanuelle]

For hosted free sites it gets a little more complicated, but only because you have to add the codes to the navigation links so that the affiliate ID gets passed from page to page.


Q: Since the cookie is dropped into the surfer's browser when he clicks on the link to the warning page, would the cookie not carry through to subsequent pages regardless?

[Toby]

Q: Since the cookie is dropped into the surfer's browser when he clicks on the link to the warning page, would the cookie not carry through to subsequent pages regardless?
No, at that point the surfer hasn't been thru the sponsor gateway so no cookies have been set. That doesn't happen until they click a sponsor link on one of the pages of the hosted free site.

[emmanuelle]

ok- I was thinking of links that began with http://refer.ccbill.com/cgi-bin/clicks.cgi?A=123456&PA=&HTML=http://domain.com/freesite

rather than http://domain.com/freesite.php?xxxxxx


Even still, wouldn't the warning page be enough?

[Toby]

ok- I was thinking of links that began with http://refer.ccbill.com/cgi-bin/clicks.cgi?A=123456&PA=&HTML=http://domain.com/freesite

rather than http://domain.com/freesite.php?xxxxxx


Even still, wouldn't the warning page be enough?
Only if you had code within your warning page that set a cookie that you then retreived on each page. Until the surfer actually clicks a link to the sponsor tour no affiliate tracking cookie has been set. It's easier to just insert the PHP code into the nav links of the HFS, and also more reliable since it's not dependent on the surfer allowing cookies or the hosted sites being on the same domain.

[Chop Smith]

Emmanuelle,

You can 'lick a cat' several different ways and your logic is correct.

http://refer.ccbill.com/cgi-bin/clicks.cgi?CA=######&PA=XXXXXX&HTML=http://domain.com/freesite/

The cookie is set and surfer is sent to free site.

[emmanuelle]

YAY- We're all right
lol

[Toby]

Emmanuelle,

You can 'lick a cat' several different ways and your logic is correct.

http://refer.ccbill.com/cgi-bin/clicks.cgi?CA=######&PA=XXXXXX&HTML=http://domain.com/freesite/

The cookie is set and surfer is sent to free site.
Yes, that will work with CCBill. BUT... it also makes it difficult to track click-thru rates since you're counting a click-thru everytime a surfer hits the warning page using that kind of a link even if they never vsit the site tour.

Also, using PHP to pass the code from page to page will work regardless of what affiliate tracking package is in use.

To take it to the next step, using .htaccess and Mod Rewrite to embed the affiliate ID into the URL path instead of as a parameter dangling at the end has additional benefits. Check out the HFS that Simon has set up at FetishClub for an example.

[ponyman]

Ok, Toby, now it's getting complicated..... haha

I made 3 FHG and they work awesome!

[Chop Smith]

Yeah, Simon and Swedguy 'licks the cat' different. It is all okay if Ponyman found a solution to fit his needs

[Toby]

After all this cat lickin', I think I have a hair ball..... |cat

[Chop Smith]

Spit! It helps.

[ponyman]

lick

[Barron]

There are some code examples for tracking affiliates in this thread.


http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/showthread.php?t=11717


_

[Simon]

Yeah, Simon and Swedguy 'licks the cat' different.
That's true, Chop, the very talented Swedguy helped us with our dream of sticking the webmaster's ID in the middle of the link, which is proving good for search engine listings (good for the affiliates whose codes are in the urls I mean).

Then we got some help from the also very talented Kaktus (thank you Chop!), so now we also create our own cookie on the surfer's arrival at the hfs warning page (or any page actually). That way we can stick the code back into links if the surfer decides to snip the url to look around on his own (a lot seem to do that), and we can also track which affiliate sent a surfer who signed up for our newsletter while they were on the tour. We don't pay for emails collected but we're going to make sure that newsletters sent to those subscribers have all urls coded with the affiliate IDs too.

My basic theory is to try to find every way we can to make our affiliates more money, trusting that our concentration on that will pay off more than anything else we can do to try to motivate someone to promote our site.

One other thing I can pass along, Ponyman, if you're interested, is that you may want to make a special "affiliates-only" version of your tour pages, with no traffic leaks to anywhere the webmaster won't make money. You're more likely to get more people sending you their traffic if it can't bleed off anywhere. :)

Okay, more than you asked, but definitely contact Swedguy and Kaktus if you want some expert help with the things I mentioned.

And good luck with your expansion plans! |thumb

Simon

[ponyman]

One other thing I can pass along, Ponyman, if you're interested, is that you may want to make a special "affiliates-only" version of your tour pages, with no traffic leaks to anywhere the webmaster won't make money. You're more likely to get more people sending you their traffic if it can't bleed off anywhere. :)


Good idea, Simon. I'm working on that right now.

Now affiliates can send traffic to
www.oldmenfucking.com/tour.html and there are no traffic leaks whatsoever :D

[Simon]

Ponyman -- now that you've done that, one other thing you can do now is go to
CCBill > Affiliates > Setup > System Setup.
On that page you can change your redirect URL so that anyone who does *not* specify a tour page in their link will automatically be sent to your new "no leaks" tour pages.

Simon