Getting Started with Sovrn Commerce

General Overview:

This is the general getting started process.

Registration ➡️ Installation ➡️ Generate Clicks ➡️ Get Approved ➡️ Next Steps

What is Sovrn Commerce?

Sovrn Commerce aims to create a better web by making every link intelligent and valuable. We deliver revenue to publishers through content-driven-commerce with leverage, insight, and automation. As a publisher, your audience relies on your content to make valuable purchase decisions. Whether you're a blogger, editorial site or social influencer, our range of products and reporting work in tandem to capture revenue while delivering powerful insights about your content.

Sovrn Commerce does two main things: we affiliate existing Merchant links on a Publisher's site (which can be a website, mobile app, etc.), and we help publishers create new affiliate links that can be placed anywhere (website, social media, email, etc.).

Our Publishers drive traffic to our Merchants and their products in exchange for commissions. Commissions can be earned on a cost per action (CPA) basis, which pays a commission on any eligible sales, or a cost per click (CPC) basis, which pays a flat rate for clicks sent to eligible product links. Learn more about CPA and CPC in this article: Analytics in Commerce.

How do I sign up for an account and get started?

Sign up for a free account here. You can use an email and password, or choose to use your Google account to sign up.

Find out more about terms and conditions/policies here and upon account creation.

Then, you'll be prompted to flow through the following steps:

Welcome

Once you sign up, and confirm your email, you'll start on the Welcome tab in the Platform. From here, you can click Get started under Affiliate marketing or click Commerce on the left-side navigation bar. This'll take you to the Getting Started page for Commerce.

You'll be able to return to the Welcome tab anytime to learn more and get started with other products.

Getting Started

From here, click Get started with Commerce. This'll walk you through a few steps you'll need to complete to start monetizing, also described below:

Submit site for Approval

You'll be prompted to submit your site for approval. You will have the option come back later and submit more sites using the Settings tab, which will appear soon.

You'll also need to read and accept terms and conditions at this point.

Install Commerce

An installation of Commerce is required to get approved and start monetizing. You won't be able to start making money with Sovrn until you do this step. You have a few options:

Create a link (the easiest option, and only option for social media). This'll take you to the Create link feature, where you'll be able to generate an affiliate link. For more information on this feature and FAQs, see this article.
Install Javascript. You'll need to copy the code found on the Settings page onto your site. Here is some more information about the JavaScript and Settings page.
Commerce API (most advanced). This option is more advanced, for use with mobile apps, downloadable software, etc. See the documentation here.

Get Approved

Once your installation has generated a click (required, see below for more information), your site will be in the queue for review by our Network Quality team. Here is more information on the approval process. You can see your site's status on the Settings page.

Next Steps

Make sure to complete everything required to monetize successfully by checking out the following steps below.

How do I create an account if I represent other sites/social media accounts that are using affiliate links?

Sovrn has a few different options if you are an intermediary and represent/manage other affiliate accounts. Please reach out to Sovrn Support at support@sovrn.com with any questions and we can help to build your specific onboarding plan.

How do I add sites to my account?

You will need to add and every each site through which you intend to promote our merchants. No need to create multiple accounts: you can manage multiple sites with one account!

Submit your sites under the Settings page in your platform.You can add a blog, forum, personal website, social media account, mobile app, or browser extension. Click the +Site button in the top right hand corner, add the domain to your platform, and your site will appear under your "My Sites" tab.

Note: each and every site will need to undergo the onboarding process:

Submit your site > Install Commerce > Generate Clicks > Get Approved.

Submitting each site is required, helps our merchants, and you! Learn more about why traffic segmentation is important: Traffic Segmentation in Commerce.

What is Sovrn's approval process for Commerce?

We put each and every new site through an approval process before allowing affiliation to ensure that our publishers abide by our and our merchants' terms of service. This also allows us to evaluate the traffic you send to ensure it's a good fit for our affiliate programs and that you'll be successful using Commerce. It may seem like more up-front work but it's worth it in the long run: once you're approved, you'll be accepted into tens of thousands of merchant programs without need for any additional approval!

Note: each and every site will need to undergo the onboarding/approval process. Make sure to have Commerce installed and to generate some clicks in order to get approved.

Submit your site > Install Commerce > Generate Clicks > Get Approved.

You may be contacted by the Network Quality team to provide additional requirements like disclosure forms, example documents, etc.

How do I know if my site is approved?

There's two ways to know if you're approved for Commerce:

In the Settings tab, your site will be listed under "Approved", "Pending", or "Denied".
You should receive an email notifying you of your site's approval status a few days after you've completed the entire onboarding process.

Once approved, you will also see clicks and sales begin to track in your analytics dashboard. If you are not seeing activity in your dashboard, review this FAQ.

How do I install Commerce on my site/page?

Once you have created an account and submitted each site you intend to monetize with, the next step towards monetizing is installing Commerce on each site. This will be needed to generate clicks and is required to be present at time of evaluation (which is coming up in the following steps of the process and done by our Network Quality team).

Options for installation (only one is required):

Sovrn Commerce JavaScript
Create Link feature (manual link): Best option for Social Media accounts
API integration

Note: Mobile Apps and Extension approvals also require:

A completed disclosure form.

After installation is complete and you've generated some clicks, your site will be reviewed by our Network Quality team. Once approved, you can begin affiliating with available merchants!

Generating Clicks

Once you've implemented Sovrn Commerce in one of the methods above, we will need to see a few clicks routing through. This allows us to check on your installation and ensure that we are receiving traffic successfully and that your traffic is a good fit for our network and likely to affiliate successfully. We recommend sending a few test clicks through these links, or having your users click on the links that you created.

Note: You won't be able to monetize on this traffic yet - so don't send through too many clicks!

You won't see this traffic on your Sovrn dashboard. Clicks, sales and revenue will only begin to appear if you are approved.

Here are some tips on how to drive high quality traffic to your site/page.

Getting Approved

To get approved, make sure to have completed the steps here:

Submit your site > Install Commerce > Generate Clicks > Get Approved.

Once you've done this, your site will have been automatically added to our team's list to review. We'll review this site as quickly as we can, but it may take 5 business days before you receive an email with your approval status.

You may be contacted by the Network Quality team to provide additional requirements like disclosure forms, example documents, etc.

If you have not heard from us or received an email with your site's approval status, your site is still under "Pending" in the Settings tab on the platform, and you are not seeing clicks in your Sovrn dashboard after 5 business days, please reach out to support@sovrn.com.

Why don't I see clicks on my dashboard yet?

Until your sites (or channels of promotion) have been fully approved for our Commerce network via the approval process above, you will not be eligible to earn a commission with any of our available Merchants, and you will not see any clicks on your dashboard yet.

Note: Check the approval status under the Settings tab on the Platform.

You are likely not seeing clicks because you are still waiting to be approved. Review Analytics in Commerce to ensure you're using it correctly and reach out to support if you're approved but still not seeing activity you expect.

In the meantime, if you're still waiting to be approved, feel free to explore the Approved Merchants tab which shows merchant programs that you will have access to, including potential rates, once your site is approved. You may find additional information on our merchant programs here: Approved Merchants in Commerce.

I got approved! Now what?

You'll want to make sure the rest of your account is set up so we can start paying you! Make sure to complete these items as next steps:

Payments in Commerce

Visit our blog for additional content to help get you started, including:

Visit the Knowledge Base and know how to get support. We're here and happy to help you along your journey with Commerce.

I still need help.

If you still need help, our Onboarding Guides provide more step-by-step details for getting started with:

As always, if you still need help, have questions, or need clarification, please reach out to our support team. We're here and happy to help you along your journey with Commerce.