Coupon Onboarding Guide for Commerce
Overview
Unlike other affiliate platforms, Sovrn Commerce requires all sites to implement or install our affiliate links and generate clicks before reviewing a site for approval. If approved, you'll be able to affiliate with tens of thousands of merchants without the need to apply to these merchants individually. To help get you through our review process, we've developed this onboarding guide, which will give you instructions, tips, warnings, and extra resources to give your account the best possible chance at approval.
This onboarding guide is best suited for publishers who have a coupon site, and are hoping to utilize Sovrn's affiliate links and Coupon API. There are a couple aspects that are unique to Coupon or Deal Publishers, which we will walk through in this guide!
This guide will walk through the following steps (and you can skip to a specific step by clicking an icon below)
Registration ➡️ Installation ➡️ Generate Clicks ➡️ Get Approved ➡️ Next Steps
Registration
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.
You'll be asked to confirm your email address.
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 page, which will appear soon.
You'll also need to read and accept terms and conditions at this point.
Installation
You're making great progress! Now that you've gone through the Sovrn onboarding flow, we will need you to implement one of the Sovrn affiliate link options.
Note: As a coupon site, we recommend installing the Sovrn Commerce Javascript.
Tip: After you exit the sign up screen screen and work flow, go to the "Install" page in your Dashboard here.
Installing the javascript gives you access to our main feature, Convert. Convert looks for product links on your site and "converts" these links into an affiliate link automatically!
You can click the < > icon on the settings page to view your account's Javascript snippet. You will want to copy the code snippet by clicking the small copy icon. From there, install the code at the very end of your page, just before the <\body> tag. Since the code needs to be present on every page where you want Sovrn to affiliate links, we recommend adding it to your site's template. You can also find Google Tag Manager, AMP, Wordpress, and other installation methods by clicking on their respective logos on the Install page.
If you are looking for a more customized way to create affiliate links, you can use our API to create links programmatically. You can find more information about the commerce APIs here.
You can also use the Create Links feature to generate individual affiliate links. You can learn more about this tool in this article: Create Links in Commerce.
Generate Clicks
Once you've implemented Sovrn Commerce, we will need to see a few clicks routing through these links. This allows us to check on your installation and ensure that we are receiving traffic successfully. We recommend sending a few test clicks through these links, or having your users click on the links that you created.
Warning: 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.
Get Approved
You've gotten through our implementation process! Now that you've generated a click, your site has been 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.
Note: See the status of your site on the Settings tab in the Sovrn Platform.
If you have not received an update with your site's approval status, and you are not seeing clicks in your Sovrn dashboard after 5 business days, please reach out to support@sovrn.com.
Tip: Please display your Sovrn affiliate link in a clear, easy to find location on your site. We need to see an example of this link to complete our review.
Make sure you adhere to the Sovrn code of conduct. Please review it here.
Laws and regulations require the use of using disclosure statements in your content. Review what a disclosure statement is, and how to use them Sovrn Commerce Disclosure Statements.
Want more info on our approval process? You can find more information here.
Next Steps
Here are some next steps to finish entering your account information, and to set you up for success moving forward.
Affiliate with Merchants
If your site is approved for Sovrn Commerce, you can now affiliate with tens of thousands of our merchant partners without needing to request additional approval! You can search for any merchant that you would like to affiliate with in our "Approved Merchants" page to find their individual rate information, including average commission rates, conversions rates, average order values, and average earnings per click. Approved Merchants in Commerce.
You can also download a full list of merchants that your site is approved for via the "Approved Merchant Report" under the "Report" button in your analytics dashboard.
Looking for more information on how to best affiliate with merchants? We've included more tips here: 5 Tips for Getting Started with Sovrn Commerce
What about Coupon Codes and Deals?
The Sovrn Commerce Coupon API is a closed API provided by our network partner. This API allows you to access Coupon and Deal feeds for merchants that you are promoting on your site. Sovrn Commerce will request approval on your behalf, and a review of your site could take 3-5 business days.
To review your site for our Coupon API, our Network partner requires the following information:
Your Sovrn account email
Your website URL
Explanation of how you plan to add Coupons and Deals to your site
Example of different locations where you are placing these codes and affiliate links
Please note that, if approved, our network partner will monitor click and conversion performance. If approved, you will have a few weeks to begin sending clicks through the affiliate links provided through the Coupon API along with the Coupon codes. To maintain approval, you will need to keep sending clicks and generating conversions through these provided affiliate links. If clicks are not seen from your account, or if there are clicks but no conversions from your account, your access to this API may be revoked. If approved, Sovrn will provide a link to our Coupon API upon approval, as well as next steps!
Please reach out to us at support@sovrn.com to get started!
Add additional sites to your account: Traffic Segmentation
Sovrn requires each unique location where you intend to add Sovrn affiliate links to be reviewed for approval individually. Not only does Traffic Segmentation help with reporting for your account, but it keeps your account in compliance with Sovrn and our Merchant and Network partners.
To learn about traffic segmentation, please see this article: Traffic Segmentation in Commerce.
Tip: You only need to submit unique locations for approval (such as your Website, Facebook group, Instagram page, and App Store link). You do not need to add individual pages of a site for approval (such as website.com/page1 and website.com/page2).
You can add additional sites, profiles, or softwares to your account here.
For example, someone with multiple social media accounts and a website, a Settings page with correctly segmented traffic would have separate sites submitted for:
instagram.com/page1
instagram.com/page2
website.com
For more information on how to use the Settings tab, please see: Settings in Commerce.
Payment and Tax Information
You'll want to finish setting up your account by adding payment and tax information. You can add your payment information here.
If you have multiple Apps in your Sovrn account, you will need to add payment information for each of your products. You can add payment information for a specific app by using the "Product" drop down menu.
You can read more about Sovrn Commerce payment methods, thresholds, and schedules in this article: Payments in Commerce.
More Resources
Sovrn Blog
Find the Sovrn blog here. Successful affiliate marketing requires an active strategy, a good understanding of data, and, of course, high-quality content. Sovrn posts industry trends, recommended holiday promotions, and deep dives into our product offerings on the Sovrn Blog. Improving your understanding by learning more about these topics (to name a few) will help you in this area:
Knowledge Base
More information on how to use the Sovrn Commerce platform can be found in the Sovrn Knowledge base. You'll find information on everything from account setup, implementation, troubleshooting, analytics, and more. We recommend the checking out the following topics:
Learn more about how to read the Commerce dashboard, understand the metrics, and some of the caveats you may run into, see: Analytics in Commerce.
Find out about payment thresholds, cycles, methods, reconciliation, and more, see: Payments in Commerce.
Understand how to best utilize Commerce to affiliate with merchants, see: Approved Merchants in Commerce.
Support
As always, please feel free to reach out to publisher support with any questions, concerns, or feedback here. We're happy to help with any questions you have!