How-To Guide

Here we will get into some of the finer points of setting up special features of your affiliate program.

This section will grow with our experience of what you need and ask for, so don't be afraid to ask!

We are planning to include videos showing setup, setting links, creating banners & more.

We have a couple of articles to start you off. The instructions devolve into Greek pretty quickly, but we'll do our best to tone it down and write simply.

Choosing Your Username

Your username will be displayed as part of the link code. Example: A guy named George opens an account and selects the username "George". His main affiliate link becomes:

http://ofthefield.com/jam/jrox.php?uid=george

You could choose an appearently meaningless username, such as "d9I3f25", but it is conceivable that folks in-the-know could still strip it off and deny you your due.

Affiliate Link Protector

There is a way around doing this visibly: It's a tool called the "Affiliate Link Protector", and it's found in your account under "Affiliate tools" at the bottom. The tool generates an invisible but functional webpage with the sole purpose of making it so nobody can see or strip off your affiliate ID. They go to your special page which redirects them to your main affiliate link, which in turn redirects your customer to the OfTheField Store after counting the click and setting the tracking on your guest's machine.

It goes like this: "click" --> they go to the invisible page the tool makes --> they go to the affiliate page (which is also invisible) --> they go to the final page in our store that you were linking to. This all happens quickly on-the-fly. Their experience is: "click" ---> they're on the page they thought they were going to.

The Affiliate Link Protector makes the page in 3 different ways depending on which one you pick (in order of robustness): PHP, HTML & Javascript. Your server needs to have PHP working to use that version. Just try it and see if it redirects you to the OFTheField Store. Failing that, use either the HTML or Javascript version, but know this: if someone has the javascript turned off in their browser (as is popular with our market), that version would not work and that's bad. Of course, you can rename the file to anything you like so long as it works and you don't change the extension (the ".php" or the ".html").

Having used the Affiliate Link Protector to make the page, just FTP it to your site and link to it.