This article details the best practice when creating your program Terms and Conditions for your partner base.
What are Advertiser Profile Terms and Conditions?
The Advertiser Profile Terms tab allows you to clearly define the Terms and Conditions for your affiliate program. It promotes greater transparency to the network and partners. It’s divided into several sections that all have to be completed for your profile to be 100% complete.
What can they be used for?
The Terms have been laid out to conform to the IAB Ethical Advertiser charter so that all parties involved can be assured transparency and that every revision is logged within the history viewable to all.
What to include
General
This is a free text space for you to include any key or general terms that you wish to highlight to partners. Partners agree to all terms and conditions when they apply and/or join to a program. If something is not clearly outlined in your terms, you cannot hold partners accountable so consider what needs to be included.
Be sure to add a line of copy that stipulates your contractual closure notice period: Please note – this program operates with a XX day closure notice period. Refer to your contractual terms and conditions for further information on your notice period, or reach out to support. You can get in touch with our support team by filling out the contact form.
The below list contains recommendations and advice on what to include in your T&Cs, but is not limited to this.
Partner benefits when they’re approved onto the program: Welcome pack, creatives, guidelines, increased partner rates for the start of the partnership, etc.
Commission structure and rates: Default rate, by customer type, by product type, by partner type, by basket value, commission by assist.
Validation process: What is your returns policy
For travel clients - Will they validate after someone stays or what is the criteria?
For finance clients - What are the considerations before validating? Do they have to be accredited?
For telco clients - What are the consideration before validating? Does the customer have to pay X amount of months?
Statement of consequences: If a partner breaches the T&Cs or policies, e.g., commission reversal or suspension.
Voucher codes: If used, what are your conditions surrounding voucher and promotional codes? Are all codes permitted, or only those shared through the My Offers section, or sent via the Communication Center?
Cookie period: 30 days for Awin Access, 30 days as standard for Accelerate or Advanced. Refer to your contractual terms and conditions for further information on your cookie period, or reach out to support. You can get in touch with our support team by filling out the contact form.
Additional information: Provide relevant contact information and encourage feedback.
To see what other advertisers in similar sectors outline in their Terms and Conditions, visit our Advertiser Directory.
PPC
PPC stands for pay-per-click, a model of search engine marketing (SEM) in which advertisers/partners pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. If you allow partners to work in the PPC space for you, this can be outlined here. This tab has a number of predefined common questions in regards to PPC. This will clearly display to partners how you’d like them to promote you via the PPC method. There are radio buttons for Yes or No and an Additional Information section to add any other details. Once you are happy with the settings you have applied, click Save.
Transactions
This section outlines any information partners need to know about:
What is tracking within a transaction amount, i.e. are commissions paid on all products, does the transaction value that commissions are paid on include/exclude VAT, delivery charges.
What could cause transactions to be declined, i.e. order cancelled, item returned, invalid code used.
It’s really important that the information provided here is correct and that any changes are communicated to all partners on the program. Once happy with the settings you have applied, click Save.
Branding
This area allows you to detail any brand-specific guidelines you may have for partners, so ensure that these are clear and outlined as needed. Examples include whether there are any specific sites a partner can’t work with due to branding guidelines, specific name/spelling to respect, etc.
If you don’t have any branding guidelines, simply enter No branding guidelines. Otherwise the profile will remain incomplete.
Commissions
These are contractual terms which state that you can’t lower commission by more than 20% over a 30 day period, and you must give partners 7 days’ notice of these changes.
Notice period
This tab outlines the number of days notices you will give partners in advance of any change to your website or program. This ensures greater transparency and communication between you and your partners. Select the number of days’ notice you will give on each of the policy definitions and click Save. Once set, you must adhere to this whilst running the account.
Publishers
This section allows you to clearly outline which partner types you work with on your program. You can find out more information about publisher types here. Please make sure that all questions are answered and remember to add in any additional information that partners need to be aware of. Once you are happy with the settings you have applied, click Save.
De-duplication
Advertisers are increasingly utilizing a number of paid for online marketing channels. De-duplication is a process for attributing a sale to one online marketing channel that has delivered the sale based on predefined conditions. These conditions will decide which tracking tag is shown on the confirmation of sale page. The process of de-duping is to prevent multiple commissions being awarded to other online marketing channels for the same sale.
It’s important however to note some factors when it comes to de-duplication:
Commercial models - Other digital channels are paid for in different ways rather than just conversion like affiliates.
Not an attribution solution - It is a way to identify who drove the sale, not an attribution solution.
What to de-dupe against - There are several other marketing channels you will be working with, so ensuring you stick to best practice rules on which channels you de-dupe against is key when setting up your affiliate program. When you are deciding which channels to de-dupe against, be aware of your strategy as it could influence a partner to promote a competitor if they believe their contribution to the sale would not be rewarded.
If you operate in multiple marketing channels and choose to de-duplicate against them, the De-Duplication tab allows you to be fully transparent to your partners about the attribution of a sale. List all online marketing channels in which you may operate and which could affect the sale being attributed to a partner on a last-click attribution model. You should select the particular channels you de-dupe against. A partner will commonly check this tab before beginning promotion so they can allocate the correct resources within the customer journey.
If de-duplication is added to the tracking set up once the account is live, this section must be updated and relevant notice period adhered to so that partners are made aware. For more information on de-duplication and its standard practices, please see our guide.
Publishing your T&Cs
Your program terms will only be published if you have actively clicked on the Save button, Publish now, and Discard drafts on all tabs. Your information will be saved as a draft until it’s published and won’t be visible to partners.
Please note that once published, the T&Cs will be listed on our Advertiser Directory that is accessible to the general public.
If you have any documentation regarding your T&Cs, you can upload them to the Documents tab of your profile. In the relevant terms sections, you need to add: Please look at the Documents tab to see our T&Cs guidelines.
Important
If you update your T&Cs at any point, you need to give 7 days’ notice before these come in effect and communicate to partners through the Communication Center.