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The affiliate program (Pro)

This chapter describes a KeepsYa Pro feature. With the free plugin only,
the Affiliates screens and shortcode are not present.

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Pay coaches, partner gyms, or anyone with an audience a commission for the NEW
families they send you. This is different from the family referral program
(where existing families earn store credit): affiliates earn real money that
you pay out yourself (Zelle, check, cash), and KeepsYa keeps the books.

Turn it on

1. In the left menu, click KeepsYa, then Affiliates.
2. Under Program settings, tick Enable the affiliate program and save.
   Until you do, tracking links and commissions stay completely dormant.
3. The defaults are sensible: 10% of net, the first order per family, a 60-day
   attribution window, and a short grace period before money is owed. Change
   any of them here; each affiliate can also have their own deal.
4. The same screen sets the program defaults for the buyer reward (off by
   default), who funds it (owner or the affiliate), and how affiliate links
   interact with family referrals (first-touch by default). See “Reward the
   buyer too” and “Family referrals and affiliates” below.

Add an affiliate

1. On the same page, fill in Add an affiliate: their name, a tracking code
   (like coach-joe), and their deal. Three commission styles are available:
   – % of net: a share of what the family actually paid after any coupons
   or discounts. The fairest default.
   – % of gross: a share of the full price before discounts.
   – Fixed $: a flat amount per qualifying order.
   Whatever the style, an affiliate never earns more on an order than the money
   you actually received for it.
2. Pick (or first create) a WordPress user for them so they can log in to their
   own dashboard. KeepsYa grants the affiliate access automatically; archiving
   them removes it.
3. The editor also has a per-affiliate Buyer reward and funded by
   override. Leave them blank to inherit the program defaults, or set a custom
   reward for this affiliate. See the next section.
4. Their row in the list shows the tracking link with a copy button and a
   QR code. Send them either one; the link works on ANY page of your site
   (?aff=coach-joe can be added to a specific camp page, for example).

Reward the buyer too

An affiliate link can give the customer a discount at checkout, the same way
a family referral does. It is off by default; turn it on with a program default
(Affiliates → Program settings) or per affiliate (in the editor). The reward can
be a percent of net, a percent of gross, or a fixed dollar amount.

You choose who funds it:

• Owner-funded is an added marketing cost. The buyer gets the discount and
  the affiliate still earns full commission on the sale they drove (the discount
  is added back into the commission basis, like a coupon).
• Affiliate-funded comes out of the affiliate’s own commission, and is
  capped at that commission so the affiliate never goes negative. If the
  reward you set is larger than the commission, the buyer gets only up to the
  commission and the affiliate nets nothing on that order. (To give a bigger
  buyer reward, use owner-funded.)

Example on a $100 booking with a 10% commission and a $15 buyer reward:
owner-funded, the buyer pays $85 and the affiliate still earns $10;
affiliate-funded, the reward is capped at the $10 commission, so the buyer gets
$10 off and the affiliate nets $0.

The discount applies immediately to the live booking, for guests and account
holders alike.

How families get credited

• When someone clicks an affiliate’s link, KeepsYa remembers it for the
  attribution window (60 days by default). The FIRST affiliate link a family
  clicks wins; later clicks never steal the credit.
• The family is credited to the affiliate when they book or create an account.
  The binding becomes permanent at their first paid order.
• Guards are built in: an affiliate can never refer themselves, and families
  who already booked with you before never count (this is a program for NEW
  customers).

Family referrals and affiliates

A booking could in theory carry both a family referral link and an affiliate
link. By default KeepsYa uses first-touch: whichever link the customer
clicked first wins the whole booking, so you never pay two givers and the buyer
never gets two discounts. The other program is set aside for that booking.

If you would rather let both apply at once (the family referrer earns their
credit AND the affiliate earns their commission, and the buyer can receive both
discounts in sequence), change With family referrals to Stack under
Affiliates → Program settings. The combined discount can never drop a charge
below $0.

What earns a commission

• Paid bookings (camps, trainings, sessions).
• Punch card and package purchases.
• NOT account-balance top-ups (that money is refundable parked cash).
• A free $0 booking never commissions.

When the money is owed

A commission starts as Pending, then becomes Payable only after the
service was actually delivered AND the payment was received, plus a grace
period (7 days for events, 30 days for punch cards and packages, both
adjustable). If the family cancels first, the commission voids itself; if a
paid-out order is later refunded, a negative adjustment automatically nets
against what you owe next. You never have to chase a clawback by hand.

Paying your affiliates

1. Go to KeepsYa → Affiliates → Commissions. The Owed now line tells
   you exactly what each affiliate is due.
2. Send the money however you like (Zelle, check, cash); KeepsYa does not move
   money itself.
3. Tick the rows you covered, type one note (“Zelle 6/30 conf #123”), and
   click Mark selected paid. The date, the note, and who marked it are
   recorded forever, and the affiliate gets one payout-summary email.
4. Export CSV gives you the ledger under the current filters; the per-year
   paid totals on the Affiliates tab are your tax-time numbers.

What affiliates see

Put the [keepsya_affiliate] shortcode on any page and give affiliates the
link. After logging in they see their tracking link and QR, their earnings
(pending / payable / paid to date), the families they referred, and every
commission with its payout date and note.

Privacy is built in: affiliates only ever see a parent’s first name and last
initial, never children’s names, never contact details, and never another
affiliate’s data. Consider adding a sentence like this to your privacy policy:

If you reach us through a referral affiliate’s link, that affiliate can see
limited information about resulting bookings (first name, booking date, and
amount) for commission purposes.

If your site uses a cookie-consent plugin, a developer can gate the tracking
cookie behind it with the keepsya_affiliate_cookie_allowed filter (return
false until the visitor accepts marketing cookies).

Renaming the program

Prefer “Ambassadors” or “Coach Partners”? Rename the role under
KeepsYa → Settings → Wording and the new word appears everywhere: the admin
pages, the dashboard, and the emails. The two affiliate emails themselves are
editable under KeepsYa → Emails → Affiliate emails.

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