About a year ago we launched the CafePress Affiliate Program. We saw it as a revolutionary program with benefits for Shopkeepers, Affiliates, and CafePress. As you know, the basic purpose of an affiliate program is to drive incremental external web traffic � and ultimately sales. Unfortunately this program did not meet that key objective, and a continued investment in a program that was not meeting this basic goal became difficult. Ultimately this program lacked ability to scale, build momentum, and ROI.
This led us to seek out a program that could meet the combined needs of our Shopkeeper and Affiliate partners, and CafePress. An external, third party affiliate network seemed an obvious choice. After evaluating four potential vendors to power the CafePress Affiliate Program platform and services, we selected Commission Junction.
The Commission Junction network provides the greatest revenue potential for CafePress Shopkeepers, and we believe the new CafePress Affiliate Program powered by Commission Junction will generate significantly more incremental traffic and revenue to CafePress Shopkeepers while providing Affiliates with a better experience.
- When is the CafePress Affiliate Program powered by Commission Junction launching?
The CafePress Affiliate Program on CJ will launch April 10. Affiliates will have until May 31, 2007 to migrate their links to the Commission Junction link format.
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- How do I join the CafePress Affiliate Program powered by Commission Junction?
The CafePress Affiliate Program on Commission Junction will go live on April 10. You can join the program as follows:
- Go to www.cj.com
- Create an affiliate account or login to your existing CJ affiliate account
- Click the Get Links Tab
- Enter "cafepress" in the search box
- Click "Join" to enroll in the CafePress Affiliate Program
We will also post a sign up link on the Affiliate Program Overview page on CafePress once the program goes live.
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- What is the commission payout for the CafePress Affiliate Program powered by Commission Junction?
The base commission rate is 15%. Affiliates that generate greater than $10,000 / month in revenue should contact affiliates@cafepress.com to learn if you qualify for a higher commission rate.
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- What is the cookie duration for the CafePress Affiliate Program powered by Commission Junction?
The cookie duration for the CafePress Affiliate Program on CJ is 30 days. This means that you will earn a commission on orders for users you refer to CafePress that do not make a purchase immediately but return to the site within 30 days of the initial visit. If the visitor returns to CafePress via another affiliate link or CafePress marketing campaign within that 30-day period, the most recent referrer earns credit for the sale.
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- When will I get paid for affiliate commissions?
The CafePress transaction life cycle on Commission Junction is 45 days. This means orders and commissions reported in your affiliate account may potentially get reversed if an order is cancelled or returned within the 45 day life cycle period. After 45 days, the transaction "locks" for payment.
Commission Junction is responsible for payment to affiliates and issues commission payments on the 20th of each month. Please check with www.cj.com for other questions related to payment.
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- How can I access my existing affiliate account on CafePress?
All features on Affiliate Central will remain available through May 31, 2007. After May 31st, Affiliate Central will no longer be available. This includes the affiliate banners and links, affiliate reports, and other content. Affiliate earnings reports will be available in Your Account on CafePress under the Transaction Report.
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- How do I create links to CafePress using Commission Junction?
Once the CafePress Affiliate Program is live on April 10, 2007 you can create links and download banner creative as follows:
- Login to your affiliate account on www.cj.com.
- If you have not yet joined the CafePress Affiliate Program through CJ, click "Apply to Program" and you will receive an email containing instructions for next steps.
- Click the "Get Links" tab.
- Enter "CafePress" in the search box to locate our program on CJ.
- Click "View Links" to retrieve HTML code for banners and links.
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- Once the CafePress Affiliate Program powered by Commission Junction launches, when will I, (as an affiliate) receive my first commission payout.
Assuming a launch date of April 10, 2007 and assuming that you make affiliate sales between April 10th and April 20th, you will receive your first check on June 20th, 2007.
Commission junction pays out on the 20th of every month, and there is a 45-day life cycle period (to account for cancelled, returned and declined orders), once these two factors are figured in the first eligible payment date will be June 20.
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- Can I link to a CafePress shop?
Yes, you can receive a commission for referring buyer to a CafePress shop provided you are generating traffic from outside of CafePress. You must verify that the shop you are linking to has opted in to have products available for affiliate sales � you can verify this by ensuring the products sold in the shop are available in the CafePress Marketplace.
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- What CafePress products qualify for affiliate commission?
All products sold through the CafePress Marketplace are eligible for affiliate commission with the following exceptions � custom postage, bulk orders, and fulfillment products. Also, when linking directly to a shop, it is important to verify the shopkeeper is opted in to receive affiliate sales � you can verify this by ensuring products sold in a shop are also displayed in the CafePress Marketplace.
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- How much money do I have to earn before I am eligible to receive a check?
You must earn $25 in your Commission Junction account before you can receive payment. Please check with Commission Junction if you have additional questions regarding payment.
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- Can I have my checks deposited directly into my bank account?
Yes, Commission Junction offers direct deposit. Please check with Commission Junction if you have additional questions regarding payment.
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- How do I check reports on Commission Junction once the CafePress Affiliate Program powered by Commission Junction is live?
- Login to your affiliate account at www.cj.com.
- Click the "Run Reports" tab.
- If you have specific questions about reports available, please contact Commission Junction for help or email affiliates@cafepress.com.
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- How often are reports updated?
Traffic, order revenue, and commissions are submitted real-time. CafePress has a 45-day transaction life cycle on Commission Junction. This means orders that are returned or cancelled may be corrected and commissions reversed anytime within 45 days of the order date.
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- Can I be a CafePress Affiliate and a Shopkeeper?
Yes, CafePress Shopkeepers can participate in the CJ Affiliate Program provided they are generating traffic from web sites external to CafePress. Please note, CJ affiliate links may not be displayed in your own CafePress shop.
If you want your current affiliate links to continue tracking and earning commission, you can opt in for Affiliate Link Redirection. This requires you to create a CJ account and provide CafePress with your CJ PID on Affiliate Central.
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- Why is CafePress Migrating its affiliate platform to Commission Junction?
About 18 months ago, we launched the current CafePress Affiliate Program. In its planning stages we saw it as a revolutionary new way drive incremental external web traffic to the CafePress Marketplace, and encourage Shopkeepers to drive traffic to each other's shops. Unfortunately, the program did not meet these key objectives.
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- When is the existing CafePress Affiliate Program ending?
CafePress will stop accepting new Affiliates to the existing CafePress Affiliate Program on March 23, 2007. Existing members will be able to use their account with existing features and services until May 31, 2007, after which time functionality will be limited to the Transaction Report available in Your Account.
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- Will TopicAds continue to be supported through the CafePress Affiliate Program on CJ?
No, the TopicAds banners and functionality will no longer exist after May 31, 2007. However, TopicAds that are not removed after the Affiliate Program migration will be dynamically replaced by a generic CafePress ad campaign to prevent page errors or broken links from displaying.
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- Is CafePress changing access to, or functionality of, any of its APIs?
At this time CafePress is not changing the method of accessing or the functionality of its current API offerings. Additionally, Commission Junction will offer optional access to a condensed Product Catalog feed of approximately 600,000 of the best selling items on CafePress.
Please contact affiliates@cafepress.com if you need more information about using CafePress Product Catalogs.
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- As a Shopkeeper, am I responsible for paying affiliate commissions for affiliate generated sales?
If you are opted in to the CafePress Marketplace, then your products are eligible for affiliate sales and 20% of your markup will be deducted for affiliate driven sales.
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- As a Shopkeeper, am I required to have my products eligible for affiliate sale?
No, you are not required to have your products available for affiliate sale and can choose to opt out of the Marketplace. Keep in mind that affiliate driven sales are incremental � you would not generate the sale if the affiliate had not driven the customer to your product or shop.
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- As a Shopkeeper, do I need to open a CJ account in order for my products to be eligible for sale by traffic referred from Affiliates?
No, Shopkeepers do not need to join CJ for their products to be available to visitors referred by Affiliates.
However, Shops that want their products to be eligible for traffic referred by Affiliates do need to be opted in to the Marketplace.
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- As a Shopkeeper opted in to the Marketplace, how will I know which of my sales are Affiliate driven sales?
You will able to view reports showing which of your sales occurred as a result of an Affiliate in the exact same manner as today. Affiliate sales will still display as they do today in the CafePress Order Report reports with an asterisk. (*)
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- Why is it that a Shopkeeper pays 20% for every affiliate sale, but an affiliate (who makes less that $10,000 per month) only receives a 15% commission? What happens to that extra 5%?
By working with a third party affiliate network we are now incurring additional program expenses. For every affiliate sale made through a CJ link CafePress pays 3 parties, the Shopkeeper, the CJ affiliate, and CJ itself.
On a basic level a CJ affiliate sale pays out as follows:
| CafePress base price: | | $10.00 |
| Shopkeeper markup: | $5.00 |
| Total Sale at Retail: | $15.00 |
| | |
| Shopkeeper pays (20% of markup): | $1.00 |
| CafePress pays (20% of base): | $2.00 |
| Affiliate (15%) makes: | $2.25 |
The difference of $0.75 covers Commission Junction transaction fees and program costs.
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- As a Shopkeeper, how does it benefit me to opt in to the CafePress Marketplace and sell my products through the Affiliate Program?
The CafePress Affiliate Program generates incremental sales and new customers to CafePress. Product sales generated through the new CafePress Affiliate Program will often come from customers who are new to CafePress. Although you are giving up 20% of your markup price for the affiliate sale, there are two things to keep in mind � 1) the sale would not have occurred at all if your product was not available for affiliate sales 2) your shop will have just earned a new, potentially loyal customer. Customers that find your shop through affiliate driven web traffic or the CafePress Marketplace often return by going to directly to your shop which means you may only pay the 20% markup on that first sale. By participating in the CafePress Affiliate Program, you are making an investment in the marketing of your shop, which over time will grow your customer base.
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- Who do I contact if I have questions regarding the CafePress Affiliate Program?
Please email us at affiliates@cafepress.com and we would be happy to help you with questions regarding joining the CJ affiliate program and migrating your existing CafePress affiliate links to the new CJ format.
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- I've heard the large affiliate networks such as CJ contain affiliates that engage in parasitic practices. How will CafePress prevent parasite affiliates from participating in the CafePress Affiliate Program?
The CafePress Affiliate Terms of Service on Commission Junction strictly prohibit parasitic activities. Affiliates found to be engaging in these activates will be terminated from the program. Commission Junction has taken a leadership role in establishing the Affiliate industry's Publisher Code of Conduct which prohibits any form of parasitic business practice by affiliates. As a first line of defense, the CJ Network Quality team works diligently to ensure all affiliates in the CJ network meet the standards of the Code of Conduct which can be viewed here: http://www.cj.com/code_of_conduct.html.
As a second measure, the CafePress Affiliate team plays a proactive role in monitoring the activities of our affiliates. In order to be accepted into the CafePress Affiliate Program, loyalty affiliates (which are flagged during the affiliate application process by CJ) are reviewed and must meet our criteria through initial screening before being accepted into the program.
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- Are there minimum thresholds required to retain membership as a Commission Junction affiliate?
There are no upfront minimums required in order to obtain an Affiliate account. The Commission Junction policy currently requires sales activity in order to maintain an Affiliate account. Accounts earning $0.00 within a six month period will be deactivated.
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- How soon will my affiliate application be processed by CafePress on Commission Junction?
Due to our application review process, please allow 4-5 business days for your affiliate application to be processed by CafePress.
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- Will current CafePress affiliate links continue to pay 20% commission through May 31, 2007?
Yes, as a CafePress Affiliate, you will continue earning 20% commission in accordance with the Affiliate Commission Schedule on your current CafePress Affiliate links through May 31, 2007.
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- Will CafePress continue to cookie my premium shop with my affiliate link?
No. When the CafePress Affiliate Program migrates to Commission Junction tracking after May 31, CafePress will no longer cookie Premium Shops with the member�s CafePress PID. Therefore, in order to earn Affiliate commission on sales that occur when visitors do not purchase from your Shop but continue on to make a purchase from another CafePress Shopkeeper, you must have referred this visitor with your PID from outside the CafePress web domain AND be an active CJ Affiliate with Link Redirection enabled.
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- Are there parasites on the CJ Affiliate Network? Should I be concerned?
Parasites and other malicious programs like spyware and adware exist. And they exist on networks like CJ because they are the largest affiliate network out there. Even if CafePress continued operating the in-house affiliate platform, it is very likely these parasites would have tried to move in once the system got big enough. Why? Because where there is opportunity, there is always someone out there to game the system, right?
So, the more relevant question is does CafePress like parasites? And the answer is obviously no. They create a bad customer experience. They cost us money. They cost Shopkeepers money. What will CafePress do to prevent parasites? Just like we do today, we'll constantly be monitoring who is using the affiliate program and how they are using it. If we find undesirable behavior (like parasites, adware, etc) - we will kick them out of our program. We actually have done this in the past with some adware services that signed up with the current program. As a first line of defense, CJ has a network quality team constantly monitoring their system to identify suspicious behavior.
At the end of the day, CafePress only grows if our Shopkeepers are successful, and we're committed to making that happen.
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- What are Loyalty Affiliates? Are they considered parasites?
Loyalty Affiliates operate typically well-known consumer brand name web sites that reward customers for purchasing from a Merchant through their web site. Examples are eBates and Upromise. Loyalty sites function by sharing a percentage of their affiliate commissions with the end consumer when that consumer makes a purchase that originates on the loyalty web site. The benefit Loyalty sites provide to CafePress Shopkeepers is exposure to large (1MM+) audiences of new potential buyers.
Are loyalty affiliates considered parasites? Loyalty affiliates in the CJ network are governed by Publisher Code of Conduct which was pioneered by CJ and other affiliate service providers http://www.cj.com/code_of_conduct.html. The code prohibits affiliates from employing any kind of tactic that overwrites affiliate IDs, redirects the user with non-end user initiated events and in any way interferes with accurate referral tracking. CafePress will only permit loyalty affiliates who meet the compliance standards in our Affiliate terms of service to participate in our Affiliate Program. Suspicious affiliate activity should be directed to affiliates@cafepress.com.
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- What happens to my old links?
Right now we're working on a solution where you won't have to change your current CafePress affiliate links. So long as you sign up for a CJ affiliate account and tell us your CJ PID, we'll translate your current CafePress PID so current links will continue to operate - CJ will handle the tracking, reporting, and payment to you. More specific information on how this process will work is coming soon!
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- Can I link to my own Shop or products on CafePress via CJ Affiliate links?
Yes, shopkeepers that participate in the CafePress Affiliate Program powered by CJ are permitted to link to their own Shops and products on CafePress, provided they provide us their CJ PID. More information is coming soon!
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- Will I earn affiliate commission on my own product sales if I link to my own Shop?
No, you won't earn commissions on your own products, but you will earn affiliate commissions for sales that occur after the referred visitor leaves your store. To earn Affiliate commissions, the visitor you refer must have originated from outside of the CafePress web domain. CafePress will no longer cookie premium shops with Affiliate PIDs after May 31.
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- I've heard CP is explicitly targeting loyalty programs/parasites/points programs for the affiliate program. Isn't that bad and why would you do it?
We definitely are not targeting parasites. These affiliates do not play by the rules and steal sales from legitimate affiliates and shopkeepers, as well as cost shopkeepers and CafePress a lot of money. There has been a lot of conversation about loyalty programs and we want to clarify the types of programs we want to work with. Loyalty programs such as online points programs that reward members with incentives to shop through their links and promotions are another kind of loyalty program. These programs potentially take sales from "free customers" and turn them into "affiliate customers", costing you and CP affiliate commissions. At this time we do not plan on working with these types of customers. There are other types of loyalty programs such as offline credit card programs and frequent flier programs that offer their members "exclusive offers and deals" to increase the value of their membership. We believe these types of programs offer CafePress exposure to new customers and we will test them to see if they are successful.
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- Were other Affiliate Programs such as LinkShare and Share-A-Sale considered, and if so, why did CafePress decide to go with Commission Junction?
Yes, we did consider various affiliate networks. The first way we did it was through a survey that we sent to all Shopkeepers in the Affiliate program last October. We asked if Shopkeepers used external Affiliate networks. Over 50% said that they used CJ, and because of that CJ became a strong contender. We requested proposals from multiple network providers.
We chose CJ for the combination of both reach and "non-exclusivity". CJ has the largest reach of all networks, meaning that they have more affiliates with very large customer bases. They also allow us to work with other networks if we want.
The other reasons why they were a good choice were that they have good reporting and they offer HTML banners.
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- Why did CP consider the in-house affiliate program unsuccessful?
The in-house affiliate program required a lot of tech resources. The system was difficult to manage. It required a lot of resources simply to maintain our reporting and we were not getting around to fixing other things or adding new capabilities. It was too expensive to run.
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- Why didn't you just fix the old program if it wasn't working?
We are not experts in building affiliate network systems and we decided we would rather invest in building more capabilities and features for the shops.
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- Is there a fee to use the product catalog "data feeds" on CJ?
Yes, CJ offers access to its product catalog for many of their merchants. The cost is a one time fee of $200 and gives you access to all the merchants on the CJ catalog.
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- Would you consider adding Share-a-sale in the future?
Possibly, but it would affect some of the initiatives we have for the year such as shop tools. As of now, we are not actively pursuing this initiative.
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