How to Set up the LearnWorlds Affiliate Management Program

LearnWorlds Affiliate Management is a LearnWorlds built-in tool that allows you to start an affiliate program. LearnWorlds affiliate and commission tracking tools are very intuitive and a piece of cake to set up. Here are the instructions that will help you set up your affiliate program.

Basic Affiliate Settings

Navigate to Marketing → Affiliate Management → Setup. In this section, you can set up every detail of your affiliate program.

• Choose to enable or disable your affiliate program. 
• Edit the Affiliate Agreement page. Your affiliate program should be governed by a specific agreement between you and your affiliate partners. You can prepare a comprehensive understanding by clicking on the Edit page. When you click on the Edit page you will see that we have prepared a suggested template (does not constitute legal advice). Your terms page URL will be your school URL followed by /affiliate-program-terms.

• You need to set up the commissions, and more specifically:

1. Commission rate: The commission rate is the percentage rate of your affiliate commissions, and it applies to all products added to the program. Commissions typically range from 10% to 50%. However, it is entirely your choice to make.

2. Cookie expiration: Any referral that will purchase signs up before the cookie expiration period will be associated with the respective affiliate. It is recommended that you set cookie expiration anywhere between 15 and 60 days.

3. Commission payable after: Α new customer might cancel their purchase after some time and ask for their money back. Therefore, you must ensure that your customer stays before you pay the commission to the affiliate. The "commission payable after” setting has entirely to do with your refund policy.

Affiliate payments are managed outside of the platform.

Affiliate Registration Page 

You can manually assign the role of the affiliate (if they have already created an account in your school):

...or allow them to register by themselves by turning on the Affiliate self-register setting.

We have prepared a default template that you can use or customize to your liking.

Notes: 

• The variable {{school.name}} is connected with your School's info under School Name. 
• Once visitors have clicked on the "Become an Affiliate" button or have already signed up as users in your school, a simple user account will have been created. For them to start an affiliate partnership with you, they have to click on the "Join the affiliate program" button that appears after they register. 
• As soon as they become affiliates, the "Affiliate dashboard" button will be then visible on the Self Register page (they can also access their dashboard by clicking on the pencil icon on their After Login page). 
• The self-registration and affiliate sign-in page URL is your school URL, followed by /affiliate-registration.

What Affiliates See once they log in

When an affiliate registers for your program, they get immediate access to their Affiliate Dashboard. On the dashboard, they can see how their work is performing at any time. 

• You can set up what your affiliates can see in terms of commission status.
• You can choose if your affiliates can see people (referrals) who have registered in the school but have not purchased anything yet. When these people buy, they become Customers, and they are not considered Leads anymore. 
• You can choose where the affiliate will be redirected after logging in (Affiliate dashboard, After login page, Another page, Specific URL).

Set Payment Methods

You can determine the payment options from which your affiliates will choose the preferred one. You can select PayPal, Bank transfer, and Other (if you keep the "other" option enabled, then your affiliates can fill in a text field with their preferred way of receiving payouts). 

Select Affiliate Products

You can choose which courses and bundles you would like to be available for your affiliate program.

Notes:

• The new course won’t be available for affiliate marketing if you don’t manually add it to this list. Only paid courses can be linked with your affiliate program. Free or private courses are not eligible for this.
• If you are not using our integrated payment gateways but an external one to receive payment for your products, then the affiliate system cannot track the referrals, commissions, and payments.
• If a user visits two affiliate links from two different affiliates and buys a product, then the affiliate's link the user visited last will get the commission.
• The integrated Affiliate feature exclusively supports user registrations through the LearnWorlds sign-up system, excluding those initiated via Single Sign-on (SSO) and Social Logins. Consequently, commissions for Affiliates are applicable solely to users who register using the LearnWorlds platform.

Features per plan

Our built-in affiliate system is available on the Pro Trainer (core functionality) and Learning Center plan (advanced functionality). The differences between the Pro Trainer plan, compared to the Learning Center plan are:

Frequently Asked Questions

Can affiliates self-register in my school?

In the Pro Trainer plan, affiliates cannot self-register hence you need to manually add the affiliate accounts in your school. In the Learning Center plan & above affiliates can self-registered via the Affiliate Registration Sections added to your school's pages or your school's Affiliate Registration Page (see above).

Can I set up an individual commission rate for each affiliate separately?

In the Pro Trainer plan, you can have a default general commission rate for all affiliates hence you cannot set an individual commission rate per affiliate.  Setting up the commission rate individually per affiliate is available in the Learning Center plan and above. 

Do Affiliates receive any Notification emails from my school?

When you manually add an affiliate to your school or when an affiliate is self-registered or when an affiliate payout has been completed from the school admin affiliates receive the relevant Notification emails from your school (if activated). You will find more information in this article.

• New sign up

Send a welcome e-mail to your affiliates when they sign up. This e-mail gets sent also when the admin of your school manually adds any affiliates.

• Payout completed

Send an automatic email to the affiliate you have just paid.

Does LearnWorlds facilitate the payout to affiliates?

At the moment, LearnWorlds calculates the commission that regards each affiliate but you will need to pay them externally.  Hence it's up to you to choose the way you will pay the commission to your affiliates & arrange with them to pay the calculated commission externally (e.g. via bank transfer, PayPal, etc).

In order for an affiliate to receive a commission, this means that they have already brought a customer into your school who purchased a product. As soon as the commission has matured, you can then pay it externally, according to the payment method that an affiliate has provided. As soon as the commission has been received by the affiliate externally, you can then mark the commission as Paid! So it's essential for an affiliate to write in their account which payment method they prefer (either PayPal, wire transfer, or any other method).

Whilst you’re free to pay out your affiliates whenever you want, we recommend waiting at least 30 days following the sale in case the customer requests a refund.

Do the affiliate payment calculations take into account tax?

The affiliate commission calculation is done based on the original course price, meaning before taxes.

Can Affiliates generate links for specific/several pages?

Any of your school affiliates are able to generate their own links through their Affiliate Dashboard. More specifically Affiliates can enter a URL to generate an affiliate link to any of your school’s pages. They just need to copy the public URL of the page in the field provided.

Can Affiliates apply coupons to their affiliate links?

If the school owner has supplied the Affiliate with a coupon code then the affiliate can apply the coupon automatically to their affiliate link. They can:

• Add a coupon to their affiliate link
• Create a link for any of your school's pages, with or without a coupon
• Create a link for any of your products (courses, bundles, subscriptions), with or without a coupon

Affiliates can apply a coupon to their affiliate link if the school owner has supplied them with one.

Can Affiliates generate affiliate links to specific product pages?

The school owner selects the courses, bundles, or subscriptions that will participate in the affiliate program. Then the affiliates will see these products in their Affiliate Dashboard and can generate affiliate links to these specific product pages.

Can Free courses be included in the Affiliate Program?

Free courses cannot be included in the Affiliate Program.

How does the user enrollment/purchase flow to a product associated with an Affiliate look like?

If a user uses the affiliate link, creates an account in your LearnWorlds school, and purchases a course that is part of the affiliate program within the cookie expiration period, the user will be counted as a Customer and a commission will be assigned to the affiliate who referred them. In more detail, this is how the system works:

• The affiliate creates and distributes an affiliate link.
• If a user uses this link and creates a new account in your LearnWorlds school, then this user is associated with the affiliate and any purchase made gives a commission to the affiliate.

Note: the user needs to create a new account from the same browser that accessed the site the first time they used the affiliate link and before the expiration of the cookie (affiliate setting).

Do Affiliates get a commission when an existing customer purchases via their Affiliate link?

In the case where a user is already registered in your LearnWorlds school and uses an Affiliate link since they do not count as new customers, there will be no commission for the Affiliate. The only way is if the user will create a new account (via a different email) from the same browser that accessed the site via the affiliate link, and before the cookie expiration.

After the user clicks on an affiliate link, creates an account in your LearnWorlds school, and buys the associated course (by using the integrated Payment Getaways) if they buy other courses within the time allocated by the cookies, then the affiliate will earn a commission for all purchases. But not if the user is an existing one and if they buy after the cookie expiration.

What if the user clicks on multiple links of more than one Affiliate? Will cookies track the first affiliate link and then the second affiliate link?

Scenario: If I have two Affiliates, Affiliate A & Affiliate B, and if the same user clicks on Affiliate's A link, but has not yet decided to join or purchase, then clicks on Affiliate's B link and joins my school & purchases who will get the commission?

The affiliate's link the user visited last, will get the commission (in case a user follows two affiliate links and then creates an account & buys a course, etc.).

If a user visits my LearnWorlds school through an affiliate link but doesn't purchase a product on that day, does the affiliate get credit for purchases in the future?

The user's actions are tracked according to the affiliate cookie expiration you will set up in your school:

So let's say that a user clicks on an affiliate link. If they don't buy any course the same day but buy the course (by using the school's integrated payment getaways) within the time allocated by the affiliate cookies, so within e.g 30 days, then the affiliate will earn a commission. But also the user will need to create an account in your LearnWorlds school within these 30 days from the same browser that accessed the affiliate link and will need to buy courses before the cookie expiration (e.g. before 30 days have passed).

Can the Affiliate earn a commission for multiple products via one affiliate link (if the user purchases multiple products)?

After the user clicks on an affiliate link they can buy multiple courses. If the user creates an account in your LearnWorlds school from the same browser they first accessed the school following the affiliate link and buy multiple courses before the affiliate cookie expiration (30 days) then the affiliate will earn a commission for all purchases. All purchases will be charged as referred by this referral.

What happens with Affiliate commissions for subscription products?

For subscriptions, the system calculates for an affiliate the recurring commissions. So with the renewal of a subscription plan, affiliates will get a commission, so for the whole life of a subscription.

In the case of a referred student who purchases e.g. a monthly subscription plan or payment plan, the affiliate will be getting a recurring commission for as long as the referred student maintains their paid subscription. The system will calculate for the affiliate the recurring commissions. So each month with the renewal of the subscription plan (or payment plan) they will receive a commission, not just for the initial subscription sale.

How long do commissions take to mature?

There is a maturity period and all commissions earned are subject to a maturity period.

The Commission maturity period depends on the Commission payable after you have selected. So let's say that the user is still enrolled after 25 days in the course they bought via the affiliate link then the commission amount will be eligible for payout.

What happens if the user cancels their course/subscription/bundle, etc enrollment associated with an Affiliate link?

If the user doesn't want to be enrolled anymore in the course, bundle, subscription, etc. associated with an Affiliate link (and e.g requests to get unenrolled and get a refund) before the "Commission payable after" time period (see above) then the affiliate commission won't be eligible for payout.