Launching Your Network

Get your HasOffers network up and running by following these steps. Their order is based on best practices, starting with your networks essential settings, then moving to setting up advertisers, then offers, and finally affiliates.

Experienced network owners may also have pre-existing advertisers, offers, and affiliates to import, and otherwise know what settings they can skip for the time being. Those new to owning a network should treat this as a step-by-step process.

We’ll tell you which settings you should definitely address before launching your network. The rest of the settings have default values applicable to most new networks, though you should review those to make sure they apply to your marketing goals.

This process is broken into three overall segments:

• Part 1: Key Information and Essential Network Settings
• Part 2: Affiliate & Advertiser Content Settings, Network Theme, and Affiliate Fraud
• Part 3: Setting Advertisers, Offers, and Affiliates Up

Key Information

The first step to using HasOffers is knowing how it works in the affiliate marketing ecosystem. We recommend doing so with our Intro to Performance Marketing and Basics of Tracking with HasOffers articles.

These articles are also great for networks to give to new employees or any software developers you contract with, for them to get quickly on board with the business model and your needs as a network owner.

You also need to know your network ID. It’s the first part of your HasOffers URL: http://NETWORKID.hasoffers.com/. Not only do you need to know that to know your URL, but it’s also required for various custom or third-party services. Make sure you always have in mind your network ID when working with your HasOffers account.

Essential Network Settings

To get to your network’s settings, log in to your network by going to http://NETWORKID.hasoffers.com/ (replacing “NETWORKID” with your network ID) and entering your username and password. From the main menu, go to Company > Customize Application:

On the page that appears, you can access the majority of your network’s settings in the Settings panel.

Application Settings

The first option in the Settings panel is Application. There, you can find various network-wide application settings. Some key settings you’ll find here are:

• Network Name
• HasOffers Information
• Language, including Allow Multiple Languages
• Currency, including Multiple Currencies
• Enable VAT and Network VAT ID
• Network Time Zone

Domain Settings

The second option in the Settings panel is Domain. On that page, you’ll see your network-wide domain settings. The key settings to review are in the Email Domain section.

Affiliate Settings

The third option in the Settings panel is Affiliate. Click on that to bring up a page with various network-wide affiliate settings.

Some key settings to review are:

• Affiliate Sign Up
• Custom File Size Limit
• VAT Tax (available only if you enabled VAT in Application Settings)
• The entire Affiliate Billing section, especially Affiliate Invoice Frequency and Auto Generate Invoices

Advertiser Settings

The fourth option in the Settings panel is Advertiser. Click on that to bring up a page with various network-wide advertiser settings.

Some key settings you should look at are:

• Advertiser Sign Up
• Approve and Reject Conversions
• VAT Tax (available only if you enabled VAT in Application Settings)

Offer Settings

The fifth option in the Settings panel is Offer. Click on that to bring up a page with various network-wide offer settings.

Settings in this section default to our best practices. Take a brief look over them to see if any don’t apply to your business model.

Tracking Settings

The final option in the Settings panel is Tracking. Click on that to bring up a page with various network-wide tracking settings.

Some key settings to review here are:

• Click Metrics (beware of changing once you start running traffic)
• Offer Whitelisting
• Show auto-rejected conversions in admin conversion reports, which we recommend you enable

Next, you can continue on to the second part of preparing your network:

• Part 1: Key Information and Essential Network Settings
• Part 2: Affiliate & Advertiser Content Settings, Network Theme, and Affiliate Fraud
• Part 3: Setting Advertisers, Offers, and Affiliates Up

Affiliate & Advertiser Content Settings

On the Customize Application page, you’ll also find a number of options for customizing the information your network displays or sends to affiliates and advertisers. These options are in the Content section:

Terms & Conditions

At a minimum, review the terms and conditions your affiliates and advertisers must agree to when signing up to your network. To do so, go to Company > Customize Application > Content > Affiliate Terms and Conditions or Advertiser Terms and Conditions.

We provide you with boilerplate text and HTML, but you should revise your terms and conditions with legal counsel to genuinely represent how you operate and do business. You can use standard HTML formatting in your terms and conditions. For security purposes, the embed, object, and script HTML tags are not displayed or rendered in the HasOffers application.

Sign Up Questions

Knowing some basic information about your business partners—your affiliates and advertisers—is crucial to working relationships. Take a few minutes to include some relevant sign up questions. To do so, go to Company > Customize Application > Content > Affiliate Sign Up Questions or Advertiser Sign Up Questions.

This not only gives you an opportunity to learn a little from an initial interaction, but it also helps you stop obviously fraudulent accounts. For details and best practices, read our article on Sign Up Questions.

Other Content Settings

Taking an hour to review the other content settings before you launch your network could save you some headache and unexpected surprises. If you’re pressed for time, review these settings a week or two later. For details on each section, see our collection of Network Content articles.

Network Theme: Brand Your Network

Brand your network before affiliates and advertisers access it. The various settings for changing your network’s appearance are in the Admin / Advertiser / New Affiliate Interface Design section of the Customize Application page. Read our Branding Your Network article for directions on setting and changing your network’s theme and interface.

Affiliate Fraud

Protect your investment and business by getting ahead of affiliate fraud. Your settings for affiliate fraud are located in the Fraud Detection section of the Customize Application page.

Learn more about affiliate fraud settings with our Affiliate Profile Fraud and Affiliate Activity Fraud pages. You can also view affiliate fraud reports by going to the Report menu at the top of the page and clicking on the Affiliate Fraud option.

Read our Branding Your Network article for directions on setting and changing your network’s theme and interface.

Now that you’ve made some decisions and prepared affiliates to join your network in HasOffers, continue to the third part of network setup:

• Part 1: Key Information and Essential Network Settings
• Part 2: Affiliate & Advertiser Content Settings, Network Theme, and Affiliate Fraud
• Part 3: Setting Advertisers, Offers, and Affiliates Up

Setting Advertisers Up

If you’re a network working with advertisers, it’s time to set them up. If you’re an advertiser yourself using HasOffers to work directly with affiliates, skip to Setting Offers Up below.

Directions for creating advertiser accounts is in our Adding & Managing Advertisers article.

For networks with existing advertisers accounts from another system, see our Importing Existing Data section below.

If you aren’t working with other advertisers, you can deactivate the advertiser features by going to the Advertisers Setting page and setting Advertiser System to “Disabled”.

Setting Offers Up

To create your first offer, we suggest going through our step-by-step walkthrough of creating an offer. Details on offer settings and elements can be found in our Offer Page Reference article.

Send Tracking Code to Advertisers

Once you’ve tested your offers (as described at the end of our Creating an Offer article), provide your advertiser with the pixel code or postback URLs associated with their offers. In that article, step 4 shows you where to find this info.

Adding Creative Files for Affiliates

You can attach creative files—such as images, text, videos—to your offers for affiliates to use. To do so, click on the Creative Files option from the Offers menu. Detailed instructions for this process are in our Creative Files Overview article.

You and your affiliates can generate tracking codes for a specific creative when viewing an offer with creatives attached.

Setting Affiliates Up

With offers in your system, you’re ready to create advertiser accounts. Directions for doing so are in our Creating an Affiliate article.

Importing Existing Data

If you already have advertisers, offers, and affiliates from another system, you can import them into your HasOffers network. Directions for uploading your data to HasOffers is located in our collection of articles on Importing Data.