Running a program
Affiliate portal and domains
Affiliates join, get their links and codes, and check their earnings in a portal branded for your program. It runs on Kickrail's domain out of the box, or on your own.
The join page#
Every program has a public join page at https://kickrail.com/join/your-program. Share it on your site, in your footer, or in an email to customers. People who join there go on your default campaign; a campaign with a public join page also has its own page at https://kickrail.com/join/your-program/page-name (on a custom domain, partners.yourapp.com/join/page-name). See Campaigns. Settings → Branding sets the logo, brand colour, headline, description, terms link, welcome message and reply-to address used on it and in every email Kickrail sends for you.
New affiliates are approved automatically unless you turn that off in Settings → Program; then they wait in Affiliates for you to approve or reject them. You can also invite affiliates yourself, or create them over the API.
What affiliates see#
- Their main link, extra links with their own landing pages, and their creator codes.
- Clicks, signups and customers, and a "test my link" button that confirms a click landed.
- Every commission: pending money with the date its hold ends, paid amounts, and refunds.
- Where they want to be paid (PayPal, Wise, bank, or other), and a W-9 or W-8 form if you ask for one.
Affiliates sign in with their email and a password. One person can be an affiliate of several programs.
Use your own domain#
On Starter and up you can put the portal on a hostname you own, such as partners.yourapp.com. The root of that hostname shows your join page, and sign-in and the portal work on it too.
- In Settings → Portal domains, add the hostname.
- At your DNS provider, add a CNAME record from that hostname to
portals.kickrail.com. - Click Check DNS. Once the record is found, Kickrail issues an HTTPS certificate the first time the domain is visited, usually within a minute.
| Badge | Meaning | |
|---|---|---|
| not verified | the CNAME isn't visible yet | DNS changes can take a few minutes to an hour. Check again later. |
| waiting for HTTPS | verified, no certificate yet | Open the domain once in a browser to request it. |
| live | working | Affiliates can join and sign in here. |
| primary | the main domain | Affiliate links and emails use the primary domain once it is verified. The first domain you add is primary. |
Cloudflare and other proxies
yourapp.com can't be a CNAME; use a subdomain.Starter includes 1 domain, Growth 3 and Scale 10, for example one per brand or market. If you move to a smaller plan, domains you already have keep working; you just can't add more.
Your team#
Invite teammates from Team. Everyone on a team can see and manage the program; only the owner manages billing. Free includes 1 seat, Starter 3, and Growth and Scale have no limit. One login can run several programs, each with its own Stripe account, affiliates and keys; switch between them from the sidebar.