I referred my friend, but I haven't received a commission. Why?
There can be a number of possible explanations for this.

1) Your friend didn't click your link. For you to receive a commission, the person you refer MUST use your link to access our site. If they don't, you will not receive a commission. (After that first visit, they can visit us directly and you'll still get credit).

2) Your friend did click your link, but only AFTER they'd already signed up to our site (even as a free member). Our referral scheme exists as an incentive for you to send more customers to us. If a customer came to our site directly, there is no commission due to be paid (even if they click your link at a later date). Any natural referral will always click your link to arrive at the site, so this shouldn't be an issue. To avoid this, make sure you use your affiliate link the first time you mention our site to someone.

3) Another affiliate referred your friend (or someone else in their household) first. Commissions are always paid to the FIRST affiliate who referred someone. If Bob clicks on Andrew's link first, and then a few days later clicks on Stephanie's link, only Andrew will receive a commission when Bob pays, as he was the person who originally referred him. Your friend may not be aware that they clicked another affiliate link, but the link may have been in a review article or other fan-site.

4) Your friend has only created a free account, not a paid Platinum one. Sometimes we get affiliates asking about customers, only for us to discover that that person is not even a Platinum member. Once your friend does upgrade, you will be credited your commission.

5) Your commission may still be in "Pending". As soon as a sale goes through, it will instantly be added to the "Pending Commissions" section of your account. Once we approve it, it will appear in your main commissions. This approval process can take up to two weeks in some situations.

Note that commissions are tracked via IP addresses and cookies. This means that if anyone in a house clicks an affiliate link, anyone who signs up to us from that household will go to that affiliate. As an example: Andrew is an affiliate and sends his link to his friend Bob. Bob signs up and also becomes an affiliate himself. Bob then sends his affiliate link to his wife, who lives in the same house. Unfortunately, Bob's wife has the same IP address as Bob does. This means that the commission from Bob's wife will go to Andrew, because that IP address has already been attributed to Andrew's link. Therefore referring people in your own household may not work. This is also true of shared workplaces. This also means that if someone has visited PA before through an affiliate link, their IP address and cookies will be tracked against this affiliate, so if they then go on to convert through your affiliate link no commission will be generated.

We regret that we will not investigate any "missing" commissions, as there has, to date, never been a legitimate missing commission.

Can I track free signups?
Sadly no. We'd love for you to get data on how many free trials you've referred, but sadly the software does not support this. It can show you how many people have clicked your link, and how many of those people have gone on to purchase Platinum.

Can I get commission for a friend I referred that didn't click my link?
No. We will not add commissions manually for any reason. This means any referrals must arrive via your affiliate link and automatically track in our system.

Do Commissions appear instantly?
Commissions will be instantly added to the "Pending" section of your dashboard after a purchase. We manually review and approve these every few days. Once approved, it will appear in the main section of your dashboard, and you'll also receive an email notification. This may take up to two weeks.

When do I get paid, and how?
We pay affiliate on a set schedule, outlined below:

January Commissions are paid on March 1st.
February Commissions are paid on April 1st.
March Commissions are paid on May 1st.
April Commissions are paid on June 1st.

Etc etc.

We will only pay you if your balance for that month is £50 or more and you have generated commissions from at least 3 different customers. This means if you only earned £20 in January, you would not receive a payment on March 1st. This £20 would be rolled in with your February earnings. Therefore if you earned another £30 in February, you would receive a combined payment of £50 on April 1st.

You can work out how much you earned in each month by going to Commissions -> Current Commissions, and adding up the Commissions in each month.

E.G: You earn a commission of £7.50 on January 10th and another on the 11th, then another £7.50 on February 10th and 11th, and another £7.50 on February 10th, 11th plus a new commission on the 12th. This means your first payment will occur on April 1st. This is because your January commission would be due on March 1st, but, because your balance was under £50, it was pushed into the next batch. On April 1st, you would be paid £52.50, which includes your January and February commissions. Anything from March would be paid on May 1st, assuming you had at least £50 to be paid.

Payments are made directly into the PayPal account you registered with. Please make sure this PayPal email address is correct and up-to-date in your account.

I had a pending commission, but it disappeared.
A pending commission is not a guarantee of a sale. We check every commission manually so you can rest assured you'll always get the commissions that you're entitled to. If a commission disappears from your account, this will be because it has been removed by a member of staff due to one of the above reasons, or it was automatically removed by the system due to a payment being refunded.

Help! I wasn't paid as much as I was expecting!
Your affiliate account gives you full access to see which commissions you were paid for, and which commissions you have not yet been paid for.

If you click on "Payment History" and then view the invoice for your payment, you'll see a list of every commission that was included in the payment. You can also see this in Commissions -> Paid Commissions.

If you want to calculate how much your next payment will be, you can do this easily by going to Commissions -> Current Commissions. Add up the commissions from the previous month. For example, if you want to know how much you'll get paid in October, you would need to tally up all the commissions that you earned in August. This is what you'll get paid on October 1st. Your September commissions would be paid on November 1st.

Remember that there may be PayPal fees of between 1 and 4% on your payment, which will reduce it slightly.

Why was my Commission removed?
Sometimes Commissions are removed because the buyer was issued a refund. Other times, it may have been removed if the Commission was discovered to be fraudulent, or a mistake.

Why am I not getting any recurring Commission Payments?
You probably are. The system doesn't differentiate between new customers and recurring payments. This means whenever you get a new commission, it might actually be a recurring payment from a previous customer.

For example, in January you get 3 commissions - one on the 7th, one on the 10th and one on the 14th.

In February you get 2 commissions - one on the 10th and one on the 14th.

In February, those two commissions are likely actually recurring payments from your previous referrals. You won't be able to see whether it's a new payment or a recurring payment (but by comparing the dates you can guess).

On the other hand, it's also possible that the customers you referred decided to cancel before their second month.

Can you help me with marketing, banners, links, web pages or anything else?
We have a small number of banners available via the affiliate dashboard. Use the menu on the left hand side of the iDevaffiliate dashboard to view them.

Please remember to abide by our rules: http://www.outplayed.com/affiliate-terms/