FAQs for Affiliates

Affiliates use Chat To Clients CRM’s affiliate tools to share tracked referral links, monitor campaign activity, review leads and customers, and track commissions. The affiliate experience appears inside the Client Portal and is also referred to as the Affiliate Portal. This guide answers common questions about referral tracking, campaign access, manual attribution, affiliate status, and historical affiliate data.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

What are Affiliate Manager FAQs?
Key Benefits of Affiliate Manager and the Affiliate Portal
Prerequisites and Limitations
How Affiliate Tracking Works
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Articles

What are Affiliate Manager FAQs?

Affiliate Manager FAQs answer common questions about affiliate referral links, attribution, campaign access, commissions, leads, customers, and affiliate status.

Account admins manage affiliates and campaigns in Affiliate Manager. Affiliates access their assigned campaigns and performance information through the affiliate area of the Client Portal, also referred to as the Affiliate Portal.

Key Benefits of Affiliate Manager and the Affiliate Portal

Affiliate Manager gives account admins tools to manage affiliate relationships, while the Affiliate Portal gives affiliates access to their own campaign and performance information.

Tracked referral activity: Affiliate-specific referral links allow Chat To Clients CRM to attribute eligible clicks, leads, customers, and sales to the correct affiliate.
Campaign visibility: Affiliates can review campaigns they are assigned to and access available referral links.
Performance tracking: Affiliates can review metrics such as clicks, leads, customers, commissions, and related campaign activity.
Lead and customer visibility: Affiliates can review referral records attributed to their activity.
Commission visibility: Affiliates can review earned commissions, revenue, payout status, and applicable payout terms.
Flexible affiliate management: Admins can remove, suspend, deactivate, or delete affiliates depending on the intended outcome.

Prerequisites and Limitations

Affiliate tracking depends on the affiliate, campaign, and referral activity being correctly associated.

Affiliates must be assigned to an applicable affiliate campaign before accessing that campaign through the Affiliate Portal.
Referral traffic must use the affiliate’s tracked URL containing their affiliate ID for Chat To Clients CRM to attribute activity to that affiliate.
Opening the campaign’s standard destination URL without the affiliate ID does not simulate an affiliate referral.
Affiliate Portal visibility depends on the affiliate’s current campaign assignments and status.
Account admins can configure certain Affiliate Portal settings, including email masking.
Unique referral-link clicks are tracked for affiliate campaigns.
Importing a contact as an affiliate lead is not the same as creating a manual sale or commission.
Deleting an affiliate is destructive and removes affiliate-related historical data from Affiliate Manager.

How Affiliate Tracking Works

Affiliate tracking depends on the unique affiliate information included in the referral URL. Using the correct tracked URL is especially important when testing a campaign. Each affiliate receives a tracked referral link for the campaigns they are assigned to. The link contains information Chat To Clients CRM uses to identify that affiliate.

Affiliates can get their referral link from the email sent through Affiliate Manager or from their assigned campaign inside the Affiliate Portal.

When testing affiliate tracking:

Open the affiliate’s actual referral link.
Confirm the URL contains the affiliate’s tracking information.
Complete the intended test activity through that tracked link.
Review the applicable affiliate or campaign metrics in Affiliate Manager.
Review the affiliate-facing information in the Affiliate Portal when needed.

If you open the campaign’s normal destination URL without the affiliate’s tracking information, Chat To Clients CRM cannot attribute that visit to the affiliate. Affiliate campaign metrics therefore will not change for that affiliate.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do new affiliates get their referral links?

When an affiliate is added to an applicable campaign, Chat To Clients CRM provides access to that campaign’s affiliate referral information.

The affiliate can obtain their referral link from the email sent through Affiliate Manager or from the affiliate area of the Client Portal.

The affiliate should share their tracked referral link rather than the campaign’s standard destination URL.

Why are my affiliate campaign numbers not changing during testing?

Make sure you are testing with the affiliate’s tracked referral URL.

The affiliate’s URL contains their affiliate tracking information. Chat To Clients CRM uses that information to associate eligible activity with the affiliate.

Opening the campaign’s normal URL without the affiliate ID will not attribute the activity to that affiliate.

When testing, copy the affiliate’s actual referral link from their email or the Affiliate Portal before completing the test activity.

Is the Affiliate Portal different from the Client Portal?

The affiliate experience is available through the Client Portal. Chat To Clients CRM documentation also refers to the affiliate-specific experience as the Affiliate Portal.

Affiliates use this area to access assigned campaigns, referral links, performance information, leads, customers, commissions, and related affiliate data.

Where can affiliates view their performance?

Affiliates can review performance information from their affiliate dashboard in the Client Portal.

Available information can include leads, customers, clicks, commissions, and campaign-related activity.

Can affiliates track referral-link clicks?

Yes. Chat To Clients CRM tracks unique referral-link clicks for affiliate campaigns.

Affiliates can review their referral-link click activity from the Affiliate Portal.

Can sales be tracked using coupon codes?

Yes. Chat To Clients CRM supports affiliate sale tracking using coupon codes.

Coupon tracking can be useful when an affiliate cannot conveniently share a referral URL.

See How to Track Affiliate Sales Using Coupons for configuration details.

Can I customize an affiliate’s referral ID?

Yes. Chat To Clients CRM allows admins to customize referral IDs for individual affiliate campaign relationships.

Open the affiliate’s profile and review the applicable referral link settings for the campaign.

See How to Navigate the Affiliate Profile Page for Efficient Management for additional details.

Can affiliates see the leads and customers attributed to them?

Yes. Affiliates can review referral records attributed to their affiliate activity through the Affiliate Portal.

Account admins can also configure email masking to limit how much of a referral’s email address is displayed to the affiliate.

Can an admin hide referral email addresses from affiliates?

Yes. Affiliate Portal settings include an option to mask referral email addresses.

When enabled, part of the referral’s email address is hidden from the affiliate.

Where can affiliates view commissions and payout information?

Affiliates can review commission information through the Affiliate Portal.

Available information can include earned commissions, generated revenue, payout status, and the applicable payout term.

Can I manually assign an existing contact to an affiliate?

Yes. An admin can manually associate an existing contact with an affiliate and campaign from the affiliate’s detailed profile.

From the sub-account view, select Affiliate Manager.
Select Affiliates.
Click the affiliate’s name.
Scroll to the activity area at the bottom of the profile.
Select the Leads tab.
Click + Add Lead.
Select Import from Contacts.
Select the applicable campaign.
Select the contact.
Complete the import.

Is importing a contact the same as adding a manual sale?

No.

Import from Contacts associates an existing contact with the affiliate as a lead.

Add Manual Sale is used when a sale needs to be manually attributed to an affiliate and commission calculations need to apply.

Use the flow that matches the record you need to create.

Can I manually credit an affiliate for a sale?

Yes. Chat To Clients CRM supports manual sale attribution.

One available entry point is:

From the sub-account view, select Affiliate Manager.
Select Affiliates.
Locate the affiliate.
Open the affiliate’s Action menu.
Select Add Manual Sale.
Select the applicable contact.
Select the applicable affiliate campaign.
Complete the manual sale.

Manual sale attribution can be useful when an eligible sale was not captured through normal affiliate tracking.

What can I do if Add Manual Sale does not show a campaign?

First confirm that the affiliate is associated with the campaign you expect to use.

If your goal is to associate an existing contact with the affiliate as a lead, you can use the affiliate profile instead:

Select Affiliate Manager.
Select Affiliates.
Click the affiliate’s name.
Open the Leads tab.
Click + Add Lead.
Select Import from Contacts.
Select the campaign.
Select the contact.
Complete the import.

This creates an affiliate lead relationship. It does not replace manual sale attribution when a sale or commission needs to be recorded.

What happens when I remove an affiliate from a campaign?

Removing the affiliate from a campaign removes that campaign from the affiliate’s available campaign list in the Affiliate Portal.

Existing affiliate history is retained.

Previously attributed leads remain visible in the affiliate’s detailed Affiliate Manager history. Previously recorded potential-customer history also remains visible in the affiliate-facing portal.

The affiliate is no longer assigned to the removed campaign.

What happens when I suspend an affiliate from a campaign?

Suspending an affiliate stops tracking for that affiliate on the selected campaign.

Chat To Clients CRM displays a warning that suspension stops:

Click tracking
Customer tracking
New sales
Existing sales

The affiliate also loses access to that campaign’s links and campaign details in the Affiliate Portal while suspended.

The affiliate remains associated with the campaign in Affiliate Manager, and existing historical records remain available.

What happens when I mark an affiliate inactive?

Marking an affiliate inactive changes the affiliate’s account status without deleting their historical referral information.

Affiliate Manager displays an Inactive status for the affiliate.

The Client Portal also indicates that the affiliate is inactive.

Previously attributed potential customers and historical affiliate records remain available.

What is the difference between removing, suspending, and marking an affiliate inactive?

These actions affect the affiliate differently.

Remove from campaign: Removes the affiliate’s assignment to that campaign and removes the campaign from their Affiliate Portal campaign list. Existing historical records remain.
Suspend from campaign: Stops campaign tracking and removes access to that campaign’s links and details while preserving the Affiliate Manager relationship and historical records.
Mark inactive: Changes the affiliate’s overall status without deleting historical affiliate information.

Use the option that matches whether you want to end a campaign assignment, temporarily stop tracking, or change the affiliate’s overall status.

What happens when I delete an affiliate?

Deleting an affiliate is a destructive action.

Chat To Clients CRM warns that the affiliate’s leads, customers, commissions, and payouts will be deleted.

After deletion:

Affiliate-related counts are removed from the campaigns where that affiliate previously contributed activity.
The affiliate’s potential-customer history is removed from their Affiliate Portal.
Affiliate attribution history is removed from Affiliate Manager.
The underlying Chat To Clients CRM contacts are not deleted.
Existing form submissions that created those contacts are not deleted.

Deleting the affiliate is therefore different from removing, suspending, or marking the affiliate inactive.

Use a non-destructive status or campaign action when historical affiliate records need to remain available.

Do affiliates keep their history after being removed or suspended?

Yes.

Removing an affiliate from a campaign does not delete previously attributed lead history.

Suspending an affiliate stops tracking and removes access to the suspended campaign’s links and details, but existing affiliate history remains.

Marking an affiliate inactive also retains historical referral information.

Deleting the affiliate is the action that removes affiliate-associated historical data.

Can affiliates have sub-affiliates?

Yes, when the affiliate campaign is configured to support multiple commission tiers.

Chat To Clients CRM supports multi-tier affiliate relationships. Available sub-affiliate behavior depends on the campaign configuration.

See How to Add Sub-Affiliates in the Affiliate Manager for setup and eligibility details.

Can an affiliate participate in more than one campaign?

Yes. An affiliate can participate in multiple affiliate campaigns.

Each campaign maintains its own applicable referral link, campaign assignment, and commission configuration.

Last updated Thu, 1 Oct, 2026 at 4:12 PM

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