Messaging

Everything your partners hear from you lives under Messaging. That covers three things:

• the emails we send for you when something happens
• the campaigns you write and send yourself
• the announcements inside the partner portal

One email sits outside it: the partner sign-in code. It always comes from AffiliateRail's own domain, and you can't edit it. A sign-in email has to arrive every time, so we don't let a DNS change get in its way. It's still sent in the partner's own language.

Automated emails

Twelve templates cover the life of your program. Each one sends when its event happens, with the partner's numbers filled in:

• welcome
• first referral
• new referral
• payout sent
• payout failed
• invitation
• application received
• approved
• declined
• commission reversed
• customer enrolled
• payout reminder, when you press Remind partner on a held payout

On Grow and above, you can edit the templates. You edit each language on its own: English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch and Japanese. A reset puts the default back at any time.

Four can't be switched off: invitation, approved, declined and payout reminder. Emails we send says when each one goes.

The language a partner reads

You don't have to write a word of it. Eleven of the twelve, plus the sign-in code, come in the same thirteen languages as the partner portal. The payout reminder is in English in every language:

• English, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German
• Italian, Dutch, Polish, Turkish, Indonesian
• Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese

That's the subject and the body.

Amounts stay in your program's currency. They're written the way the partner's language writes numbers. For example, 1,234.56 in your dashboard reads as 1.234,56 to a partner in Sao Paulo or Berlin. That's the same figure the portal shows them. Nothing is converted.

The language follows the partner's own choice in their portal settings. There's nothing to switch on or maintain.

If you've written your own version of a template, yours wins, in the language you wrote it in:

• Write a French one, and French-speaking partners get it.
• Write only an English one, and everybody gets that.
• Templates you haven't touched stay in all thirteen languages.

Three things stay as they arrived, whatever language the rest of the email is in:

• The reason you type when you decline an application. Those are your words, so the applicant reads them as you wrote them.
• A payout provider's failure message. We didn't write it, and a guessed translation would be worse than the original.
• The AffiliateRail name in the footer.

Campaigns

A campaign is a one-off email to the partners you choose. To send one:

1. Open Messaging, Campaigns and press New campaign.
2. Name: give it a name. Only you see it.
3. Audience: pick All active partners, Partners in groups, Partners with tags or Specific partners. The count of who'll get it updates as you choose.
4. Compose: write the subject and body. The preview updates as you write. You can add a button that opens the portal.
5. When: choose Send now or Schedule.
6. Review: check it, then press Schedule, or the send button with your count on it, such as Send to 12 partners.

Review puts it all in one place:

• the audience, with the group, tag or partner names and the count
• the subject
• when it sends

A scheduled time carries your timezone, so there's no guessing which 09:00.

If a scheduled campaign can't start, for example because nobody matches its audience, it goes back to a draft. The draft says Didn't send and why, and we email you. Nobody gets a half-sent campaign.

While you work, the page tells you where things stand:

• A changed audience or email shows that its count or preview is loading.
• Next stays off on Audience until the choice has at least one active partner.
• A count or preview that fails says so. It never pretends the result was empty.
• The send button stays off while the audience is empty or still being counted.

The send time isn't saved with the draft. You choose it when you send or schedule.

After sending, the campaign page shows deliveries, opens and bounces. The bounce list names who never got it.

Drafts

A draft saves every time you press Next, from the Name step onwards, and Save draft and close saves it too. Typing alone doesn't.

A draft needs a name. That's all. The subject and body can wait, though nothing sends or schedules until both of them are there.

Under the buttons, you'll always see one of three states:

• Saving…
• Saved
• Unsaved changes, once you've typed since the last save

Try to leave with unsaved changes and you're asked first: Keep editing or Discard. Reloading or closing the tab gets your browser's own warning.

To pick a draft back up, press Continue next to it on the campaign list, and it comes back with its name, audience and email.

Drafts belong to the program they were written in, so switching program never shows you another program's draft. Nothing is kept in your browser.

Done with one? Press Delete on the list and confirm. Any campaign that isn't mid-send can go, but there's no undo, and emails already sent stay sent.

If a new campaign save can't be confirmed

Sometimes a save reaches us, but the reply gets lost on the way back. The campaign might exist, even though the page couldn't confirm it. Your text stays put, and the other save buttons switch off until you check.

1. Press Check and save again.
2. It repeats that exact save, with the hidden key the page opened with.
3. If the first save went through, you get that campaign back. If it didn't, it's saved now.

You get one campaign, never two. Nothing retries by itself.

Reloading is safe as well, because the page's address carries the key. A reload after a save opens the campaign it made. If that campaign was deleted since, the page tells you and creates nothing. Press Start a new campaign for a fresh page.

A validation message, such as a missing subject, means nothing was saved. Fix it and save again. Check campaigns in a new tab opens your list if you'd rather look for yourself.

Sequences

A sequence is a set of emails that go out on their own when something happens to a partner. There are three triggers:

• When a partner is approved: the onboarding series.
• When a partner goes quiet: no clicks or sales for a length of time you set.
• After a first commission: when they're most likely to do more.

Each step has its own delay, such as "straight away" or "after 3 days". Every step goes out as an ordinary campaign. So it uses your sending domain, and it shows in the campaign list with its own delivery numbers.

A partner leaves a sequence on their own for a good reason, shown in plain words:

• they started promoting
• they earned
• an email bounced
• they unsubscribed
• you took them out

Press Pause on an active sequence if you might use it again. Nobody moves on while it's paused. Press Turn on and each partner continues from the step they'd reached.

Deleting is permanent, so you're asked to confirm the named sequence first. Then:

• Anyone still in it stops straight away.
• Its emails and its enrolment history are deleted, including finished and stopped enrolments.
• Emails already sent stay in Campaigns with their delivery records.

Notification centre

The notification centre shows announcements inside the portal instead of the inbox. Each one:

• shows as a popover or a bubble
• can be limited to groups and tags
• has a start date and an end date
• counts who saw it and who dismissed it

Use it for things email is too heavy for: a new resource, a promotion window, a price change partners should mention.

Resources

Resources is the shelf your partners take material from. It holds files and links, in folders. Open it from Resources in the sidebar, under Program.

• Limit each item by group and tag. Leave both empty and everyone sees it.
• Publish an item, or hold it back.
• Add a one-line description. Partners see it under the title.
• The same items show on the portal's Resources page.

Got a whole kit? Press Upload files, then Choose files, or drag the files onto the box. Each file gets its own title, taken from its file name, and a description box. Change either before you upload. They all land in the folder you choose. If one fails, the ones before it stay. Press Upload again for the rest.

In the portal, images and videos show as cards with a preview and their size, like "1080 × 1080 · 0.7 MB", so a partner looking for a 300×250 banner can see which one fits before downloading anything. Documents and links stay a list.

Give partners something to send goes further. It reads your website and drafts emails, posts, banners and deep links in your colours. You review them, then publish. A partner with ready-made material can promote this week, instead of "when they get to it".

Rather write the copy yourself? Press Write the copy yourself instead. You get the same eleven boxes, empty, and no AI run. Put {{partner_link}} where each partner's link should go, and the portal fills in their own. Anything you leave empty is skipped.

Your sending domain

Campaigns and sequences can send from your own domain. Until you verify one, they send from a shared address. Once it's verified, replies and sender reputation are yours.

1. Open Messaging, Sending domain.
2. Type the domain and press Add domain.
3. Add the DNS records it shows at your DNS host.
4. Press Verify.

The panel shows Status, Last check and Next. They tell you whether it's waiting on DNS, verified, or needs a record fixed.