Added options panel and affiliate tag redirection

[johnholden]

This change adds the ability to include an affiliate program ID in the request, which is worth substantially more than smile (smile is about .5%, while affiliate offers 3-8%). The best part is that both can be used for now, but I added a toggle to disable the redirect to smile in case that changes for some reason.

Feedback is welcome!

Here are some details from the Amazon FAQ:

Can I earn advertising fees by sending traffic to smile.amazon.com? Yes. Amazon Associates can earn advertising fees for Qualifying Purchases completed on smile.amazon.com. Amazon Associates do not need to register separately for AmazonSmile - Amazon Associates can use the same Associates ID they use for affiliate links to www.amazon.com. If your organization is an eligible 501(c)(3) public charitable organization, you may register for both programs and earn AmazonSmile donations as well as Amazon Associates advertising fees. To learn more about registering for AmazonSmile as a charitable organization, visit the AmazonSmile Org Central.

How do I create affiliate links to AmazonSmile? You can create affiliate text links to AmazonSmile by changing the domain in an affiliate link URL from “www.amazon.com” to “smile.amazon.com” while keeping everything else in the URL exactly the same as your standard affiliate links. Currently, all links created using Associates Central tools send traffic to pages on www.amazon.com. Many of the links created using our tools can be edited to point to smile.amazon.com, though some cannot. Associates can’t edit a destination URL for Widgets, Banners and Text and Image product links—URLs created by these tools can’t be changed to send users to AmazonSmile at this time.

Can charitable organizations participate in both AmazonSmile and the Amazon Associates program? Yes. You can participate in both programs if you are a 501(c)(3) public charitable organization and meet the AmazonSmile program eligibility criteria. For complete details, visit the AmazonSmile Org Central.

[johnholden]

Any feedback on this? I'd like to distribute it around our organization and think it could be useful for others!

[jchubber]

Hi @johnholden for those of us who have never used an affiliate code for our organization before (a category I imagine hundreds of thousands of nonprofits would fall into) could you please share a "dumbed down" explanation of how this would work for the nonprofit manager?

Here's what I'm guessing, but please correct me if I'm wrong: Would they create an affiliate code, then ask their supporters to install the smile extension and then (1) assign the nonprofit's affiliate code, and (2) register the nonprofit as their smile beneficiary?

[johnholden]

That's exactly it. It's an optional way to earn an extra 3-8% (vs. only .5% from Smile alone). The organization can sign up for a free affiliate account and they will receive a URL from which their supports can click to purchase at Amazon; it doesn't even have to be a nonprofit - lots of bloggers use this method to collect advertising revenue from links to products on Amazon. Someone with access to the organization's bank account needs to set it up since there is a direct deposit process for collecting the advertising revenue.

At my organization (the Artisan's Asylum) we put a link on our website to Amazon which gives the organization those affiliate referral profits. It looks like this: http://www.amazon.com/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=ur2&tag=artisan0d-20 We ask our members to click that link when shopping at Amazon so that a percentage of revenue goes back to the organization. With the modifications to the SmileAlways plugin, a supporter can add the "tag" from the end of that URL automatically to earn extra money for their nonprofit whenever they shop.

According to Amazon, you can use both Smile and Affiliate Referrals at the same time.

Let me know if I can clarify any further

[Jdhaimson]

Hi John,

Sorry for the delay. We appreciate your work on this, but after speaking with some of my legal friends, I'm worried about merging this into our main extension. My worry is not necessarily that this violates Amazon terms of service (which it may, I haven't gone through all of them), but more that Amazon may not view this as being in the spirit of both the Smile and Affiliate programs. The affiliate program seems to be designed to incentivize webmasters to drive traffic to Amazon product pages, not for Amazon users to support organizations they care about. I don't think they'd be happy about it being used in such a manner and we'd prefer not to receive a cease and desist from them.

That being said, this is an open source project, so feel free to use your own fork however you please.

Cheers, Josh

On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 12:22 PM, johnholden notifications@github.com wrote:

That's exactly it. It's an optional way to earn an extra 3-8% (vs. only .5% from Smile alone). The organization can sign up for a free affiliate account and they will receive a URL from which their supports can click to purchase at Amazon; it doesn't even have to be a nonprofit - lots of bloggers use this method to collect advertising revenue from links to products on Amazon. Someone with access to the organization's bank account needs to set it up since there is a direct deposit process for collecting the advertising revenue.

At my organization (the Artisan's Asylum) we put a link on our website to Amazon which gives the organization those affiliate referral profits. It looks like this:

http://www.amazon.com/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=ur2&tag=artisan0d-20

We ask our members to click that link when shopping at Amazon so that a percentage of revenue goes back to the organization. With the modifications to the SmileAlways plugin, a supporter can add the "tag" from the end of that URL automatically to earn extra money for their nonprofit whenever they shop.

According to Amazon, you can use both Smile and Affiliate Referrals at the same time.

Let me know if I can clarify any further

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/Jdhaimson/smilealways/pull/14#issuecomment-57493073 .

Josh Haimson Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2016 Departments of Computer Science and Biology josh-haimson.com | jhaimson@mit.edu JHaimson@mit.edu

[johnholden]

Thanks, Josh. That's a valid point. I guess we'll keep it under the radar for now and just distribute it internally.

Good luck with the project!

John

On Thu, Oct 2, 2014 at 12:50 AM, Josh Haimson notifications@github.com wrote:

Hi John,

Sorry for the delay. We appreciate your work on this, but after speaking with some of my legal friends, I'm worried about merging this into our main extension. My worry is not necessarily that this violates Amazon terms of service (which it may, I haven't gone through all of them), but more that Amazon may not view this as being in the spirit of both the Smile and Affiliate programs. The affiliate program seems to be designed to incentivize webmasters to drive traffic to Amazon product pages, not for Amazon users to support organizations they care about. I don't think they'd be happy about it being used in such a manner and we'd prefer not to receive a cease and desist from them.

That being said, this is an open source project, so feel free to use your own fork however you please.

Cheers, Josh

On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 12:22 PM, johnholden notifications@github.com wrote:

That's exactly it. It's an optional way to earn an extra 3-8% (vs. only .5% from Smile alone). The organization can sign up for a free affiliate account and they will receive a URL from which their supports can click to purchase at Amazon; it doesn't even have to be a nonprofit - lots of bloggers use this method to collect advertising revenue from links to products on Amazon. Someone with access to the organization's bank account needs to set it up since there is a direct deposit process for collecting the advertising revenue.

At my organization (the Artisan's Asylum) we put a link on our website to Amazon which gives the organization those affiliate referral profits. It looks like this:

http://www.amazon.com/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=ur2&tag=artisan0d-20

We ask our members to click that link when shopping at Amazon so that a percentage of revenue goes back to the organization. With the modifications to the SmileAlways plugin, a supporter can add the "tag" from the end of that URL automatically to earn extra money for their nonprofit whenever they shop.

According to Amazon, you can use both Smile and Affiliate Referrals at the same time.

Let me know if I can clarify any further

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/Jdhaimson/smilealways/pull/14#issuecomment-57493073 .

Josh Haimson Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2016 Departments of Computer Science and Biology josh-haimson.com | jhaimson@mit.edu JHaimson@mit.edu

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/Jdhaimson/smilealways/pull/14#issuecomment-57583730.