Case Study: Upgrading the Affiliate Announceaffiliate program

Handling Foriegn Currency

I hit upon a small snag yesterday that you may need to consider when planning your program, typically I imagine this is most likely to affect a non-US merchant.

I have upgraded my site to handle multi-currency i.e. a client pays in their currency the amount is then converted and the bank pays me in pounds Sterling.

Because bank charges are so high for me to have a US dollar account here in the UK I have opted to continue paying affiliates in pounds sterling. Changing the currency symbols on the tracking software was easy enough, an email to Jeff and he ensured all currency symbols are now illustrated in £'s.

Now in integrating the software I needed to be able to place a small snippet of code on my page that is displayed once a credit card transaction is processed. This code needs to include the value of the transaction but because I'm paying affiliates in pounds it needs to be the value in pounds sterling.

Unfortunately my payment provider does not provide me with the required variable ie. the figure after conversion to pounds sterling to pass to the tracking software.

Luckily after a few hours my programmer managed to write a script that works with my payment processor's conversion rates to generate the required figures.

Just an important point not to overlook - if I had missed it affiliates would have either been over or under paid depending on the customers choice of currency payment!

This case study examines the re-development of the Affiliate Announce program. Illustrating the 'behind the scenes' plans of upgrading a programs affiliate tracking software.

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