There are two main items that need to be addressed when it comes to a member wanting to Upgrade or Downgrade their Subscription from one membership “level” (a.k.a “Product” in DAP) to another.

1) Modifying the actual recurring payments to reflect the new amount

2) Giving them appropriate access as per the upgrade (or downgrade)

So let’s see how both of these are accomplished.

1) Modifying Recurring Payments

You do need to take some manual action for this. The way to do it is….

• Ask your members to sign up for the new product/level/subscription separately, like it were a new sign up
• Cancel their old subscription manually. When using Paypal standard, this can be done by both you (as the admin) and the member themselves. But with all of the other payment solutions, you (the admin) will have to log in to the payment gateway (Authorize.net or Paypal Website Payments Pro) and manually delete the member’s old subscription). DAP will not automatically remove user’s old subscription profile in your payment gateway.

2) Giving your member access to new level

Set up automation rules using DAP’s Product Chaining feature, so that if they sign up for one Product (or “level”), they’re automatically removed from another Product (or level).

So if they are currently signed up to your “Gold Membership”, then when they sign up afresh for the “Platinum Membership”, then set up a Product Chaining rule that says, “If member signs up for Platinum Membership, then remove them from Gold Membership”. This is just to make sure that they don’t have access to two products (or “levels”) at the same time.

DAP offers a number of affiliate statistics on the “Affiliates > Reports” page.

Here’s how it looks as of DAP v4.2.1.

1) Email Id of Affiliate

This is the field where you would enter the email id of an affiliate, if you want to generate a report specifically for an affiliate. If you leave it blank, the report will include all affiliates.

2) “From” & “To” Dates

By default, if you leave these fields blank, then DAP will assume “today’s” date – i.e., the date whenever you’re viewing this page.

3) View Performance Summary

This is the most detailed report available. This is the report being viewed in the above screenshot. For a given time period, for a given number of affiliates (“all” affiliates if (1) is left blank above), it shows…

• Affiliate Id
• Full Name
• Email id
• Clicks generated during selected period
• Referrals generated (includes total of both Free and Paid referrals): If the referred member actually bought something, it constitutes a “Paid” referral. If they simply signed up, say, for your free newsletter or free report or free product, then it is counted as a “Free” referral.
• Commissions Earned: This is the actual amount credited to the affiliate’s account during the selected period
• Sales Generated: This is the amount of the actual sale (purchase) generated for your membership site.
• Earnings Per Click (EPC): This is an indicator of how well your web site is converting clicks into signups/members. So if an affiliate sent you 100 clicks (on their affiliate link), and 5% of them signed up for your “FaceBook Secrets” membership product by paying $10 each, it means a total revenue of $10 x 5 = $50. And if you were paying 30% affiliate commissions for the product, then the affiliate earned $15 in total.Total clicks sent: 100
  Total affiliate earnings from those 100 clicks: $15
  Earnings Per Click (EPC) = $15/100 = $0.15 – which means, 15 cents per click.The higher the EPC, the easier it will be for you to attract other JV partners and super-affiliates.

4) View Earnings Details

This shows the breakdown of each purchase referred by each affiliate. It’s a detailed view of the affiliate earnings, that lists each and every transaction (order) in the system that was referred by affiliates, all generated for the selected time period. It displays…

• Affiliate Id
• Full Name
• Email Id
• Product (name) that was purchased by referred buyer
• Referral Date (when affiliate was associated with buyer)
• Date/Time of actual transaction
• Trans Id: This is the transaction (order) id for the actual purchase
• Earning Type (L: Lead, S: Sale): Says what type of a commission credit it was – whether it was a “Pay Per Sale” credit or a “Pay Per Lead” credit.
• Id of User Referred: This tells you the actual user id of the buyer who was referred by the affiliate.

5) View Payments

This shows all payments made to affiliates during the period.

6) Refund Period

This is a config setting that you can change in Setup > Config. This is what drives which orders are picked up for affiliate payment. See this article for more details.

7) View Due Payments as of <date>

This is the MAIN button you should click to start the process of paying your affiliates each month (or however often it is that you pay affiliates). When you click this button, it will show you a report (see screenshot below) of commissions owed on all orders in the system UNTIL  X days ago, where X is your “Refund Period”.

So if today is 10/01/2011, and you have a refund period of 60 days, then DAP will only consider orders prior to 60 days as of today. Which means, orders up to 08/01/2011 (of course, depending on how many days in a month, you may not exactly end up with 08/01/2011, because it goes an actual 60 days back from today – and sometimes, the report will stop at the 2nd or 3rd day of the month – like 08/03/2011. But that’s ok, don’t worry about it). You just focus on paying your affiliates on whatever day you wish to make the payment.

So when you click on this button, DAP will bring you a summary report of all affiliates, and how much they’re owed today, for all transactions referred by them as of 08/01/2011 (as per this example).

And when you click on the “Export These Affiliates For Payment” button shown in the screenshot above, DAP will select and mark those affiliates as being exported for payment.

And DAP will show you Paypal Mass-Pay Ready text report, with the affiliate info and the commission amount info already filled in and ready to go. If you’re paying via Paypal Mass-Pay, then all you need is this file. See this post for details.

NOTE: Being exported for payment doesn’t mean that you’ve actually paid them. Exporting affiliates for payment only means that DAP has now “set aside” those affiliates for payment, and you still need to tell DAP that you’ve actually paid your affiliates.

This is important, because you might export affiliates for payment on the first of the month, but it may take you a day or two (or 10) to actually make the payment – especially if you’re sending out Checks.

So once you’ve made the payment either through Paypal mass-pay, or by mailing your affiliates physical checks, then you need to tell DAP that you’ve actually sent out the payments, which is what you’ll do in the step below.

8 ) Mark Affiliates from <export> as Paid

This is where you will select the most recent export from the drop down (see #8 in first image at the very top), and click the “Paid” button. This is what actually lets DAP know that you’ve actually made the payment, and only after you do this, will the affiliates see the payment show up in the “Payments” section on their “Affiliate Info” page.

9) Archived Reports

This is just a report that shows you past commission payment exports.

User ID 111 has been created with email id ABC123@somewhere.com

Same user buys a different product using a completely new (Paypal) email id. and DAP creates User ID 999 with PayPal email XYZ789@anothersite.com

User now has 2 accounts and wants only ABC123@somewhere.com (user ID 111) to be active.

So here’s what you should do:

1. Place XYZ789@anothersite.com in the PayPal email field of User ID 111 and save.
2. Give User ID 111 access to all products that User ID 999 currently has active, with matching start and end dates.
3. Delete User ID 999 fully from the system.

If User ID 111 purchases additional products through Paypal, and her primary Paypal email id is still XYZ789@anothersite.com, then that Paypal email id will be recognized by DAP, and all purchased products will be activated under User ID 111 and no additional User IDs will be created.

However, if User ID 111 has changed their primary Paypal email id to be something else like XYZ123@yetanother.com, then the next time they make a purchase, DAP will not know it’s the same person, and will end up creating a completely new user id for the buyer. Which means, you will have to do the merge again, and replace the old Paypal email id in DAP with the new Paypal email id of the buyer.

This plugin replaces ALL files from both the “Paypal Payments Pro” Upsell-Tree plugin as well as the “Authorize.net” Upsell-Tree Plugin

Starting DAP v4.2, we have consolidated both the Authorize.net & Paypal Payments Pro Upsell-Tree Plugins into one simple set of files, and it has been named the DAP Shopping Cart, which will allow you to both accept one time and recurring payments, as well as do 1-Click Upsells.

This consolidated set of files is named DAPShoppingCart.zip , and is available for download from the members’ area at http://DigitalAccessPass.com/dap/ .

Upgrading from DAP v4.2

If you are upgrading to DAP v4.2 from a previous DAP version, and you’ve been using Authorize.net or Paypal Payments Pro to accept payments, then you must also upgrade to the new DAP Shopping Cart.

So all you need to is…

1) Download the DAPShoppingCart.zip file from the members area

2) Unzip it to your desktop

3) Upload all files inside directly to your main “dap” folder on your site. (do not upload the folder named DAPShoppingCart – upload only the files inside this folder)

1. Enabling Instant Payment Notification (IPN) within your Paypal account.

a) Log in to your Paypal account and click on the “Profile” link.
b) Go to Instant Payment Notification

c) If IPN is already enabled, and you already have a URL in that field, then skip ahead to Step 2.
Else, if IPN is not already enabled, then click on “Choose IPN Settings”

d) On the next screen, in the Notification URL field, enter…
http://YourSite.com/dap/dap-paypal.php

Don’t forget to replace “YourSite.com” with your actual web site’s domain name.
e) Make sure “Receive IPN Messages” is selected.

f) Click on “Save”.

Problem: You see emails sent to your DAP Admin email account that look like this:

paypalCoupon.php: missing item_name

-or-

paypalCoupon.php: No such Product found – SomeProductNameHere

This could be happening because….

a) Some robot software somewhere is auto-posting to that URL.

b) It’s possible that a search engine spider or spambot is hopping from link to link, submitting the form repeatedly from the backend, and because the form is being submitted in an illegal/invalid fashion, DAP is complaining about a missing coupon code.

So for now, if everything else is working ok, and the annoying email is the the only issue, then you can just ignore those emails. Or better yet, simply put a filter on that email subject and have it directly sent to the trash folder in your email client.

What Is “Login Xpress”?

“Login Xpress” is a DAP feature that enables your members to be logged right into your membership site immediately upon completion of their purchase.

This is roughly how it works:

• Visitor arrives at your web site
• On your sales page, they click on any “Buy” button to purchase a Product (or Membership Level)
• They’re taken to the checkout page (depending on Payment processor being used) and they enter their payment information and hit “Submit”
• When they hit “Submit” to complete their payment, their payment is processed right away, and the buyer is immediately transferred back to your web site, in real time, and automatically logged in to your membership site, and they are taken to the “Welcome” page or “Members” page (you may choose what this page is going to be at a per-Product level)

Payment Processors That Work With Login Xpress

DAP supports this feature with the following payment processors:

• Paypal Standard (DAP-generated buttons only – will not work with Paypal-hosted buy buttons that you generate from within your Paypal account)
• 1Shoppingcart / 1SiteAutomation.com
• Authorize.net

If you use any of the payment options above, then you can set up your sales funnel in such a way that buyers are logged in right away immediately after purchase.

Payment Processors That DO NOT Work With Login Xpress (Yet)

• Paypal Website Payments Pro
• ClickBank
• e-Junkie
• WorldPay

DAP integrates with the above processors via some kind of “back-end payment notification” – similar to Paypal’s “IPN” (Instant Payment Notification). Which means the notification between the payment processor and DAP on your site only happens on the “back-end”. Which is why DAP can only deliver the login details to the buyer via an email, and cannot log them in right away (like it can do with “Login Xpress”), because the buyer’s information is available to DAP only when the payment processor sends out the IPN notification behind-the-scenes, so to speak.

So if you’re using the above processors to accept online payments, then what you need to do, is to redirect your buyers to a static “Thank You” page that has a message similar to the one below…

“Thank you for your purchase. In a few minutes, please check your email address used during purchase for your log in details to log in to the members’ area and access the product you just purchased.”

And behind the scenes, DAP would’ve already received the payment notification from the payment processor, and it would’ve created an account for your buyer, given them access to the purchased product, and sent them the “Thank-you Email” for the product(s).

DAP’s affiliate program works the same regardless of which DAP-supported payment processor or shopping cart you’re using.

DAP does not directly make any affiliate payments. Instead, at the beginning of each month (or however often you wish to pay your affiliates), with one click on the Affiliates > Run Reports page, DAP will give you a list of all affiliates to whom payment is due, and the actual amount due to each one of them.

The format of the payment list that DAP provides you with, is already “Paypal Mass-Pay Ready” – which means, you could simply upload the file that DAP gives you, upload it to your Paypal account, and then pay all affiliates in one click (details further below).

Or if you don’t wish to pay by Paypal, and wish to use any other form of offline payment (like sending them a physical “check” in the mail, doing wire-transfers, etc), you’re free to use any external means for paying your affiliates. Once you have paid (by Paypal, or other external means), you just come back to DAP and mark all those affiliates as “Paid” – which is when DAP actually reports to all of those affiliates that a payment has been sent to them. Until the actual payment is made, they only see that they are owed a certain amount.

How To Pay Your Affiliates

1) Go to “Affiliates > Run Reports”
2) Click on “View Due Payments as of mm-dd-yyyy”
3) DAP will bring up a list of affiliates to be paid. Click on “Export affiliates for payment”
4) DAP will create an export of only those affiliates. Only those affiliates can be paid now, as per DAP.
5) You take the exported list that DAP gives you. Pay them however you choose to.
6) Once you’ve actually paid them (or sent them the payment), come back to the same page, pick the previously exported list from “Mark affiliates from ……. as Paid” drop down (your last un-paid export will be shown in the drop-down list).
7) Mark that export as “Paid”.

Making Payments Via Paypal Mass-Pay

1.Copy the export that DAP gives you and save it as text file on your desktop, with a file name like “February 2011 Commissions.txt”

2. Log in to your Paypal account

3. Click on “Send Money”

4. Click on”Make a Mass Payment”

5. Upload previously saved text file on this next screen. You may also enter a custom subject and body for the email that Paypal will send to all those receiving a payment.

6. Follow remaining instructions and hit “Send”.

There really is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to refund policies.

There are so many factors involved. The main one being, that Visa/Master/Amex/Paypal all give a buyer up to 60 days to ask for a refund, at least with most merchants.

Unless you’ve already negotiated the refund terms with your merchant account provider, and have both specifically agreed that there would be no refunds (like say, if you were selling an expensive item, like a car, or a boat, or a service), or that it’s only going to be a 30-day refund period, then you really have no control over the refund period. You just have to comply with at least the mandatory 60-day refund period required by the credit card companies.

So that brings us to the question:

How much should you set your refund period to be within DAP?

Now remember, it is this Refund Period setting (under Setup > Config > Advanced) that also makes affiliates eligible for payment.

So it really comes down to the question:

What is the waiting period for an affiliate to get paid for a referral?

Our recommendation: 60 days.

That’s because if you end up paying too soon (say like within 15 or 30 days), and then the buyer comes back and asks for a refund, now you’re out-of-pocket for the affiliate commissions that you have already paid on a purchase that you just refunded.

Now remember that when you do the actual refund within DAP, DAP will roll-back any commissions credited towards this purchase. If you have not yet paid your affiliates, then in the next report, it will ignore the refunded purchase, and will not calculate commissions on that purchase.

But if you have already paid your affiliates (like within 15 or 30 days after purchase), then DAP will include the negative commission in the next pay-period’s report. And any future commissions earned by this affiliate will be accordingly adjusted.

However, if the affiliate doesn’t refer any more members, then you have two choices at this point:

1) Ask the affiliate to pay back the over-paid commissions

2) Just swallow the loss, write it up to the cost of doing business, and move on.

[WARNING: Paypal frowns on 2-tier affiliate programs. So if you want to run a 2-tier affiliate program, make sure you're not using Paypal to accept payments or make affiliate payments - otherwise you're putting your Paypal account at risk.]

In a “1-Tier” affiliate program, when a buyer makes a purchase, the affiliate who referred the buyer is the only one who gets paid an affiliate commission. Which is why it’s called “1-tier”, because there’s only one level of commissions paid.

However, in a “2-tier” affiliate program, the “Affiliate’s Affiliate” (2nd level) can also get paid a portion of the sale as a commission.

So let’s take this example:

You are selling Product A that costs $100.

You’ve set up your commission structure for Product A as follows:

Tier 1: 50% Per Sale

Tier 2: 10% Per Sale

Joe Customer is referred by Charlie to your web site. Joe went on to purchase Product A for which commissions are set up above.

So Charlie (tier-1 affiliate) gets paid 50% of the sale - which is $50.

Now, normally a 1-tier affiliate program would stop there, and that would be the end of affiliate commissions for that purchase. But you have set up 2 tiers.

So now DAP looks at who referred Charlie, the affiliate. It finds that David originally referred Charlie to your web site (regardless of how Charlie got in to your membership site).

So now David (tier-2 affiliate) gets paid 10% of the sale – which is $10.

So for that one sale of $100, $50 was paid to Charlie, and $10 was paid to David, which totals $60.

So $40 is your earnings, as the site owner.

How To Set It Up

The 2-tier or “n” tier setup is the exact same as the 1-tier setup.

Only difference is, set up a new record on the “Affiliates > Set Commissions” page for each tier – one for Tier 1, one for Tier 2, and so on.