Quick Startup Guide

This guide offers the information you need to get up and running with the Big Fish Games Affiliate

Program.

1. How the program works

2. Tools to help you acquire more customers and make more money

3. Reporting to track your referrals and earnings

4. Affiliate News Blog and Weekly Newsletter to stay up to date

5. Free Online Games to attract visitors

How the Program Works

You can earn money by introducing new customers to Big Fish Games by

promoting our games on your blog, social media page, email, and/or website. As

an Affiliate with Big Fish Games, we pay you 70% of the net revenue generated

by qualifying sales from your referred customer for an entire year. Refer a new

customer just once and you will earn from their subsequent purchases whether

or not they are made through your site!

A qualifying customer is anyone you bring to our site that makes a game

purchase, has not made a purchase on www.BigFishGames.com in the last

365 days, and is not bound to any other Affiliate.

How do we track this? Once you become an Affiliate, we will issue you an

Affiliate Code (AFCODE). When this AFCODE is used in the links you use to

draw potential customers to our products, a cookie is placed on the potential

customer’s computer. If this customer is eligible for referral and makes a

qualifying purchase, our system recognizes the cookie with your AFCODE, and this customer is then

bound to your Affiliate account for 365 days. A qualifying purchase is a valid purchase of a game that is

either directly charged and greater than $0, or by redeeming a Game Club credit.

Example:

Here is a simple link that you could use to drive a potential customer to our home page

and place the cookie:

<a href="http://www.bigfishgames.com/?channel=affiliates&identifier=YOUR AFCODE"

target="_blank">Big Fish Games home page</a>

The cookie that is placed on the potential customer’s computer is good for 90 days unless the customer

clears their cookies. Our program also offers a “last touch” cookie model: the last Affiliate to drive the

customer to our products is the cookie our system will track if the customer makes a purchase.

Example:

Affiliate X drives a customer to our site and a cookie is placed. The potential customer

doesn’t make a purchase. On another day, that customer gets referred by Affiliate Y and

makes a purchase. The customer will then be bound to Affiliate Y because they were the

last to refer the customer. The 90 days will start over for each Affiliate that is to “last

touch” the potential customer.

Commissions are paid only when a qualifying game purchase is made by your bound customer. Backup

CDs are not eligible for commissions and Game Club credits are paid upon redemption.

Commissions that accrue on your behalf in any calendar month are payable to you 45 calendar days or

later after the end of such month. Payments are processed on the 15th of every month, so payment

requests will need to be submitted by the end of the day on the 14th.

Tools to help you acquire more customers and make more money

Our program offers a wide range of tools designed for every level of expertise. You can choose the

technology that works best for you and your goals. The tools described below range from easiest to use

to those that take a little more technical experience. Check out our Tools page for more information:

https://affiliates.bigfishgames.com/tools

Links & Graphics – EASY

You can create links to specific web pages or games for use on your website, social

media page, or blog. Our Links & Graphics tools are easy to use and require no

special coding knowledge. Choose the web page or game link you want to link to and

the corresponding HTML link, with your tracking code, will appear. Click on Select

Code and then copy and paste this code into your content. When your potential

customer clicks this link, a cookie will be placed. If the customer is eligible to be

referred and makes a qualifying purchase, that customer will be bound to your account

for 365 days.

Satellite Gamesite System (SGS) – MODERATE

Our Satellite Gamesite System is a powerful content management system that

automatically fetches, caches, parses, and presents XML content. This program comes

with several stock templates, and you can also create your own. Basic SGS installation

and use requires no coding knowledge. For full installation instructions, download the

SGS .zip, navigate to the docs folder, and then double click the install.htm file. Please

be sure that your hosting service meets the requirements listed in the installation

instructions.

RSS Feeds – MODERATE

You can use RSS feeds of Big Fish Games content on your blog or website. Choose

from over 20 RSS feeds, including new releases, top games, and specific genres such

as Puzzle and Hidden Object. Build your own aggregator or use a pre-built widget.

XML – EXPERIENCED

Use our XML feeds to build dynamic game websites with up-to-date game content. Our

XML feeds contain everything you need to build a custom web presence. For further

information on how the XML feeds are constructed, please see the Web Services

Documentation .zip file located on the top of the XML tool page.

Reporting to track your referrals and earnings

Our reporting tools help you track how much commission you’ve earned and how these earnings are

coming in. Check out your Reports page for more information:

https://affiliates.bigfishgames.com/reports/

Earnings Report

Our Earnings Report will show you how much commission you’ve accrued from your

bound customers. You can track this by day, month, or year.

https://affiliates.bigfishgames.com/reports/earnings/monthly.php

Customers Reports

Your New Customers Report will show you how many new customers you’ve acquired.

New customers can be tracked by day, by month, or by year.

https://affiliates.bigfishgames.com/reports/customers/new/monthly.php

Your Net Customers Report will show your new customers less your expired customers.

Expired customers were bound to your account 365 days ago and no longer generate

commission for you. This report will show you if your rate of customer acquisition is

increasing or decreasing over a specific time period.

https://affiliates.bigfishgames.com/reports/customers/net/monthly.php

Your active customers are the customers that are bound to your account and eligible to

yield commissions. Your Active Customers Report shows you how many customers

you have acquired over time and gives you an overall business picture.

https://affiliates.bigfishgames.com/reports/customers/active/monthly.php

Game Sales Report

In your Game Sales Report, you can see the top 100 games that have been purchased

by your customers. Your Games Report will provide you with game information, genre,

platform (PC vs. Mac), the Site the game was purchased on (i.e. US, DE, ES, etc.), Units

Sold, First Time Purchase (whether this game was included in the first purchase of a new

customer, which tells you whether the game is effective in acquiring new customers), and

Total Sales. You can track by day, month, or year.

https://affiliates.bigfishgames.com/reports/games/sales/monthly.php

Campaign Reports

Your Campaign Reports allow you to measure the effectiveness of your individual

marketing efforts. You can create your own campaign codes and track the traffic that runs

through each code. Our system will show you the top 350 campaigns, and New

Customers, Units Sold, and Total Commission for each campaign. You can drill down in

each campaign to get more information about the game sales per campaign.

https://affiliates.bigfishgames.com/reports/campaigns/monthly.php

Affiliate News Blog and Weekly Newsletter to stay up to date

Our Big Fish Games Affiliate News Blog is a great way for you to keep up to date with what is happening

with the program. You can find out about our recent announcements, promotions, Catch of the Week

banners, new Collector’s Edition games, and World Premiere Exclusives™, and retrieve available

marketing assets you can use to promote to your customers. Our ad and Catch of the Week banners are

available in every language Big Fish Games supports. We update our News Blog as soon as promotions

are available so please check back frequently.

https://affiliates.bigfishgames.com/news/

We also send our Affiliates a weekly newsletter every Friday that provides news on what is going on the

following week. You can use the information in this newsletter to drive more sales.

Free Online Games to attract visitors

Our Online Games are a great marketing tool to entice your potential customer to download and buy the

full version of the game, making you money. Free Online Games offer stickiness to your site and get the

visitor to return if a sale is not made on the first visit. When a free Online Game has a downloadable

upsell, the conversion is 10 times greater compared to a straight download.

Example:

When a customer visits your site and you offer free online play of Cake Mania, that

customer is more likely to buy the game because they can play before downloading.