For our second installment of Presenting Your Best Self, aka “Making a good first impression to Affiliate prospects”, we’re going to talk about Uptime History.
Uptime History is a report available in the Affiliate Interface which shows a time stamp of when a specific Merchant is either “Low Funds”, “Temporarily Offline”, or “Online”. Affiliates use this report as a consideration when looking at prospective programs to join. Affiliates will be less likely to join a program that has a tendency to go consistently offline as this disables the working links on their site and the leaves their visitors with a disrupted experience.
Low Funds = The ShareASale Network Low Funds trigger point is $50. If a Merchant account reaches a balance of $50 or less the account is flagged as “Low Funds”.
Temporarily Offline = When a Merchant account reaches a balance of $0, the program is taken temporarily offline until funds are replenished. When an account is offline, Affiliate links are disabled.
Online = Once funds are added to a Merchant’s offline or low funds account, the program is marked as Online.
How to keep a clean Uptime History?
- Designate a Balance Notification in your account that is greater than $50. In the Edits Settings page of the Merchant Account, you can opt to receive an email when your account reaches a certain balance. I would recommend padding this amount to allow ample time for a deposit to be made prior to the account reaching the ShareASale Low Funds trigger of $50. For example, if an account is set to be notified at $25, the account will be flagged as “Low Funds” in the Uptime History report well before the Merchant is even set to be notified. The amount to be notified on can be calculated by taking into account what the average payout is as well as the frequency of sales made. To view what your current Balance Notification amount is go to https://www.shareasale.com/m-account.cfm and scroll to the bottom of the page to the “Balance to Notify On” setting.
- While you’re on that page, be sure that your have selected “Yes” to receive an email notification when your account reaches your designated low balance amount.
- Set up Auto Deposit. Auto Deposit is a tool that will automatically replenish the Merchant account when the balance reaches the specified Balance Notification amount thus eliminating any potential lag time and the need to make manual deposits. (https://www.shareasale.com/m-account.cfm)
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at Sarah@ShareASale.com
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