Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is an affiliate program?
A: An affiliate program is a marketing program that allows a person (an affiliate) to earn commissions for generating sales for a company.
Q: How does your affiliate program work?
A: As an affiliate, you place specially generated links into your blog posts, social media posts, emails, and/or printed material. Affiliate links drive traffic to our website. When your follower clicks your link and makes a purchase on our site, we pay you a commission for that sale. We provide our affiliates with banners, text links, and other marketing materials that can be used to promote our products on your sites.
Q: What is your commission rate and cookie length?
A: Sonlight offers commission rates from 4-10%. The starting commission rate is 4%. Affiliates are eligible for performance-based rate increases.
We maintain a 90-day “first-click” cookie. The first affiliate to refer a customer to the Sonlight website will be the referring affiliate for 90 days from the time of the first click. Any purchase made by that customer during the 90-day period results in a commission for the referring affiliate…even if the customer clicks another affiliate’s link during that time!
Q: Who can become a Sonlight affiliate?
A: We are looking for affiliates who know and love literature-based learning! And we LOVE it when our affiliates have used Sonlight products and are passionate about sharing their experience with Sonlight with other parents. We are also looking for affiliates with an established web presence that demonstrates significant reach in relevant markets--especially Christian and secular homeschool markets. The affiliate's reach within these markets may come from a blog or website or from social media platform (YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok, etc.).
All applications are reviewed with these key factors in mind. Applicants must agree to the Sonlight Affiliate Program Terms & Conditions before joining our program. To review our Terms & Conditions, click here.
Q: How can I become a Sonlight affiliate?
A: It’s easy! Just enroll here and we’ll send you all the information you need to begin promoting Sonlight products on your blog or website, social media platforms, email, etc.
Q: I signed up…now what?
A: We will review your application within 2 business days. If your account is approved, you will receive a welcome letter along with all the information you need to begin sharing with your audience. Our library of training materials, including how-to articles and video tutorials, will show you how to market our products, add banners and links, check your sales, and much more!
Q: How do you track the sales referred by my affiliate links?
A: Every affiliate is provided with a unique affiliate code. Your unique code is linked to your affiliate account. You can grab your “standard linking code” or create custom links on your affiliate dashboard. These links allows our software to track incoming traffic from your site.
Q: How will I be paid?
A: Payments are made via ACH/Direct Deposit. Affiliates will be contacted via email to set up ACH payments.
Q: When will I be paid?
A: Commissions are paid out during the first week of each month to affiliates whose account balance has reached a minimum threshold of $50. To account for our 30-day return policy, commissions will show as “pending” for one month before they are approved for payment. For example, your April commissions will be paid during the first week of June.
Q: How can I track my own affiliate activity?
A: Our software provides affiliates with 24/7 access to a dashboard where the affiliate can check traffic, sales, commissions, and payment status in real-time.
Q: Why does it seem that some purchases are not being tracked?
A: If a customer has turned off cookies in their browser or is browsing “incognito,” our system is unable to track the customer’s clicks and purchases.
Q: Can I use my affiliate link to earn a commission on my own purchases?
A: No. Our user agreement prohibits affiliates from earning commissions on personal purchases. Please see our Terms & Conditions for more information.
Q: I forgot my password. How can I log in?
A: Go to the login page and click Need Your Password? On the next screen, enter your username and click Send to Email. Watch your inbox for an email with your login credentials.
Q: Why does 'N/A - Possible Bookmark or Email Link' show on my traffic log?
A: When an affiliate link is clicked, the browser will often pass on the “referring URL” metadata. If that metadata is received, it is displayed in your traffic log. If not, our affiliate platform will display the “N/A – Possible Bookmark or Email Link” message in its place. This may be because the customer clicked your affiliate link from a bookmark or email link where there is no referring URL.
Q: What if I need help?
A: We are committed to providing training materials that have been designed to help every affiliate benefit from our program. We are revamping our affiliate training materials, so keep checking back as we grow our library of PDF and video tutorials!
In the meantime, we’re always here to help! If you ever have a question, just send us an email—we’re here for you!
