Creating default, individual and secondary links for partners

Who is this article for?

This article will be useful to you if would like to create additional referral links for your partners.

Some reasons to create more links for your partners may include: 

• To gain more insight into tracking analytics
• To drive traffic to new or different pages on your website
• To provide unique referral links to specific partners in your program
• To create a secondary link to promote a new offering or special event

When you originally create your group you enter your group name and your desired link destination. This will automatically create your group's first default link. 

There are three options for creating more links beyond your first default link for your partners:

1. You can create up to two additional default links
2. You can create a new link for an individual partner
3. You can create a new secondary link for groups of partners 

Creating additional default links

You can have up to 3 default links for each group. These default links will be immediately available for your partners and do not need to be activated by the partner like secondary links. 

To create a default link:

1. In your Groups tab, select your desired group
2. In that group's top menu bar, click into the Links tab
   1. If referral links are not enabled, toggle them on
      
3. Click "Create a Default link"
4. In the drawer view that opens, give your link a title and description to help partners understand why they might use this link
5. Enter your link destination and, if desired, UTMs for tracking purposes
   1. For more information on using UTMs see our Tracking partner traffic through UTMs support guide
6. If you would like, you can customize your partner's link text (URL)
7. When everything is set to your liking, click "Create link"

Creating links for an individual partner

To create a new link for an individual partner:

1. Log in to your PartnerStack account
2. In your All Partners tab search for and select the partner you want to create the link for 
3. On the right-hand side of your partner's "Links" section, click "Create link"
4. Enter your desired link destination, UTMs if applicable and custom link text (URL)
5. Click "Create Link"

Once created, the link will display in the Links and Destination list along with any other active links the partner has. The newly created link will also appear on the partner's dashboard in their Links tab. 

Please note, additional UTMs added when creating an individual link will be added to any existing UTMs already set at the group level. 

Enabling custom link creation

If you would like partners to have the ability to create their own custom links you can enable custom link creation. Custom links can be enabled on a group-by-group basis. 

1. Log in to your PartnerStack account
2. In your Groups tab select the group you would like to enable custom links for 
3. In the top menu bar click on the Links tab
4. Toggle Custom links on 
   

For more information on how partners create custom links see our Creating custom referral links partner support guide.

Creating secondary links for groups of partners

Using this method does not automatically create the link for your partners. Partners must sign into their PartnerStack account to activate or "create" the secondary link that shows on their Links tab. 

To create a secondary link for a group of partners:

1. Log in to your PartnerStack account
2. In your Groups tab select the group you wish to create a secondary link for 
3. In your group's top menu, click on the Links subtab
4. Scroll down to "Add secondary links (optional)" and click "Create a secondary link"
5. In the drawer view, enter your desired link destination, UTMs if applicable and custom link text (URL)
6. Click "Create Link
7. Notify your partners that a new link is available for them to activate in their Links tab by clicking "Create"

Note: The "Partner link preview" gives an example of what a partner's link will look like when generated. As the preview is not an active partner link, you will see an error if you follow this link.

Once complete, this will create a secondary link within the partner's Links tab that looks like this:

The partner must sign in to their PartnerStack account and click "Create" for the link to become active (this populates the link's shortcodes). If the partner does not first create the link they will get an error when attempting to share the link. 

Best practice: a partner's "partner_key" will be based on their first and last name. To avoid creating secondary links that include a partner's full name we recommend using the shortcode {unique_id}. 

Editing links

Once a link has been created (default, individual, custom or secondary) you can edit the link title, description and UTMs and destination.

Once created it is not possible to edit the customized link text (URL) as this would break the existing link already shared by your partners.

To edit a default or secondary link:

1. Navigate to your Groups > Links tab 
2. Click on the expander arrow for the link you would like to edit
3. Click "Edit link"
4. In the drawer view that opens edit your link title, description, destination, and/or UTMs
5. Click "Update link"

To edit an individual or custom link:

1. In your All Partners tab search for and click on your partner
2. In the partner's Links section click on the name of the link you would like to edit
   1. Note: Links with the type "Custom" can be edited from the partner detail view. To edit a "Default" or "Secondary" link type follow the steps above
3. In the drawer view that opens edit the link title, description, destination, and/or UTMs
4. Click "Update link"

Deleting links

Additional default links and secondary links can be deleted from your Groups > Links tab. Deleting an additional default or secondary link will not delete existing links, but will ensure the links are not created for new partners. 

The original default link created when you made the group cannot be deleted but can be edited. 

To delete an additional default link or a secondary link:

1. Click on the expander arrow for the link you would like to delete
2. Click "Delete link"
3. In the drawer view that opens confirm you would like to delete the link by clicking "Delete link"

Individual partner links and custom links created by the partner cannot be deleted on behalf of the partner. 

This is to help ensure links that have been created, shared and promoted by a partner are not deleted resulting in lost conversions.

If you would like a partner to delete one of their links please reach out to them in your Messages tab. The partner can update this link anywhere they have shared it to another link before deleting it from their dashboard.