Contests

A contest is a competition your program runs on a leaderboard. It has a start, an end, and prizes for whoever finishes highest. Unlike a performance bonus, where you only have to beat a number, here you’re up against the other affiliates.

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Find the contests you can enter

In the left sidebar of the affiliate portal, select Contests. When no contest is running, the same item is labelled Leaderboard. Each contest gets its own tab alongside General Leaderboard, named after the contest. Select a tab to see that contest. Some programs also surface a running contest on your dashboard with its countdown, so you see it as soon as you sign in.

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Read the prize card

The gold card at the top of a contest holds everything you need to decide whether to go for it.

• The prize chips on the left, one per finishing position, with a trophy for the top three.
• The participant count, so you know how many people you’re up against.
• What it ranks by — the metric that decides the order.
• How often winners are picked.
• The countdown on the right, showing how long is left.
• When the next winners are picked, on contests that pick more than once.

Hover any prize chip to see exactly which position it belongs to, along with the full description for a non-cash prize.

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Check what’s being ranked

A contest ranks on the same measures a leaderboard does: number of referrals, revenue generated, number of sales, affiliate earnings or conversion rate. The badge on the card names which one. This matters more in a contest than anywhere else, because you’re being compared with other people rather than against a fixed target. A conversion rate contest is winnable by someone with a small, engaged audience. A revenue contest usually isn’t. See leaderboards for what each measure counts.

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Know when winners are picked

Some contests run once and pick winners at the end. Others pick winners on a repeating cycle — every day, week, month or year — and the badge on the card says which. Repeating contests are the ones worth paying attention to. The standings reset each period, so a slow start doesn’t rule you out, and the same person can win more than once over the life of the contest. If you missed this week, next week is a clean slate. When a contest picks winners more than once, the card also shows when the next pick happens.

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Check whether you qualify

Not every contest is open to everyone. A program can limit one to particular affiliate groups, or set conditions you have to meet to take part. When you don’t qualify, a banner appears listing what’s required. Brands often leave these contests visible on purpose, so you can see what’s on offer and what it takes to get in. If the requirements look reachable, they’re worth chasing — you’re seeing the target rather than guessing at it. Where a contest has entry conditions rather than a group restriction, the requirement is shown on the tab so you know what to hit.

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Watch the standings

Underneath the prize card is the ranked list, working the same way as the general leaderboard: your Your position card at the top, your own row highlighted and marked (You), and rank movement arrows showing who’s climbing. As with any board, the program can choose to hide other affiliates’ names, in which case they appear as the first couple of letters followed by asterisks. The positions that pay carry their prize alongside them, so you can see at a glance how far you are from the money.

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See who has won

Select View winners on a contest to open its full history. There are two tabs. All winners lists everyone who’s won, grouped by when each set of winners was chosen — useful on a repeating contest, where you get one group per period. My wins narrows it to yours. Each row shows the position, the prize and the number that won it. Until a contest period has finished, there’s nothing here yet.

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Collect your prize

When you win, a celebration appears the next time you open the portal, naming the contest. What happens next depends on the prize. Cash prizes are added to your account as a bonus in the program’s currency. You’ll see the state next to your win: pending while the program is preparing the payment, then a View payout button once the payout has been created, which opens the payout it’s part of. From there it follows your normal payment schedule — see how you get paid. Non-cash prizes are handled by the brand directly. The prize description says what you’re getting and how it reaches you. If it’s a physical item, make sure your program manager has the details they need to send it.

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After a contest ends

Programs can leave a finished contest on the page, so the final standings and the winners stay visible after the countdown runs out. Others take it down once it’s over. Either way, any prize you won stays on your account. A cash prize that was awarded doesn’t disappear when the contest is removed from view.

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Public contest pages

A brand can publish a contest on a page that anyone can view without an account, and share the link wherever they like. It shows the prizes, the countdown and the standings, with a link to join the program. Whether names are hidden on the public version is a separate setting from the one inside the portal, so a contest can be anonymous publicly and open internally, or the other way round. If you’d rather not appear on a public page, ask your program manager before the contest starts.

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