Help for dmAdmin Settings: Affiliate Brand

This note tells you how to use the ready-made affilaite sites, and how to customise them using your branding settings

At a minimum complete the basic branding settings to get started. Then, when you're a bit more familiar with how your dealership works, you can begin to customise your affiliate sites using the advanced settings, adding your own styling and logos.

A full guide to the settings can be found here: #1239 Branding Parameter Reference.

Ready-made affiliate sites

Using one or more of the ready-made affiliate sites is the easiest way to start selling our services.

You have two options: Use your dealer subdomain(s), or point your own domain(s) at the affiliate site(s) and tell us about it using your dmAdmin control panel (see below).

There is no charge.
All sales made through a properly configured affiliate site will be registered to your dealership, earning you commission.

Using your dealer subdomain(s)

Use your single word brandname as the subdomain prefix, and one of more of the seond-level domains below.

In the examples replace 'mybrandname' with your brandname to see your affiliate site.

Affiliate site	Example URL	Sales focus
dmconnect12.com	mybrandname.dmconnect12.com	UK local numbers on the dmConnect12 service
dmconnects.com	mybrandname.dmconnects.com	UK local numbers on the dmConnect12 service
dmswitchboard12.com	mybrandname.dmswitchboard12.com	All UK number ranges on the dmSwitchboard12 sedrvice
dmanswers14.com	mybrandname.dmanswers14.com	dmAnswers14, our human answering service
dmshop.biz	mybrandname.dmshop.biz	All number rangers and all classic (older) services

Bear in mind:

All our dealers share this resource, so some of the obvious brandnames may already be taken. If you can't get the subdomain you want, think creatively - for example choose a subdomain connected with a targeted campaign.

Using your own domain(s)

You can point any domain you control, or any subdomain of a domain you control, at one of our affiliate servers, and then promote this URL to your customers. For example, if you control the domain 'greatnumbers.com' you could point 'simple.greatnumbers.com at the dmConnect12 affiliate site, and 'advanced.greatnumbers.com' at the dmSwitchboard12 affiliate site.

Instructions
You point a domain or subdomain at one of the affiliate sites by editing its DNS settings (technically, by creating a CNAME record in its zone file). In practice you'll probably use your domain registrar's online DNS control panel to do this.

Affiliate shop	CNAME record to use	Sales focus
dmconnect12.com	dmconnect12.com.	UK local numbers / dmConnect12 service
dmconnects.com	dmconnects.com.	UK local numbers / dmConnect12 service
dmswitchboard12.com	dmswitchboard12.com.	All number ranges / dmSwitchboard12 service
dmanswers14.com	dmanswers14.com.	dmAnswers14, human answering service
dmshop.biz	dmshop.biz.	All number rangers / classic services

Set up a CNAME record (or "alias") to point to the affiliate site of your choice.
You can do it for each affiliate site you want to use, provided you dedicate a domain or subdomain to each.
Add the domain (including any subdomains) to the list of Fully Qualified Domain Names under the Advanced Serrings setion of your dealer control panel. See #1239 Brand Parameter Reference.

Troubleshooting

Trailing full points in CNAME records may or may not be required. Some registrars add these automatically, so if the domain name you are using doesn't resolve when you use a trailing full point try the same setting without one.

e.g. use dmconnect12.com. (with a trailing full point) OR dmconnect12.com (without a trailing full point) as the CNAME record's content.

IMPORTANT: Clear the brand cache to see changes

All of the affiliate site's cache your brand settings. If you've made changes to your brand settings and these are not reflected on your site your first step should be to clear the site's brand cache.

dmconnect12.com / dmconnects.com / dmswitchboard12.com / dmanswers14.com

1) Open your Affiliate site by clicking on the site URL.

2) Go to /tools (forward-slash tools)

3) Click the link reading 'CLear brand and page cache'.

4) Refresh the page to view your changes. You chould now see your updates.

dmshop.biz

1) Open your Affiliate site by clicking on the site URL.

2) Double-click the text reading 'on' in the top right-hand corner of the header banner.

3) Using the 'Visitor Toolbar' that opens at the top of the page, choose 'Clear Current Session' from the drop-down 'Actions' menu.