Quick start
The shortest path from a fresh install to a working cashback site. The goal is one shop live on your site, one member clicking through to it, and one order arriving in your admin.
Allow an hour. Most of that is waiting for a network to send you data.
1. Set your site currency
Cashback Tracker → Settings → General → Currency and cashback. Every piece of cashback is converted into this and stored in it, so choose the currency you actually pay members in — it cannot be meaningfully changed later. See Currency and exchange rates.
2. Connect a network
Cashback Tracker → Networks. Your network is already in the list — press Configure on its row, paste the credentials it gave you, tick Enable network and save.
Each network asks for something slightly different — see Adding a network and the page for your particular network.
3. Load the shops
On the Networks screen, press Refresh all shops.
The network's merchant list is imported into Cashback Tracker → Shop catalog. On a large network this is thousands of shops, and it runs in the background — you can leave the page.
A shop in the catalog is not yet a page on your site. That is the next step.
4. Create shop pages
Cashback Tracker → Shop catalog → Bulk tools → Create missing pages.
This turns catalog entries into real pages visitors can find. On a big catalog, think about whether you want a page for every shop or only the ones you will write about — see Creating shop pages in bulk.
While you are in Bulk tools, press Fill missing on the Logos row to give those pages a logo. See Shop logos.
5. Set your cashback rates
This is the number that makes it your business rather than the network's: the network pays you a commission, and you decide how much of it the member gets.
Each network carries its own default, on the same Configure screen where you pasted the credentials. Any single shop can override it. See Cashback rates.
Set the default now, and set a different rate on one shop so you can see the difference.
6. Link your shop directory
You do not have to build this. The directory already exists, at:
Open it. Every shop page you just created is there, with an A–Z strip, a search box, sorting and paging — none of which you configured.
Add it to your menu now, under Appearance → Menus. Nothing links to it automatically, and a directory nobody can find is the single most common thing missing from a new install.
If you also want a handful of shops on your home page, that is the shortcode's job — a plain grid, no filters:
Then check the member account page exists — Pages in WordPress, look for the one created at activation. That is where members will see their balance and request payouts.
See The shop directory, Shortcodes and The member account page.
7. Click through as a test member
Register a second account on your own site — a real one, not your admin login — log in as them, open a shop page and press Go to shop.
You should land on the merchant's site. That link carried a hidden tag identifying that member to the network, which is how the sale finds its way back to them.
8. Buy something, then wait
Complete a real purchase at the merchant, or wait for a real visitor to.
Nothing appears immediately, and that is normal. Networks report sales on their own schedule — usually hours, sometimes a day or more. There is no click to look at in the meantime: the plugin only knows about a member once the network reports the sale.
When it arrives, you will find it in Cashback Tracker → Orders, and the member's share in Members. It arrives pending — see The life of one cashback order for what happens next.
What to read next
Going live — the checklist for when the sandbox comes off
The life of one cashback order — the path everything else assumes
Balances: pending, available, paid — the three numbers members ask about
Handling a payout request — for when the first one arrives
Importing orders — how often orders are checked, and how to make it more often
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