This page describes the terms you must agree to in order to be come a Server Academy affiliate.

Here are the details of our program in summary:

• You will receive 50% commission on all sales you refer
• Commissions will be held for 31 days to account for refunds or other billing issues
• Referrals are paid out to your PayPal account
• Referrals cannot be generated by your own purchases (this includes using a different email address)

Referral cookie lifetime

When a potential customer clicks on your referral link, a cookie is stored in their browser to track your referral. The cookie is then stored for a generous 60 days to give your referred customers time to decide if they wish to become a Server Academy student, or ask us any pre-sale questions they may have.

A referral won’t be awarded if:

1. The customer uses a different browser to purchase than the one they originally used to visit our site (because the cookie does not exist in that browser)
2. The customer purchases after 60 days (because the cookie will expire).

Refunded purchases

Refunds can be requested by the customer within 30 days of purchase. If a refund is requested and approved within that time, a commission will not be paid out to you.

We reserve the right to reject affiliate commissions for any reason. Commission rejections may occur for the following reasons:

1. The sale that the referral was based on was refunded
2. The method by which the referral was generated was in violation of our promotional policies (see below) or violated the spirit of the Affiliate Agreement.

Affiliate news and updates

By becoming an affiliate you agree to receive emails from Server Academy. These emails will be sent to affiliates only, on an ad-hoc basis, and may include important information regarding the Server Academy affiliate program. These emails will also provide you with relevant news and updates to help you effectively promote Server Academy. As an affiliate you may be privy to embargoed or time-sensitive information in these emails (this information may only be promoted after an embargo is lifted). And we won’t spam you, ever – promise!

Affiliate application rejection

We reserve the right to reject affiliate applications for any reason. We also reserve the right to choose whether we provide an explanation or reasoning for affiliate application rejection. Below are just a few reasons why an application may be rejected (this is not an exhaustive list):

• Affiliate applications for websites that sell, advertise or engage in pornography, phishing scams, spamming, illegal business practices, or that include any material infringing on National or International Copyright will be rejected.
• Affiliate applications for websites that we do not believe are aligned with our industry or business may be rejected.
• Websites considered inappropriate by Server Academy will be rejected.

Inappropriate websites:

The following types of sites are not permitted to become an affiliate: adult sites, sites that display adult material or banners, sites that promote violence, hatred or bigotry, sites that promote or engage in illegal activity, including (but not limited to), unethical hacking, cracking, and warez sites. Affiliate applications for inappropriate websites will be rejected, and we reserve the right to choose whether or not to provide a rejection reason.

Questions regarding your application

When you apply to become an affiliate we may email you at the email address you have supplied with some questions regarding your application. This may be because:

We didn’t understand something in your application, or,
We’d like to learn a bit more about how you will promote Server Academy and need a little more detail.
If we reach out to you and we haven’t heard back within 7 days, your application may be rejected. If your initial application is rejected, you are welcome to reapply to become an affiliate and provide us with more detail for reconsideration.

Dormant affiliate accounts

Please don’t leave us! We encourage all of our affiliates to actively promote Server Academy to keep earning referrals. If we can help you come up with ideas on how to promote Server Academy, please let us know – we’re here for you! An affiliate account is considered dormant if no visits have been generated after a 6-month period. A dormant affiliate account will be temporarily deactivated if no visits have been generated after 6 months.

Allowed promotional methods

How you promote Server Academy is reflected in the commission you earn! We encourage the use of promotional methods that add value to Server Academy and bring us legitimate, loyal customers. We love it when our team of affiliates blog about affiliate marketing and mention Server Academy.

Here are a few examples of awesome promotional methods to earn more commission:

• Tell clients, customers or friends about Server Academy, and give them your affiliate referral link
• Write a review or a blog post about affiliate marketing or Server Academy and link to our site with your referral link
• Reach out to a broad audience with your social network accounts. Tweet about us on Twitter with your affiliate referral link, post about us on Facebook with your affiliate link, or communicate to your Linkedin followers about affiliate marketing with your affiliate link. Spam-free promotion is a great way to get more referrals!
• Provide value to others by answering related questions on other sites with helpful responses, and using your referral link in your replies.

Prohibited promotional methods

We love and back our product 100%, and we are very careful with how it’s promoted, so we want affiliates who are 100% behind us too! The prohibited promotional methods listed below aren’t meant to scare you off – they’re here to protect you, and us, and our customers from any freaky or fraudulent activity, which is something we take pretty seriously. We know you’ll understand. 🙂 But here they are in writing just in case you’re not totally sure what is and what isn’t allowed.

• Server Academy may not be promoted on coupon sites
  Customers who are searching for a coupon are already in the market for Server Academy, so this method adds no value to Server Academy.
• Paid advertising using your affiliate link is prohibited

Buying ads through services like Google AdWords, social ads, or retargeting ads and using our brand keywords and your affiliate link will result in affiliate account deactivation.

• Any type of spam is prohibited
  Links, ads, emails, comments… any type of spam. Please respect the posting rules of any 3rd-party websites you use to promote Server Academy. P.S. This is not an exhaustive list of spam methods; if we decide that your activity is spam, it’s spam.
• Any illegal activity or activity deemed offensive by us is prohibited
  This may result in referrals being rejected and/or your affiliate account being deactivated. See above for allowed and super cool promotional methods!
• We’re flattered, but please don’t pretend to be professionally associated with Server Academy
  Affiliates aren’t employees of Server Academy and have no employee rights.
• Pretending to actually be Server Academy is prohibited
  Cloning our site, copying our site, using our copyrighted site assets, and pretending that a site created by you is an official Server Academy site is unethical and prohibited (this includes using services that automatically clone websites, or place them into iframes).
• Again, false promotion to customers that you are endorsed or operated by Server Academy is prohibited (and super uncool).

If you're unsure or concerned that some method you're about to use might be against our terms - please contact us either on the forums or email us at support@serveracademy.com.

Consequences of bad promotional methods

If your promotional methods step outside of these terms, your referrals may be rejected and we may disable your affiliate account. We reserve the right to do this and may or may not notify you in the instance that this occurs. Please use allowed promotional methods, and help us to help you succeed as an affiliate!

Inappropriate websites

The following types of sites are not permitted to become an affiliate: adult sites, sites that display adult material or banners, sites that promote violence, hatred or bigotry, sites that promote or engage in illegal activity, including (but not limited to), hacking, cracking, nulled, and warez sites. Affiliate applications for inappropriate websites will be rejected, and we reserve the right to choose whether or not to provide a rejection reason.

Finally...

By accepting these terms and conditions you are providing your nonlegal agreement to abide by them. By registering and being approved as an affiliate in our affiliate program you agree that your commissions are subject to approval before they are accepted and subsequently paid.

The affiliate relationship does not represent a professional or formal agreement, and as an affiliate you are not an employee of Server Academy, LLC.  You agree that this is not a legally binding relationship and as a result may not take legal action against Server Academy, LLC. These affiliate terms and conditions are subject to change without notice.