National Rail offers affiliates:
Please only promote current offers and pricing. All information relating to our brand, promotions & products must be correct. Frequent coverage of out of date promotions or incorrect information may result in removal from our programme.
Voucher and Cashback sites
All active and approved voucher code/cashback sites are only permitted to promote the offers supplied by Sparkfoundry or National Rail. Any affiliates found promoting offers that haven’t been approved will be removed from the programme and commissions declined.
Validations
All commissions will be validated on a 35-day period and National Rail reserves the right to decline commission on all returned goods.
Branding
When referencing Railcard, please ensure that it’s one word. Please ensure you are also using the most up to date logo which is used on the network profile - if you need different sizes please get in touch.
Contact
For general enquiries please email the affiliate team: rdgaffiliates@sparkfoundryww.com
PPC
Please note National Rail will not pay commission to affiliates carrying out any unauthorised brand bidding for the duration the bidding takes place.
App Sales
Please be aware that commission is not (currently) payable on app sales.
Note that affiliates are not permitted to scrape the website for information
Campaigns
From time to time, National Rail may share details of upcoming campaigns or promotions with its affiliates under embargo. Affiliates must not share this information publicly or with any other company ahead of its launch date, when an embargo is in place. Doing so may result in loss of commissions and/or termination from the programme.
Terms and Conditions:
General:
Terms and Conditions
Voucher Code Affiliates
All existing voucher code affiliates are expected to adhere to the below:
In light of the recent developments regarding promotion of voucher codes on affiliate sites, Railcard asks that affiliates adhere to the new guidelines from the Internet Advertising Bureau Affiliate Marketing Council (IAB AMC). Therefore, the terms & conditions of this affiliate programme have been set to reflect these guidelines:
1. Using "Click to Reveal" when there is no valid or current code present is not permitted for affiliate publishers using "Click to Reveal" to show any deals / offers / sales instead of vouchers.
2. Voucher code affiliate publishers must clearly detail the voucher offer that will be revealed by the click.
3. A valid code or promotion is defined as a code that has been legitimately issued by Railcard/Sparkfoundry for use by affiliates and not a code that has been issued to consumers direct. This code or promotion will have an activation date and where necessary a deactivation date.
4. Voucher code directories must contain clear categorisation and separation between deals / offers / sales and discount codes.
5. Sparkfoundry check all sales made through the affiliate programme; where a promotion code is used, and the offer has not been communicated to affiliates to use, commission will be declined.
Creative
Affiliates may not alter any of the creative or text links available through the Awin interface. Affiliates are also requested not to hardcode banners into their sites, so updates made to those through Awin may take immediate effect.
Anyone found infringing on these terms will receive a warning and may have commissions reversed. We reserve the right to withhold commission during this time. Continuous infringement of these terms will result in suspension.
Bespoke creative can be supplied on request please get in touch with rdgaffiliates@sparkfoundryww.com for further help.
I-frames
Affiliates may not put the railcard website into frames or use masked URLs.
Full Terms & Conditions
please note that failure to comply with these terms and conditions could result in your relationship being terminated and any commissions earned being reversed.
1. Pay Per Click search activity
Affiliates are not permitted to carry out any PPC search activity directing traffic to Railcard except by special arrangement.
Affiliates generating traffic to their own sites must also abide by the following rules.
1. Using the Railcard brand term in the sub folder of the display URL (eg www.affiliate.com/railcard) – Not Allowed
2. Using the Railcard brand term in the sub domain of the display URL (eg www.railcard.affiliate.com) – Not Allowed
3. Using the Railcard brand or a misspelling of the railcard brand in the display URL (eg www.TRailcard.co.uk) or (www.railcarddd.co.uk) – Not Allowed
4. Using the Railcard brand in the ad title – Not Allowed
5. Using the Railcard brand in the ad text – Allowed
6. Bid on the brand term “Railcard” – Not Allowed
7. Bid on misspellings or extensions of the brand (eg “railard, cardrail, travelrailcard”) – Not Allowed
8. Bid on Railcard brand + generic terms (eg “Railcard travel”) - Not Allowed
9. Bid on the advertisers URL (www.railcard.co.uk) – Not Allowed
10. Show adverts on competitors’ brands – Not Allowed
11. Please note affiliates are NOT allowed to bid on any variations of the brand name Railcard.
12. Railcard and common misspelling should be added as negative terms to all affiliate paid search campaigns.
2. Discount code / voucher code websites
As standard all voucher code use needs to comply with the official IAB guidelines which can be found here:
http://www.iabuk.net/resources/standards-and-guidelines/online-voucher-codes
1. Publishers may only use discount codes which have been supplied to them by Sparkfoundry on behalf of Railcard. Please apply to Awin to obtain authorised codes for the Railcard programme.
b. Publishers must not display made up / invented discount codes on their site(s) or display discount codes that were intended for use in other channels or for other online publishers.
c. Under no circumstances are publishers allowed to surreptitiously use i-frames to set Awin cookies onto a user’s computer.
d. Discount code publishers with websites that encourage users to “click here to reveal offer / code” thus setting an Awin cookie can only use this function if a voucher code exists for the Railcard programme. If there is no voucher code available for the Railcard programme publishers must not use this method, as it leads to a poor user experience for potential Railcard customers and can cause customer service issues.
e. If a discount code has been issued to publishers and it has an expiry date the publisher must clearly display on its website(s) the expiry date of this discount so that the user can decide whether they want to go ahead and click the publisher’s link.
f. If publishers wish to maintain expired discount codes on their sites for search engine optimisation reasons, they must display clear notification to the user that the discount has expired. This notification must be located right next to the expired discount code. The font size must be no smaller than the site(s) body text and the colour used must contrast clearly with the background It is not acceptable for the notification to be displayed a significant distance from the expired code.
4. Email Marketing
a. All email marketing must be signed off by Sparkfoundry and the account management team.
5. Linking
a. Publishers are allowed to deeplink to a chosen offer or category on the Railcard site.
Affiliate Approvals
All affiliate sites are audited on sign up to ensure any brand compliance issue that may exist are met. Any affiliates without a working URL will be rejected.
Validations
All commissions will be validated on a 35 day period and railcard.co.uk/sparkfoundry reserves the right to claim back commission on all returned goods.
