Adding your affiliate tags

An affiliate tag is what tells a store the sale came from you. shownote holds one default tag per store, and applies it to every destination pointing at that store — so you set it once, not per link.

"Tag" is doing some work here, though: depending on the store, what you paste in isn't always a query-string tag. shownote supports four different tag styles, and the field(s) you see on the Stores page change shape to match whichever style a store uses.

Set a default tag

1. Go to Stores in your studio.
2. Choose the store. The fields below it already match its tag style — you don't pick a style yourself for a preloaded store.
3. Fill in the field(s) and save.

Every existing link that points at that store starts carrying the tag immediately. There's nothing to re-save on the links themselves.

The four tag styles

Query (?param=value)

The most common style. Your tag is appended as a URL query parameter — for Amazon that's tag=yourname-20. Both a parameter name and a value are required for the tag to apply; a store like Barnes & Noble ships with the value field blank and the parameter name blank, because shownote can't guess what your network calls it.

Amazon is also the one store that can reroute internationally: a buyer clicking from outside your home country may land on their local Amazon marketplace instead, using a regional tag rather than this default one — see How geo-routing picks an Amazon store. If you've completed Amazon's simplified OneLink upgrade, this one US tag can also cover Canada and the EU5 without a separate account per country.

Path (/a/value/)

Bookshop.org has no query parameter at all — its affiliate grammar rides the URL path instead, as bookshop.org/a/<your-id>/.... On the Stores page you'll only see one field, prefixed with /a/, for just the id. If a link's destination URL was generated from an ISBN, it may show /a/0/ as a placeholder; that's not a real id; it's replaced by your configured one at click time, same as any other Bookshop link.

Wrapper (Awin)

Libro.fm's affiliate program runs on the Awin network rather than its own site, so a Libro.fm click gets wrapped in an Awin tracking redirect instead of having a tag appended to it. You'll see two fields here, and neither is your own affiliate tag in the usual sense: the first is Libro.fm's Awin merchant id — already filled in, since it's a public constant from Awin's own records, not something you supply — and the second is your Awin publisher id (Awin calls it awinaffid). Enter your publisher id and shownote builds the full Awin tracking link for every Libro.fm destination.

Landing (a fixed partner page)

Everand is the outlier: its affiliate program isn't a tag on a product page at all — it's a single partner landing URL that PartnerStack (Everand's affiliate platform) issues you. Paste that whole URL into Everand's field on the Stores page, and every click on an Everand button goes there, regardless of which Everand link a viewer clicked from your choice page. Until you set that URL, shownote won't let you add Everand as a destination on a link, so set it here first.

Where to find your tag

Book stores

Store	What you enter	Where to get it
Amazon	Your tracking ID (e.g. yourname-20)	Associates Central: tracking IDs — "Manage Your Tracking IDs" in your account
Bookshop.org	Your affiliate id	Your Bookshop.org affiliate profile
Libro.fm	Your Awin publisher id (the merchant id is already filled in)	Apply to the Libro.fm affiliate program — approval runs through Awin
Barnes & Noble	The parameter name and value your network gives you	Barnes & Noble Affiliate Program — currently managed through Impact
Everand	Your PartnerStack partner landing URL, pasted whole	Everand Affiliate Program terms — apply, then PartnerStack issues your link

TTRPG stores

All three run their own query-style programs, so you supply a parameter name and a value — except DriveThruRPG, whose parameter is already filled in.

Store	What you enter	Where to get it
DriveThruRPG	Your affiliate id (the parameter affiliate_id is already filled in)	DriveThruRPG affiliate FAQ
itch.io	The parameter name and value from your partner dashboard	itch.io Partner & Affiliate program — apply first; the exact link format appears in the dashboard
Noble Knight Games	The parameter name and value they issue you	Noble Knight affiliate signup — the tagged-link format comes after approval

Check for gaps

A store with no tag still works — buyers reach the product fine — but the click earns nothing. Because nothing visibly breaks, this is the single most common way creators lose money without noticing.

Your Insights dashboard flags exactly this: stores that received clicks in the last 30 days but have no default tag set, with a link to fix each one. Check it after adding a new store.