Alternative Payment Resources

You’ve seen “support this site” PayPal buttons on other sites. You can use TrialPay the same way, allowing your site visitors to support your site by signing up for TrialPay offers.  I have a sample button in the margin of this page - have a look.  It was easy to do, and only took a few minutes.

First, you need to create an account at TrialPay.  Then proceed as follows:

Add a Product 

Add a product, which is done by adding a “checkout” from the dashboard.  For “Basic Settings”, Enter a Name and Description, and be sure to set the “Item Type” to “Online Credits/Points”.  Click the thumbnail to see the typical settings.  For “Advanced Settings”, set the Activation Method to “Static or Custom Created Activation Key”.  You can just put “Thank  You” for the key itself.  Use this space to describe any extra benefits or features they’ll have on your site, such as “contributing member” status, etc..

Describe the Checkout

Now that the “Product” has been established, continue defining the “Checkout”.  For the basic settings, give it a name, such as “Support This Site FREE!” and complete the URL (mostly pre-defined, but you need to assign the last part of the URL, such as “tpcheckout”.

Tip: You’ll find a drop-down menu on the “edit” link of the “checkouts” page, where you can get to the various aspects of the checkout.

For “Activation Instructions”, use something like this:

Thanks for your support. We’ll post your name on our site as a supporting member.
You Ordered: %product_name1%
Status: %activation_key1%

For the Payment Notifications, you can have it send  you an e-mail or post to a CGI when a transaction occurs. It’ll be simplest to start with e-mail.  You can use “test checkout” to see what you’ll get.

Finalize the Campaign

In the Campaign Settings, set the following:

• Campaign Name: Support This Site    (or whatever you want)
• Type of campaign:  Website
• Objective of this campaign:  Offer as Payment Method

Get your buttons/links

Now click on the “checkouts” tab, and “get links” on your campaign.  You’ll have pre-formatted HTML that you can use. The link URL is important, the other stuff is just convenient.  Here is my “TrialPay Checkout” button HTML:

<a href=’http://www.trialpay.com/stores/thornsoft/tprsample?tid=A7DZlP2′><img border=0 src=’http://images.trialpay.com/m/button3.jpg’></a>

Integrate With  Your Site

Take your version of the above HTML, and stick into your site somewhere. Techniques will vary, depending on the technology of the site (phpBB, Wordpress, Gallery, etc..)  Look over in the margin of this page - there should be a “Support this site - FREE!” button. I did that by adding a text “widget” in the “presentation” panel of WordPress, and pasted in the TrialPay code.  You should be able to add similar code to any sort of gallery, forum, or blogging technology where you can add HTML. i.e. if you can add a PayPal button, you can quickly add a TrialPay button.

This page has the following sub pages.

• Widget Plugin for WordPress