Step-by-Step Guide to Publisher Sign-Up (Registration)

Overview

Signing up (registering) as a Rakuten Advertising publisher is free and will give you the opportunity to earn money online from your website, email marketing, and social media promotions. Before you join, we recommend reviewing these affiliate marketing requirements and recommendations.

Our interface supports all major browsers. For more information, see specifics about browser settings.

There are three steps to the sign-up process:

1. Registration on the Publisher Registration page: We ask that you enter information about yourself, your business, and your website to register as a publisher. This takes about five to ten minutes.
2. Email validation.
3. Application review.

Step 1: Registration

Your Company Info

• Select the Country in which your business is located.
• Select a Legal Entity Type. You should consult with your accountant and legal team on this. For a definition of each type, please see Which legal entity type should I select?

  Publishers outside the U.S.

  Publishers who receive commission in a country other than the United States must select “Foreign.”

• Enter your Business Name: This must not exceed 60 characters. For individuals and sole proprietorships, this will be your full name.
• Make selections for or enter your tax identification number(s):
  • Businesses based in the U.S. must enter a Social Security Number or an IRS Employer ID Number (EIN) depending on the legal entity type selected. Please enter these numbers without dashes or spaces. We are required to collect this information for tax purposes.
  • This field is optional for business not based in the U.S.
• Choose your U.S. Tax Form:
• If your business is in the U.S., W-9 will be preselected. If your business is in another country, you will have a few forms to choose from. For more information on these forms, please see Publisher Tax Information.

  Your tax form

  You do not need to send your tax form to Rakuten Advertising. During the registration process, we ask you to enter your company name and income tax identification information so that you do not have to submit a physical document.

• Enter your Address and Phone number. Your address can contain up to 60 characters on line 1 and 40 characters on line 2 and include letters, numbers, symbols, and spaces.

Contact and Account Info

• Enter your Name, Account Email address, and Login Email address:

  

1. The Account Email will be used for emails about new features, releases, products, and external newsletters, etc.
2. The Login Email will be the email you use to log in.
• Your password must be at least 8 characters and include at least a number, an uppercase letter, and a special character.
• Select a Security Question and enter an answer for it.

Primary Website Info

• Enter the name of your Website and the URL, including https://
• Select your Primary Business Model. For definitions of these models, please see Which business model should I select?
• Enter the month, day, and year your business was established using the format MM/DD/YYYY.
• Select a range for how many Unique Visitors your site gets a month and for the number of Page Views you get a month.
• Provide a Short Description of your website. You can include a URL to link to your Sell Sheet on your website or elsewhere for advertisers to download.
• If you want to know more about what your website information is used for, please see What is my website information used for?

Category

Select the Primary Category that your business fits into. If you wish to select more than one category, click Add additional category… You can select up to three.

Your Customer Demographic

Select the Gender and Age range of your customers. You may select more than one age range.

Payment Threshold

Enter the amount of commissions you would like to trigger a payment. The amount must be at least the minimum payment threshold for your country of residence, which is 50 USD, CAD, GBP, EUR, or AUD for all payments. Please do not include decimals, spaces, commas, or currency symbols in the field.

Language Preference

The Publisher Dashboard and the email communications we send to you are currently available in eight languages: English (U.S.), Spanish, French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), and Korean. Please select your preference here.

Email Subscriptions

Check the boxes if you’d like to receive the Rakuten Advertising newsletters and be notified of new promotions offered by advertisers.

Membership Agreement

• Review the entire global publisher Membership Agreement. Be sure you scroll down to the bottom of the document.
• If you agree to the terms, click the boxes to indicate this. Also, click to confirm you are 18 years of age or older. You will be automatically opted-in to all international advertiser networks for which you are eligible.

Information Certification

Lastly, you will need to read the Information Certification. If it is all true, type your name in the Signature field and click Continue.

If you receive an error message here, please see sign-up troubleshooting.

Step 2: Email Validation

You will receive an email from us asking you to validate your email address. Click the link and your email address will be validated. If you do not receive an email from us, please be sure that your spam software is set to accept email from @rakuten.com and @linkshare.com. Learn more about validating your email address.

Step 3: Application Review

After you submit your completed application, it will be reviewed by our team. It usually takes a couple of business days for your application to be approved, at which point you will receive a welcome email with instructions for you to follow to get started with Rakuten Advertising. Your account will automatically opt in to all the international networks for which you are eligible so you can work with advertisers globally.

Next Steps

When you're finished, check out our Quick Start Guide to learn how to get your new affiliate program going fast.