This is the scenario that we are after:

  1. A visitor arrives on your site and sees a purchase button for some Pay Per View (PPV) content.
  2. The visitor makes a purchase using the purchase button.
  3. The visitor then gets an encrypted link in the email (optionally you can also show the links on the Thank you page).
  4. The visitor clicks on the encrypted link which sends him to a WordPress page and allows him to see the content embedded on that page. If the visitor directly goes to this page without clicking on the encrypted link first (no content will be shown to the visitor).

 

How the APR Feature Protects the Content

The key thing to understand here is that the APR feature protects the content inside the APR shortcode (it doesn’t try to mask or hide the URL of the page). The content inside the APR Shortcode can only be viewed after the customers click on the encrypted link for that product that they receive after the purchase. If anyone directly goes to that URL the content inside the APR shortcode will be hidden this is why there is no need to hide the actual URL.

 

Setup Preparation (Basic Understanding)

The security mechanism used by APR is an encrypted session cookie; the APR Cookie.  Each APR cookie is specific to a particular permalink, and contains encrypted timing information.  On the pages being protected by APR, called APR Targets, an APR shortcode encloses the content being protected.  Content enclosed by an APR shortcode will only be displayed if the following specified condition is met:

  • An APR cookie exists and is LESS THAN an a specified number of minutes old.  Your APR cookies are set for 2 weeks and they can click and watch the video unlimited times during those 14 days.

 

Step 1

Create the target page and setup the content that you want to deliver after the purchase.

Create a page or post that will become the APR target then enclose the content you want to protect using one of the following shortcodes:

[wp_eStore_cart_when_not_empty]

[wp_eStore_APR expiry=0 status=unexpired]

Your Content Goes Here… Video Embed code, Link back to Plus page etc.

[/wp_eStore_APR]

Please make sure that the permalink you will be using works.  Copy and paste it into the address bar of your browser.  Specifically, ensure that the permalink you think you are going to use does not get modified by WordPress.  If the permalink changes, then either fix the problem or use the resulting URL as the link you will use for the APR target URI.

 

Step 2

Click on WP eStore… click to “add/edit products.
Enter Name, Pricing and then click to expand  “Digital Content Details”
Paste in the URL to the page you just created with the PLUS content.
Correct the APRTP URL as shown here:
Setup your digital product, using the URL of the APR target page
CHANGE the URL scheme from ‘http’ to ‘aprtp’ or from ‘https’ to ‘aprtps’ in the “Digital Product URL” field. So for example if your APR target page URL is the following:

https://thehighlandwoodworker.com/my-secret-page-with-awesome-plus-video

Change the keyword “http” to “aprtp” and use that URL in the “Digital Product URL” field. So for the above example you will enter the following in the “Digital Product URL” field:

aprtp://thehighlandwoodworker.com/my-secret-page-with-awesome-plus-video

Click to Expand “Additional Product Details” – Enter the description for this PPV PLUS video. To add html such as a link  you will need to use HTML like this

<a href=”http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/by-hand-and-eye.aspx” target=”_blank”>By Hand and Eye</a>

Next, use the upload button to upload the image to use on the sale page – Select Thumbnail and “insert into post”

Click Save Product at the bottom of the page.

Step 3

Add you new video to your PLUS page.
First in WP eStore.. click to manage products

Get the ID number of the new product

Next go edit your THW Plus page (called The Highland Woodworker PLUS in the control panel)
Click on the page where you would like the new product to show

Click on the little shopping cart icon
Select the 4th option down that says wp-estore fancy2 id= and click to insert… then enter the id number for your new product and click ok

Keep in mind the very top string of code on this page is your shopping cart and that should always remain at the top.

Click Update

Limitations

If an APR target contains the ‘nextpage’ tag, only content on the first page will be protected by the APR shortcodes.

Troubleshooting Tips

Reasons for why APR would not work include:

  1. The product URL does not specify the APRTP protocol. You forgot to use the correct URL format (see step 2 above) in the “Digital Product URL” field.
  2. The specified URL used with the APRTP protocol does not EXACTLY match the “pretty URL” format used for the non-APR URL. Example, if the non-APR URL is “http://site.com/page/” the APR URI must include the trailing “/” or it will not work.
  3. The browser is not accepting cookies.

Admin Functions

You can send email someone an encrypted URL to a download without making them go through the process again.