Mar, 2015
Offsite Payment Buttons (i.e., w/o Shortcodes)
Table of Contents
Why Offsite Payment Buttons?
An example use case would be if you have a membership site powered by WordPress + s2Member, but you actually market this site elsewhere; i.e., on a different site altogether; one that is not running WordPress or s2Member. In a case like this you have a few choices, but here are the ones that we commonly recommend.
- Use an Offsite Payment Button via Redirections (as seen below).
- Or, use s2Member Pro-Forms, where you simply link to the site that contains your s2Member Pro-Form, which facilitates checkout; i.e., you link to the site that powers your membership and checkout process.
Let's stay focused on option 1 in this article. If you're not using s2Member Pro or you just prefer to use Payment Buttons instead of Pro-Forms—for whatever crazy reason, you can build a redirection script as seen below.
What it boils down to is that you generate a shortcode with s2Member (like always), but you change the output="anchor" to output="url". Running this in PHP gives you a URL at runtime that you can then redirect a visitor to. In this way, you can use this technique in offsite button endeavors :-)
Example Code for PayPal Buttons
Create this directory and file:
wp-content/mu-plugins/s2-paypal-redirect.php
<?php
add_action('wp_loaded', function()
{
if(isset($_REQUEST['paypal']) && $_REQUEST['paypal'] === 'redirect')
// A URL leading to this site with: `/?paypal=redirect` ↑
{
$paypal_checkout = do_shortcode('[s2Member-PayPal-Button ... output="url" /]');
// The Shortcode above has been abbreviated here for clarity ↑
// You will need to generate your own full PayPal Button Shortcode and set output="url" as seen above.
wp_redirect($paypal_checkout); exit;
}
});
With this in place, you can lead a visitor to checkout at PayPal by creating a link. And, you can link to this from anywhere, making it a neat solution when you want to start the checkout process from an offsite location.
http://example.com/?paypal=redirect
Example Code for ClickBank Buttons
Create this directory and file:
wp-content/mu-plugins/s2-clickbank-redirect.php
<?php
add_action('wp_loaded', function()
{
if(isset($_REQUEST['clickbank']) && $_REQUEST['clickbank'] === 'redirect')
// A URL leading to this site with: `/?clickbank=redirect` ↑
{
$clickbank_checkout = do_shortcode('[s2Member-Pro-ClickBank-Button ... output="url" /]');
// The Shortcode above has been abbreviated here for clarity ↑
// You will need to generate your own full ClickBank Button Shortcode and set output="url" as seen above.
wp_redirect($clickbank_checkout); exit;
}
});
With this in place, you can lead a visitor to checkout at ClickBank by creating a link. And, you can link to this from anywhere, making it a neat solution when you want to start the checkout process from an offsite location.
http://example.com/?clickbank=redirect
