Set up your affiliate program

An affiliate program pays other people for the customers they send you. Each partner gets their own link to your site. When somebody arrives through it and buys, the partner earns a commission, which you pay out later. Partners apply, sign in and follow their earnings on a partner page on your own website.

Before you start

• The owner or admin role.
• A published site. The partner page lives on your site's address.
• Your products set up in your store, if you want different rates for different products.

Steps

1. Go to Marketing › Affiliate program and open the Program tab.
2. Turn on Program active. Until it is on, nobody can apply and nothing is tracked.
3. Type a Program name, for example "Wick & Ember Friends".
4. Set the Commission: choose Percent or Fixed amount, then type the value, for example 20 (%).
5. Choose what it Applies to: - First purchase only. - Purchases for N months, then type the number of months. - All purchases for life.
6. Optional: set a Renewal rate. It is paid on every payment after the first. Leave it empty to pay the same rate.
7. Optional: add Rates per product. Click Add a product rate, choose the product, choose Percent or Fixed, and type the rate. A product at 0 earns nothing. A fixed amount is paid per unit sold.
8. Optional: set a Second tier percent. A partner who recruits another partner earns this percent of the recruit's sales, on top of what the recruit earns. Up to 50; 0 turns it off.
9. Optional: set Pay per lead, a fixed amount for each genuine sign-up form a partner's link brings in. 0 turns it off.
10. Set the Cookie window (days): how long a click is remembered. 30 or 60 days is common.
11. Set the Hold period (days). Commissions become payable only after this many days, so a refund within that time reverses them. Match it to your refund window.
12. Set a Minimum payout, or 0 to allow payouts of any size.
13. Choose the switches you want:
    • Require a tax form before paying: partners upload a W-9 or W-8 on their partner page, and their payouts wait until they have.
    • Auto-approve applications: new applications are approved straight away without review.
    • Customers become partners: everyone who buys from you gets their own link by email.
14. Optional: fill in the Landing URL (where partner links point; empty means your site's home page), a Welcome message and your Terms.
15. Optional: under Marketing assets, add banners, ready-made text and links for partners. Give each a title, choose Image, Text or Link, and click Add asset.
16. Click Save. A message says "Program saved".
17. Under Partner signup page, copy the address and share it with the people you want to recruit.

What happens next

• People apply on your partner page with their name, email, how they want to be paid, and where they will promote you. Applications wait for you on the Affiliates tab, unless you chose Auto-approve applications.
• Approved partners sign in to the partner page with a link sent to their email; there is no password. There they find their link, can tag it by campaign, see their discount code, marketing material, earnings and payouts, and set how they are paid.
• A visitor who arrives through a partner's link sees a small bar: "{your business} uses a cookie to credit the partner who referred you", with Accept and No thanks. If they accept, the visit is remembered for the cookie window, and a purchase in that time earns the partner their rate. If they do not answer or say no, nothing is stored in their browser, and the partner is still credited for a form or a purchase made in that same visit.
• The top of the page shows Referred revenue, Owed now, Waiting, Paid out, Active partners, Clicks and your Top partners.

For agencies

Each client runs its own program. Open the client with Sub-accounts › Open to set it up. The partner page uses that client's site address and branding.

Troubleshooting

The Partner signup page says "Publish a site first to get your partner page." The partner page needs a published site. Publish one, then come back.

Saving says "The renewal rate must be 0 to 100%, or empty to pay the same rate." With a percent commission, the renewal rate must be between 0 and 100. Leave it empty to pay the normal rate.

The partner page says "Not taking partners right now". Program active is off. Turn it on and click Save.

A product rate cannot be added. You need at least one product in your store. The form says "Add a product to your store to give it its own rate."

A partner's sale was not credited. The buyer paid from a different browser, after the cookie window ran out, before the partner was approved, or on a later visit after saying No thanks to the referral cookie. You can credit it yourself with Add a sale on the Commissions tab.

Related

• Approve and manage your partners
• Pay your partners
• Create and manage a website