How To Set Up An Affiliate Program On Shopify

Later on you've started your online store, driven targeted traffic to your products, and made some initial sales, it can be tough figuring out what next steps to take to further grow your business.

One often disregarded approach is the effectiveness of affiliate marketing, and knowing how to create an affiliate plan that helps your customers and advocates do your marketing for y'all. Today, nosotros'll cover the essentials and bear witness you how to create an affiliate program for your Shopify store.

Free Webinar: Marketing 101

Struggling to grow sales? Learn how to become from kickoff day to first auction in this free training form.

Reserve your seat now

What is affiliate marketing?
Benefits of affiliate marketing
How to create an affiliate plan for your business
Get started with your start affiliate program

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a reward-based system that encourages partners to promote your products in exchange for a commission.

A customer, abet, or industry marketer signs up for your affiliate program and sends visitors to your shop through their special referral link, and any sales that you make equally a consequence of their promotion earns the marketer a reward.

Usually, an affiliate program volition pay via a flat dollar amount or a percentage of the total auction, merely incentives could besides be complimentary or discounted products. Target, for case, gives affiliates exclusive sales and promos, in addition to a committee.

Affiliate marketing is used both in concern-to-consumer (B2C) and business organisation-to-business concern (B2B) campaigns, but it's far more popular amidst the consumer products industry. According to the AffStat 2022 Chapter Marketing Criterion Report, nearly threescore% of chapter marketers promote B2C, compared to 22% for B2C services and fifty-fifty less for B2B products and services.

Benefits of affiliate marketing

Co-ordinate to 2022 research from Business organization Insider, affiliate marketing is responsible for driving upward to sixteen% of all U.S. ecommerce sales.

And in that location's existent-world evidence that affiliate marketing is effective: The Wirecutter, now owned past The New York Times, generated $150 million in online sales in 2022 alone by using referral links for the various products they feature.

How to create an affiliate program

Is affiliate marketing right for your business?
How to create an chapter programme with Shopify apps
How to find the right affiliates
How to manage affiliates

Is chapter marketing correct for your business?

Affiliate marketing isn't right for every business. If you have small profit margins, for example, it may not make sense: It would exist difficult to pay your affiliates and besides profit.

Affiliate programs demand to pay a portion of each sale in lodge for it to exist worth the promoter's effort and money, depending on their approach to promoting your products. Ane of the best means to find out if an chapter program is a good fit for your business is checking to see other companies in your industry take created them.

For example, BarkBox has been running a successful affiliate plan for near a five years now.

@FanAvgJess let usa know if you're interested in joining the BarkBox chapter program! If so just attain out to affiliate@barkbox.com. #woof
— BarkBox (@barkbox) Feb i, 2022

A program with that kind of longevity implies it's working and is producing solid returns on time invested for BarkBox. If you dig through popular dog accounts on Instagram, many will have a BarkBox affiliate link or code in their bio, like this i from @henrysworldtoday.

That'due south meaningful reach and entirely congenital on the existing piece of work BarkBox does to keep their affiliate program running. It's a nice win for both BarkBox and the Instagram account owners.

How can you see if other businesses in your niche have successfully learned how to create an chapter program? A uncomplicated Google search targeting competitors can dig upward sites that have affiliate programs of their own. Your searches could be:

"(your competitor) affiliates"
"(your competitor) affiliate plan"
"(your competitor) affiliate marketing"

You can also look at relevant hashtags on social media. A search for hashtags related to your industry volition reveal influential users. Yous can check out their profiles to see if they're promoting your competitors via affiliate marketing.

Now that you've determined that it's a route yous'd like to explore, let'due south accept a expect at how to create an chapter program for your Shopify store.

How to create an affiliate program with Shopify apps

Thanks to Shopify's partners and app developers, figuring out how to create an affiliate program for your Shopify store is piece of cake, as you tin can start by simply installing an chapter app of your choosing. From there, each app volition take you through an onboarding process that will get you upwardly and running with an chapter program catered to your business organisation.

It's up to yous which app y'all want to use, but here are a few examples of some of the affiliate marketing apps available in the Shopify App Store. And if y'all need help installing an app on your site, head over to our official documentation to learn more than about the Shopify App Store.

1. Refersion

Refersion is an incredibly powerful referral platform. With over 100 reviews and a five star rating, it's certainly one of the apps you'll want to checkout. Best of all, information technology scales with your business concern. Start out on a free plan, and as y'all see the demand to expand your affiliate offerings, upgrade to a paid program.

2. LeadDyno

Another popular affiliate marketing app is LeadDyno. LeadDyno integrates with your Shopify store with just a few clicks, and is highly customizable. Pay your affiliates automatically or with "i-click" blessing using PayPal, Dwolla or even Coinbase. LeadDyno totals and pays out affiliate commissions for you on the fly.

three. Omnistar

With thousands of business organization owners using Omnistar every bit their preferred affiliate software, they're for certain a platform yous won't want to skip when doing your initial testing. With big clients similar Macy's and Cisco, you know the software has to exist good. You can get started with a 15 day costless trial to play around with Omnistar.

4. Affiliatly

An incredibly clean interface at a very reasonable price, Affiliatly comes highly recommended from its users. While Affilatly is a newcomer to the app shop, it certainly packs a punch when it comes to features and reliability. Be sure to take a look at Affiliatly'southward xxx-day free trial to go a feel for how it works.

five. Enlistly

Some other affiliate plan app for your Shopify store is Enlistly. Enlistly helps you with things like custom commission rates based on affiliate, and transaction blazon. With a clean interface and a low monthly fee of just $9.99, this is certainly ane app yous'll want to test out.

How to find the right affiliates

After y'all've figured out how to create an chapter program, you'll need to recruit the right kind of affiliates to bring together information technology.

Some affiliate programs, like the one used by Twitch, a video game-axial streaming platform, only accept especially noteworthy applicants. For affiliates in those programs, acceptance is akin to a bluecoat of laurels and something to brag about.

But not all brands have the luxury of Twitch's status. That being said, there are a few ways to attract affiliates to join your program and promote your products.

Social media

Denote your chapter program on your ain social media channels. Vianetic announced their chapter program on Instagram, encouraging followers to learn more than and apply. They reiterate the benefits of beingness an affiliate to draw more interest.

Email

If you lot have an email list, utilise it. Requests over email have the greatest impact on chapter engagement compared to all other channels, co-ordinate to the AffStat 2022 Chapter Marketing Benchmark Report. Tell your subscribers well-nigh the affiliate plan and encourage them to use and help spread the discussion to others who may be interested.

Your website

Visitors to your website are already familiar with your brand to some extent, making them potential candidates for your affiliate program. Plus, this is where nearly a quarter of chapter marketers find out about new programs. Promote your affiliate program on your site with a link in an out of the way only notwithstanding easily accessible identify like your footer, and create a page dedicated to the program and highlighting the benefits of joining. Hither's how Pooch Perks does it.

Remember that subsequently an affiliate joins your program it'south their job to promote your products, but it's your job to promote your program. Brand a compelling offer and make information technology easy for them to use. Katari Skin Intendance, for example, has a simple Google Md that those interested in joining their affiliate programme can submit to get started correct away.

When promoting your affiliate program, make sure you're including data that potential promoters desire to know. Generally, the most influential parts of your program are the product/service relevancy, affiliate program reputation , and chapter network or tracking platform. Brand sure you include that information when y'all promote your program.

How to manage affiliates

Once you lot've recruited your affiliates, you'll want to keep tabs on them and the performance of your plan. Regular communication is essential to establishing a stiff affiliate program, and this can happen via e-mail, equally that'southward the preferred method of communication for virtually affiliate marketers, per the AffStat 2022 Chapter Marketing Benchmark Report.

Make certain your affiliates know the rules of the program and get familiar with your brand. Creating a stable of content that they tin can employ, including graphics, pre-written social posts and a listing of approved (or even mandatory) hashtags will go on synergy among your affiliates.

SCOTTeVEST has a downloadable .zero file on their affiliates page, along with piece of cake-to-discover contact information.

Agreement the effectiveness of your affiliate plan is crucial for sustainable success. Identifying your top-performing affiliate marketers, for example, tin help you double-down on what'due south working. Why are they and then constructive? Were they very loyal to your brand before becoming an affiliate? If aye, then maybe you lot demand to contact your most frequent shoppers about joining the programme.

Some metrics y'all'll want to consider paying extra attending to: total chapter sales, sales per chapter, boilerplate order size (particularly compared to sales not attributed to affiliate marketing), total payout, payout-to-sales ratios, gross margin, number of affiliates, number of new affiliates and number of affiliates who've left the program.

Go started with your get-go affiliate program

At present that we've taken a look at how to create an affiliate program for your Shopify store, information technology's your turn to become started! Allow us know in the comments below if you lot have any tips and tricks for first-timers.

Editor's annotation: A version of this article was originally published September 2022.

Source: https://www.shopify.in/blog/53669701-how-to-set-up-an-affiliate-program-for-your-shopify-store

Table of Contents

What is affiliate marketing?

Benefits of affiliate marketing

How to create an affiliate program

Is chapter marketing correct for your business?