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How to Set up an Affiliate Program in WooCommerce easily

Last updated: March 01, 2024
This article has been written and researched by our expert Avada through a precise methodology. Learn more about our methodology

Sam

Author

Daniel

Researcher

Affiliate marketing can bring about increasing sales for businesses. However, many store owners assume that this process is complicated and overwhelming. In fact, running an affiliate program on your online store is easy, requiring no coding skills. What’s more, this type of marketing is effective for all types of business.

In this post, we will help you who are considering running an affiliate program in your WooCommerce store. The article will include an in-depth guide on how to add an affiliate program to your store and quick reviews of the 3 best WooCommerce Affiliate plugins.

Now, let’s get started!

Why should you set up an affiliate program for WooCommerce?

Why should you set up an affiliate program for WooCommerce?

  • Affordable price for high sales and traffic
  • Your sales are shared between you and the affiliates
  • Affiliates will do the marketing and help you increase the brand recognition
  • A fast-growing advertising strategy
  • Easy to monetize the website traffic
  • Improve brand engagement
  • Increase the loyal customer base
  • More easily to grow the business

How to add an affiliate program to your WooCommerce store

Step 1: Install and configure the plugin

Install and configure the plugin

Similar to other plugins of WooCommerce, it’s easy to install and get started with affiliate add-ons. In order to do so, simply follow the below steps:

First of all, install the plugin and purchase the license if required. Then, log in to your account and go to the WordPress dashboard.

Next, you need to upload the license by going to Plugins, clicking on Add New, selecting Upload, choosing the .zip file, and uploading it.

To activate the plugin, you just need to click on Activate right after the uploading process. Then, the setting menu of the plugin will automatically be displayed on your WordPress Dashboard.

Finally, go to the Settings section of the plugin by clicking on The plugin name -> Settings. Here is where you will set up information related to your affiliate program.

Step 2: Set up WooCommerce key affiliate pages

Set up WooCommerce key affiliate pages

In this step, you will set up your affiliate program. Here is what you need to set up:

  • Commission levels: How you will pay your affiliates. In particular, you will need to customize the welcome and sales notification messages.
  • Creative tool: Links and banners used to spread the brand
  • Affiliate Dashboard: the page where the affiliate can see the links, stats, payment method, resources, etc.
  • Login page: the page which the affiliate can use to log into their dashboards.
  • Signup page: the page where new affiliates sign up to get started.

In general, using the Auto-Create Page option seems to be the easiest way. However, you have options to use existing pages for them.

Step 3: Set up WooCommerce payment integration

Set up WooCommerce payment integration

It’s high time you should manage your affiliate payments via WooCommerce. In order to do that, simply go to the Plugin, click on Settings and choose the eCommerce tab. Then, enable the WooCommerce toggle.

Here is the guide to creating an affiliate program on WooCommerce for anyone to try.

How to track Affiliate Referrals

After you create an affiliate program in WooCommerce, the affiliates will sign up and log into their dashboard on your website. Now you can start tracking referrals that your affiliates send to your site even if you have only one successful application. Here is how to track affiliate referrals:

Step 1: Go to Referrals

The tracking process will be done via the back end of your online site through the Referrals screen. Therefore, first of all, you should navigate to the Referrals screen.

Step 2: View the affiliate referrals

View the affiliate referrals

Here you can see all referrals or sales that your affiliates have sent to your store. With some plugins, you can even have the chance to view more details about each order connected with each referral.

Not only are individual referrals generated by affiliates, but you can also track the referral reports for each affiliate. The benefit of this process is knowing their performances, such as the number of visits, referrals, or sales they have sent each month and year.

Step 3: Create a payout file for your affiliates

Create a payout file for your affiliates

Then, from the Referrals screen, you can create a payout file for your affiliates by managing a certain date range and payment methods. Additionally, you can even remove or reject the referrals and change the status of them into Paid.

3 Best WooCommerce Affiliate Plugins

Easy Affiliate (Affiliate Royale)

Easy Affiliate (Affiliate Royale)

Easy Affiliate (Affiliate Royale) is a popular WordPress plugin which is easy to use with multiple interesting features. Easy Affiliate is regarded as a simple but powerful plugin helping you create an affiliate program in only some basic steps. Additionally, the plugin is full-featured. So, if you are looking for one plugin supporting the affiliate program process of your store, Easy Affiliate is our first recommendation.

Highlight features

  • Ability to manage links and banners
  • Detailed and real-time reports like overall stats for affiliates, transaction reports, affiliate owing reports, and more.
  • Fraud detection tool to investigate and remove suspicious activities before paying out.
  • Tracking multiple commission levels with Affiliate Commission Override Rules

Pricing: $85

Ratings: 5/5

Affiliates Pro

Affiliates Pro

Secondly, Affiliates Pro is a compatible plugin for WooCommerce users. According to reviews from businesses using the plugin, it is one of the most helpful solutions with multiple features suitable for creating affiliate programs in online stores. What’s more, the plugin has a standard toolbox that can be customized according to the demands of each user. With the growth-oriented functionalities, the plugin surely can help you add and manage a successful affiliate marketing program and then increase your revenue and bring about the best experience for customers.

Highlight features

  • Flexible and advanced commission rates
  • Affiliates can sign up and be added automatically or manually
  • Ability to manage banners from external sources
  • Ability to export affiliate and referral data for future analysis
  • Unlimited affiliates with a simple recruitment

Pricing

Affiliate Pro’s price ranges from $49 to $159 based on your needs.

Rating: 5/5.

Conclusion

As you can see, without having any coding skills, you can still add an affiliate program to your WooCommerce store by following the guidelines we have given above. Being a fast-growing, effective, affordable marketing strategy, affiliate marketing is a must-try method that you should apply, especially when you are focusing on increasing brand engagement and the number of loyal customers.

Anyway, we all suggest that you should rely on WooCommerce affiliate plugins to get the best features and fasten the process. If you have any questions related to affiliate marketing, be free to give us a comment in the below section. Share this post with your friends and visit us for more interesting topics.

Thanks for reading!


Sam Nguyen is the CEO and founder of Avada Commerce, an e-commerce solution provider headquartered in Singapore. He is an expert on the Shopify e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. Sam loves talking about e-commerce and he aims to help over a million online businesses grow and thrive.

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