Shopify offers its affiliate program which rewards affiliates who get users to sign up to a paid plan. It also provides a variety of apps that allow Shopify users to create their own affiliate programs. Affiliate programs are a great marketing strategy, especially since most Shopify sellers are new entrepreneurs. They can help them land more customers and not have to hire large sales teams.
Shopify merchants use apps to increase their sales. Adding another app shouldn’t seem like such a huge leap. Here are seven of the best apps that will help you optimize your Shopify affiliate marketing and track your affiliate performance. A few tips have been included to help you make the most of any app you choose.
What’s Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a method of using individuals such as social media influencers and customers to promote specific products or brands. They receive a commission for each sale, lead, and click. The reimbursement does not have to come in the form a commission. Affiliates may receive discounts or products for their promotion work. Affiliates have many options to share information about products, including email, blogging and social media.
Affiliate Marketing
Statista data shows that affiliate marketing has seen a steady increase in popularity over the past decade. According to Google Trends the term “affiliate Marketing” was at its peak popularity in June 2021. What are the reasons for its popularity? These are just a few of the reasons Shopify merchants may want to look into affiliate marketing.
Scalability
Shopify sellers are unlikely to be able to afford multiple sales representatives. Affiliate marketing allows you to connect with more potential customers than a large marketing team. Affiliates are typically paid per sale, click, and lead. This means that you only need to pay for the actual results.
Presence across multiple social media channels
Affiliate marketing allows you to leverage the influence of your affiliates on many platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This is a great way to increase brand awareness.
Simplicity
The apps make it easy to manage the program and evaluate its effectiveness. These apps are compatible with Shopify stores, so you will receive real-time updates. These apps can automate repetitive tasks such as generating discount codes or paying commissions.
Best Shopify Affiliate Marketing Apps
Shopify’s App Store has more than 4200 apps. Shopify’s app store has more than 4,200 apps. These apps can help with everything from store design to customer service. We know it is impossible to use thousands of apps when you are trying to manage an online shop. So we have identified 7 top apps to help you launch and manage your Shopify affiliate program. Although this is not a comprehensive list, it’s a good starting point.
Refersion
Refersion’s network of over 500,000 affiliates has assisted close to 20,000 merchants in their affiliate marketing campaigns. Refersion’s affiliate program listing is free. This can be a great way to attract new affiliates and help you grow your network quickly. You can also focus on existing customers and use the widget post-purchase to invite them into your program.
Shopify businesses have the ability to customize their sign-up page with content and colors that match their branding. If you need additional information about your affiliates, you can also add custom fields to the registration page.
Overall, it is one of the most widely used affiliate marketing apps on Shopify App Store with a score of 4.8. It also has nearly 900 reviews. It is not cheap, so it’s not for everyone. However, it is more suitable for larger online businesses who need a powerful tool.
Key features:
- You can customize your affiliate marketing offers for specific products with product-level commissions
- Register pages that can be customized to match your branding
- No cost listing on the Refersion Marketplace
Pricing: After a free 14-day trial pricing starts at $89/month for up to 130 affiliate orders.
ReferralCandy
ReferralCandy has assisted more than 30,000 businesses in various industries by creating referral programs. It basically works on autopilot, which is the beauty of this app. The app allows you to choose from cash rewards, store discounts, or custom gifts.
It integrates with Shopify and Shopify Plus as well as other major eCommerce platforms such BigCommerce, Magento, and WooCommerce. It integrates easily with marketing platforms such as Klaviyo and Mailchimp.
It’s a very easy to use Shopify affiliate marketing app. Its pricing structure can, however, be deterrent, as it is for Refersion. You’ll be charged a monthly fee and a tiered commission rate.
Key features:
- Emails that can be customized completely
- Automated payouts
- Different incentives
- Detailled analytics
Pricing: Prices start at $49 per monthly per commission after a 30-day free trial
LeadDyno
LeadDyno, another app you can use to increase the revenue of your eCommerce shop (or SaaS company), is another option. Its software was responsible for more than $200,000,000 in affiliate sales in 2020 alone.
It’s easy to set up and is one of the best Shopify apps. If you are stuck, it also has a wizard that will help you set up your account.
You can also use the app to automatically invite customers to your affiliate program if you are looking to convert existing customers into customers. You can use the app to automatically send follow-up emails to customers once they have signed up.
Its main advantage is the ability to track clicks, leads and sales. You can also use it for monitoring your marketing efforts. You can track things such as paid ads, social media and email marketing from one dashboard. This actionable data makes it easier to plan your marketing budget and create the most successful campaigns.
LeadDyno, however, doesn’t allow you to select how you want to reward your affiliates, like ReferralCandy. You have no control over the amount. You can either set it up to a fixed amount, or a percentage.
They do however offer more control over pricing plans. LeadDyno offers 3 subscription plans as opposed to Shopify’s 2 plans. However, LeadDyno also offers customized options for business clients. Although it may not seem like much, it can make LeadDyno more useful for medium-sized businesses that are too large for the Starter plan but too small for Enterprise.
Key features:
- Live chat and email support
- Portal for brand-named affiliates
- Multi-level marketing
Pricing: Prices start at $49 per Month after a 30-day free trial.
Social Snowball
Social Snowball was created specifically for Shopify stores. Social Snowball’s most appealing feature is the possibility for all customers to become affiliates. An affiliate account is created automatically for every new customer who purchases an item in your Shopify store. They will then be able to access the thank-you page and receive the discount code and promotional materials. You can also use the pop-up to redirect visitors to the affiliate sign up form.
Social Snowball is unique in that it offers a free plan, at least partially. Their “free” plan doesn’t require you to pay a monthly charge, but you will have to pay 15% of any revenue generated by the app.
Key features:
- Chat support
- Instant payouts
- Complete customization
- 6 payment methods
- Advanced fraud protection
- Unlimited affiliates
Pricing: It offers two subscription plans in addition to the Free plan: Snow Day ($39/month + 10% revenue) and Blizzard ($249/month + 2.5% revenue).
Affiliate
Affiliatly is one the most affordable apps on the market. It offers a free, 90-day trial which is something we rarely see. The cheapest plan costs only $16 per monthly and you don’t have to pay any portion of the revenue generated by its app. It offers six pricing options in total. You’re sure to find the right plan for you.
Affiliatly has many integrations that make it easy to start your online business, whether you use Shopify or an eCommerce platform such as Shopify. It allows you to create multiple types of incentives, which is one of its greatest advantages. You can create commission tiers to pay affiliates commissions for total sales, number of visits, and total purchases. You can also pay your affiliates via gift cards for your online shop.
It also offers a Leaderboard feature, which you can use if you like the idea and practice of gamification. It will display the top 10 highest earning affiliates on a leaderboard.
It offers tier-level marketing, just like Omnistar and LeadDyno. Affiliate A can refer your program to affiliate B and receive a portion of the earnings generated by affiliate B. This feature is not something we like and PayPal may suspend your account if you violate their Ts & Cs. It’s up to you to promote your affiliate program. It’s a bonus if existing affiliates promote your program. Their main task should be to promote your products.
Key features:
- Different incentives
- Leaderboard
- Pop-up windows that can be customized to match your branding
- Email customization
- Two-tiered marketing
Pricing: After a free 90-day trial pricing starts at $16 per Month
Omnistar
Omnistar is trusted worldwide by over 16,000 businesses, from dentists to online shops. It’s also a top-rated referral software solution on Capterra, along with ReferralCandy. It has a 4 out 5 rating on Capterra, which isn’t bad at all.
Omnistar’s social media sharing is one of its most appealing features. It integrates with LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, making it easy for affiliates to share your link across different social networks.
Omnistar also offers an exclusive influencer list, which is not available in most other apps. This feature allows you to hire qualified affiliates, even if your customers are already in the system.
Key features:
- Social media sharing
- Start wizard
- Multi-level marketing
- Different incentives
- Email templates
- Detailled reports
Pricing: Prices start at $47 per Month after a free 15-day trial.
Tapfiliate
Tapfiliate gives you two options to recruit new affiliates. They can be added via an invite URL (only for enterprise clients), a single sign on (only for enterprise clients), or manually. You can also use it to integrate with Mailchimp to create email drip campaigns that will keep your recruits informed.
It can be a great option if you are part of a group. You can add other team members to help you manage your marketing programs. This feature is only available to Pro subscribers ($149 per month). Tapfiliate, even if you don’t choose the more expensive plan is still a good option. The cheapest plan is $69 per month. It’s not the best option for small stores, but it is less expensive than the other tools on our list.
Key features:
- Real-time reporting
- Multi-level marketing
- Commissions based on category
- Members of the team
Pricing: After a 14-day free trial, prices start at $69 per Month
Tips to Launch an Affiliate Program
Although Shopify’s affiliate marketing apps can put your program on autopilot almost immediately, there are some things you must do in order to make the most of the technology and your program. These are some tips that will help you to grow your affiliate program for an online store.
Set goals
Affiliate programs can’t be duplicated. What do you want your affiliate program achieve? What would your ideal associates be? Are you more interested in using customers from the past or would you prefer to use an affiliate network?
It is also important to determine what you are able to afford as a reward. You don’t have to pay a commission. Also, you can offer coupons or freebies.
Let’s get the word out
Your Shopify affiliate program’s success depends on the quality of your affiliates. How will potential affiliates sign up if you don’t announce your affiliate program? Social media is a good place to begin. To introduce your program to your followers and encourage them to apply, you can create an Instagram post. To get more followers interested in joining, make sure you include the perks.
Email works even better. Email your subscribers if you have one. In this email, you will introduce your program to them and encourage them to forward it or join your list.
Communicate frequently
Once you have recruited enough people to your affiliate program, your focus can now shift to regularly communicating with your partners. It is important to make sure they are familiar with your brand and the rules of the program. You also want them to be able share enough content. Email is the best way to do this as most of the apps allow you to automate some emails.
Monitor the performance of your affiliates, and program
Start by finding out which affiliates are performing the best to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of your affiliate program. Next, find out what makes them successful and copy that recipe.
You want to see the top performing affiliates and gain insight into your overall program’s effectiveness. You’ll need to measure metrics such as total affiliate sales, new affiliates, and the number of affiliates who left your program. These apps often offer intuitive dashboards and analytics that make it easier for you to analyze the results.
Wrapping Things Up
Although it may sound complicated, Shopify affiliate marketing can be very simple. Launching your own program is easy because Shopify already offers a variety of marketing tools. Do your research on the available apps before you jump in. Many apps offer a free trial to allow you to try it before you commit any money.
