You control how people join your affiliate program from the Enrollment section at the top of a campaign's Affiliates tab. Everything on this page lives there: your join page, direct invitations, and whether applicants wait for your approval.
To open it, go to Affiliate campaigns in your ReferralCandy dashboard, click the campaign you want to manage, then click the Affiliates tab. On Shopify, ReferralCandy sits under Apps → ReferralCandy in your Shopify admin; on other platforms you'll find it after signing in at my.referralcandy.com.
How affiliates join your program
Affiliates join your program one of two ways, and the Enrollment section summarises both in plain language at the top of the Affiliates tab:
You add them. Anyone you invite joins straight away. Invited affiliates skip the approval queue, even when approval is switched on.
They apply to you. Everyone else applies through your join page. Whether they join immediately or wait for you depends on the Approve them myself setting below.
Note: Affiliates can't join or earn commissions while a campaign is stopped. You can still invite people and copy your join link, but nobody can join until you activate the campaign.
Reviewing applicants before they join
Use the Approve them myself toggle in the Enrollment section to decide what happens when someone applies through your join page.
Switched on — applicants wait for you. They appear under Pending Review, and nobody joins your program until you approve them. You'll also get an email each time someone applies.
Switched off — anyone who applies through your join page joins immediately, with no review step.
To review the people waiting:
Go to Affiliate campaigns and click your campaign.
Click the Affiliates tab.
Click Pending Review to see everyone waiting, or All Affiliates to see everyone already in the program.
Approve the applicants you want. Once approved, they become affiliates in your campaign and move to All Affiliates.
Don't see a Pending Review option? That view only appears while Approve them myself is switched on. If it's off, nobody is waiting for approval because applicants join straight away — switch it on and future applicants will start queueing for review.
The Enrollment section also shows how many people are waiting, so you can see at a glance whether the queue needs attention.
Sharing your join page
Every affiliate campaign has a join page, and its URL sits in the Enrollment section next to two buttons:
Copy link — copies the join page URL so you can share it in an email, a social post, or anywhere else you recruit.
Embed on site — puts the signup form directly on your own site, and how it works depends on your platform. On Shopify, it uses the Join block: add the Join block as an app block in Shopify's theme editor, then come back here to choose which campaign that block signs people up for. On other platforms, you get a code snippet to paste into a page on your site, just before the closing body tag — you can adjust the iframe attributes to fit your layout.
Your join page works whether or not you share it publicly — sharing is how you control who finds it. For more on the pages affiliates see after signing up, see Advocate and affiliate portals. If you're not on Shopify and you'd rather embed a signup form as its own standalone page, see setting up an embedded signup page.
Inviting affiliates directly
When you already know who you want in your program, invite them instead of asking them to apply. Both options sit under You add them in the Enrollment section:
Invite an affiliate — invite one person at a time.
Invite many via CSV — upload a file to invite a batch of people at once.
Invited affiliates join straight away and never appear in Pending Review — you've already chosen them, so there's nothing to approve.
Affiliate signup FAQ
Where did Curated, Instant access and Invite only campaigns go?
Where did Curated, Instant access and Invite only campaigns go?
Affiliate campaigns no longer have types. Curated, Instant access and Invite only have been replaced by a single kind of affiliate campaign where every capability is available to you at once: a join page you can share, direct invitations, and an approval step you can switch on or off whenever you like.
Your existing campaigns kept working exactly as they did — the behaviour your old campaign type gave you is now reflected in the Approve them myself toggle instead. A campaign that used to be Curated has approval switched on; one that used to be Instant access has it switched off. Nobody lost affiliates, and nothing needed to be rebuilt.
The practical difference is that you can now change your mind. Previously the type you picked at creation was effectively permanent, so opening up a private program or adding review to an open one meant starting a new campaign.
I'm looking for the Manage applications tab
I'm looking for the Manage applications tab
The Manage applications tab no longer exists. Reviewing and approving applicants now happens on the Affiliates tab of your campaign, under Pending Review. The For Review and Approved lists that used to live in Manage applications are now the Pending Review and All Affiliates views on that same tab.
Can I control who is allowed to join?
Can I control who is allowed to join?
Yes, in two ways. The Approve them myself toggle lets you vet every applicant individually before they join. Beyond that, Advanced targeting settings in the Enrollment section controls which contacts your campaign draws from — see Understanding segments and target audience for how that works.