Yes, you can run an affiliate program with ReferralCandy. While the help center articles are geared toward general customer referral programs, the ReferralCandy features and capabilities are built to support affiliate programs as well.
Affiliate program vs. customer referral program
An affiliate campaign or program is a way for merchants to reward partners, also known as affiliates, for promoting the merchant's products or services. When a customer makes a purchase through an affiliate link, the affiliate earns a cash reward or commission. This type of program relies on the established audience of the affiliates to increase brand awareness and sales.
A customer referral campaign or program targets customers who have direct experience with a merchant's product or service. Both the referrer, also known as Advocates, and the referred friend receive rewards such as discounts, cash, or freebies. This type of program relies on personal relationships to increase customer base, loyalty, and sales.
Recommended setups
To start an affiliate program using ReferralCandy, you must create a segment and set it as a target audience of your campaign.
Note: As a prerequisite, read the articles Campaign enrollment, Understanding segments and target audience, and Widgets for your referral program to learn how to set up the different campaign components outlined below.
Here are the recommended campaign setups if you're interested in building an affiliate program using ReferralCandy:
Auto-enrollment
Auto-enrollment
In this setup, anyone who signs up via the widgets and the join page is automatically enrolled in the campaign.
Target Audience: Create a segment with the below setup.
+ Target this segment:
Segment type: Dynamic
Segment criteria: Signup form submitted in
[Campaign]since[Date]
Widgets
Post-Purchase Popup: Disabled
(Shopify) Friend Offer Page: Disabled
Rewards
Advocate Reward: Cash
Curated
Curated
In this setup, anyone who signs up via the widgets and the join page is waitlisted. From this waitlist, the merchant can handpick the approved affiliates by importing them to a segment.
Target Audience: Create segments with the below setup.
+ Target this segment:
Segment type: Static
Segment criteria: Import contacts to this segment.
Note: You must manually add the affiliates to this segment.
- Exclude this segment:
Segment type: Dynamic
Segment criteria: Signup form submitted in
[Campaign]since[Date]
Widgets
Post-Purchase Popup: Disabled
(Shopify) Friend Offer Page: Disabled
Rewards
Advocate Reward: Cash
Invite-only
Invite-only
An invite-only campaign has no public signup page. The merchant reaches out to their affiliates and manually imports the approved affiliates to a segment. All widgets are disabled for this campaign.
Target Audience: Create a segment with the below setup.
+ Target this segment:
Segment type: Static
Segment criteria: Import contacts to this segment.
Note: You must manually add the affiliates to this segment.
Widgets
Post-Purchase Popup: Disabled
Embedded Signup: Not implemented
Referral Widget: Not implemented
(Shopify) Referral Extension: Disabled
(Shopify) Friend Offer Page: Disabled
Rewards
Advocate Reward: Cash
Planning to start an affiliate program for your store? Find out How to Start an Affiliate Marketing Program for Your Ecommerce Brand Today!
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