The Best Plugins for Running an Affiliate Program on WooCommerce
Image Credit: Shift4Shop.com
So you’ve finally decided to launch a WooCommerce store? That’s great! As you plan your site launch, don’t forget to plan your marketing.
Most sites fail because they fail to attract enough customers. And many seasoned ecommerce entrepreneurs will tell you that they wished they had invested more in marketing early on.
If you have a compelling offer or product one way to acquire customers cost effectively is through affiliate marketing.
A study conducted by Rakuten Marketing revealed that 9 out of 10 publishers are relying on at least two affiliate programs to be successful.
What’s more, Mediakix revealed in a survey that affiliate marketing is a proven tool for brands and publishers to boost their income. In fact, 84% of those who took part in the study depend on affiliate programs to get more paying customers.
What is affiliate marketing anyway?
The general idea behind affiliate marketing is that you allow other marketers or sites to distribute your products or services to their audiences in exchange for a sales percentage. They only get a commission for sales they refer.
It works in two ways: you can either have your product or service promoted by affiliate marketers--usually influencers, publishers, or other companies you’ve co-branded with. The other way is, if you want to generate more income, you can promote other brands’ offerings.
To run an affiliate program with WooCommerce you need to use a third-party plugin, as it is not a core feature. We cover some good options below.
1. ReferralCandy
ReferralCandy is a top-of-mind for brands that want to reach more customers. Why? It’s because when affiliate marketers are able to bring you customers, these new customers will instantly be signed up to your affiliate marketing program.
This means that by using ReferralCandy as a plugin for your WooCommerce site, new customers coming from the affiliate program will instantly become your affiliate partners, therefore referring even more customers.
Some of the most outstanding benefits of using ReferralCandy are a customizable reward system, live chat support, easy-to-digest analytics, and seamless integration with multiple applications and automated payments to your affiliate partners..
What’s more, ReferralCandy allows you to retarget potential customers so can capture sales from referred visitors who don’t convert on the first visit.
2. WooCommerce Amazon Affiliates
Do you sell your products on Amazon? Then this plugin is for you. If you want to use your own site to sell your products and get a commission at the same time, you definitely should opt for WooCommerce Amazon Affiliates.
Developed by one of the most in-demand WordPress plugin developers on CodeCanyon, AA Team, created the WooCommerce Amazon Affiliates plugin to help you run your affiliate marketing programs without integration hassles.
The WooCommerce Amazon Affiliates plugin lets you sell your Amazon products on your WooCommerce store then lets you earn a certain percentage for every sale made. You can import hundreds of Amazon products into your new site to start selling.
One important feature is analytics, which lets you see and manage your conversions, order status, clicks, and revenue generated from the site.
And at just $49, getting it is a no brainer!
3. SUMO Affiliates Pro
Want extra simplicity? When you use SUMO Affiliates Pro, you’ll enjoy easy set-up and integration with WooCommerce.
SUMO is best known for its advanced account management feature that lets affiliates view, manage, and modify their content straight from your site. You--as the owner of the site--still -have complete control of the site, meaning you can set signup restrictions to users who want to be an affiliate.
You also get to receive notifications via SMS and e-mail every time there is activity on your site related to your affiliate marketing program. Should you make any changes or announcements, your affiliates will get notified as well.
Additionally, SUMO Affiliates Pro allows you to give extra incentive to users just by signing up on your affiliate marketing program.
4. Affiliate for WooCommerce
Another good option for only $129/year and sold by WooCommerce itself (the company, rather than a third-party plugin developer, and so you can be sure it will be compatible with every new version of WooCommerce).
You can let people sign up as an affiliate directly on the site, with your approval. Your affiliates can generate their referral links to start earning. Also, they can see the numbers: from conversions to commissions to total payouts.
Why choose Affiliate for WooCommerce, you ask? Your affiliates will enjoy a more intuitive way to get paid: commissions have now been adjusted according to the order status change and the payments for recurring subscriptions. Even more, you can set your affiliate’s commissions based on a multitude of conditions!
All payouts are done via PayPal, making it convenient for a wide range of users from different countries. You also get to try it with a 30-day money-back guarantee. In case you are looking for a trusted solution to keep track of your sales, invoices, and other accounting needs, you can use Wave to do so.
There are a lot of positive Wave accounting reviews to help you decide if this tool is right for you.
5. YITH WooCommerce Affiliates
Lastly there is YITH WooCommerce Affiliates. It is widely used by brands who want to implement customizable commissions rates, freebies, discounts and coupons to affiliates.
When you choose YITH you get to design various discounts and assign them to your affiliate partners. In turn, they will use these personalized discounts to help promote your products or services.
YITH is available in free and paid subscription models, but signing up for the paid version offers more optimized features such as the ability to ban affiliates, advanced analytics, automatic daily pay-out of commissions, and more.
This WooCommerce plugin for affiliate marketing is already being used widely, and 97% of them are satisfied with the benefits they get.
Final Thoughts
For eCommerce store owners, it’s important to weigh the pros and cons of all available plug-ins before integrating them into your WooCommerce. Think about the features that are essential for you.
What features do you need right now? What functionality is not as important? (WooCommerce plugins are notorious for bloat) What is your budget? By identifying all these factors, you get to find the right plug-in that gives you the best bang for your buck.
