If you’ve ever run an affiliate program, you know they can be challenging to manage. Handling registrations, payouts, coupon codes, and marketing are time-consuming.
On top of that, you have to troubleshoot any issues and get reports to your affiliates. It’s almost a full-time job.
WooCommerce is great for organizing your products and handling sales. However, managing affiliates requires something uniquely tailored for generating that type of revenue.
In addition, your affiliates could benefit from a system that’s easy to use and reliable. And you could benefit from taking your hands off the affiliate coupon management wheel for a change.
There’s a fantastic plugin to help you with WordPress affiliate coupon management. It integrates seamlessly with WooCommerce and provides a modern interface for your affiliates to manage their accounts and view statistics.
Coupon Affiliates for WooCommerce helps you manage everything and makes it easier to grow your revenue. In this article, I’m going to show you how it all works.
Introducing Coupon Affiliates for WooCommerce
Coupon Affiliates uses the data from WooCommerce to help you track, analyze, and manage your affiliates.
On the other end, it helps your affiliates manage their accounts so they can visualize their income and manage their payouts.
They can generate referral URLs, request payouts, track their commissions, and view usage statistics.
Once you set up the plugin, affiliate management can be virtually hands-free. New affiliates can register themselves, and you can choose to approve them automatically or review each one as they sign up.
Coupon Affiliates helps you create a registration form that you can display on a page using a shortcode. As soon as an affiliate signs up, you’ll be notified automatically via email.
There is detailed analytics available for both your affiliates and admins. You can generate reports filtered by date range, or specific coupons or affiliates. Your affiliates can also receive automated reports via email on a regular basis.
The plugin makes it easy for your affiliates to generate their own referral URLs. When someone clicks their unique link, the referral coupon is applied automatically, and the click is registered in the affiliate’s statistics. QR codes, link tracking, and short URLs are also available.
Commission payouts are made simple because your affiliates can submit requests themselves through their dashboard. Once you’re notified of the request, you can head to your admin dashboard and pay with a single click.
Coupon Affiliates also integrates with other eCommerce plugins like:
Getting Started with Coupon Affiliates
It’s fairly easy to get set up with Coupon Affiliates, but I’ll walk you through some of the essential steps.
Install the Coupon Affiliates Plugin
Start by downloading the Coupon Affiliates plugin directly from its WordPress.org page.
You can also download the plugin on their site when signing up for a 7-day free trial.
After you’ve downloaded the plugin zip file, navigate to the Admin Dashboard of your WordPress site. Select Plugins > Add New. Click Upload Plugin and browse for the .zip file you saved. Click Install Now, then activate it.
You can also search for the core plugin right from your WordPress site. In the Admin Dashboard, select Plugins > Add New. In the search bar, look for “Coupon Affiliates,” and you’ll see it appear as an option. Just install and activate.
Setting Up Coupon Affiliates
In your WordPress admin dashboard’s left-side menu, you’ll see a new Coupon Affiliates menu item. You’ll also be presented with the setup wizard.
Dashboard
The first step in the process is to create the main affiliate dashboard page. You can either do this yourself or smash the handy Generate Dashboard Page button and Coupon Affiliates will generate it for you.
Registration
You’re going to need a place for new affiliates to sign up. Another page you’ll need to create is the affiliate registration page. Again, you can do it yourself or have the plugin generate the page for you.
You also need to create a Template Coupon code. That allows a new coupon to be created when a new affiliate is accepted. The coupon assigned to the affiliate will have the same settings as the template.
Commission
This is where you can set the commission amounts for your affiliates. There are multiple options:
- Percentage Amount of Total Order
- Fixed Amount Per Order
- Fixed Amount Per Product
If you enable more than one option, they’ll be combined. You can also enter a custom commission message, which can be helpful to describe the commission amounts or make any notes for your affiliates.
Calculations
Coupon Affiliates recommends using the default settings for how the commissions are calculated. However, you can customize the settings if you like. For example, you can include the coupon discount, so the commission is based on the subtotal rather than the gross total. You can also include taxes in commissions as well.
Order/Sales Tracking
You can set the required order status(es) to show on the affiliate dashboard. You can go as transparent as you want, showing all order statuses from Pending Payment through Completed and Draft. There’s also a setting for sorting orders; either by Paid Date or Completed Date.
Emails
First, there are general settings like sent from address and name. Also in this section, you can customize the notification emails that go out to your affiliates. The interface employs the Classic Editor for formatting, and you can insert media as well. The emails available to customize include:
- New Referral Emails
- Affiliate Registration Emails
- Affiliate Application Submitted
- New Affiliate Account Created
- New Affiliate Application
- Affiliate Application Accepted
Style
Just like it sounds, you can customize the look of the affiliate dashboard. You can change the colors of items like tabs and buttons to match your site’s branding.
Adding Affiliates
You can add affiliates manually, or new affiliates can register via the form and page that you created in the wizard.
To add affiliates manually, navigate to Coupon Affiliates→Affiliate Users. This actually brings you to the WordPress Admin Users menu but is filtered to show only users with the Coupon Affiliate role. Click the Add New Affiliate button, and fill out the fields in the popup window.
The new affiliate will receive a notification email, and they can update their account details as they wish.
Affiliate Dashboard
The Affiliate Dashboard is the main area for your affiliates to view their stats, see recent orders, generate referral URLs, and manage settings.
With the Pro Modules enabled, users can generate short URLs and QR Codes under the Referral URL tab. They can also email links and share them on Twitter and Facebook right from the dashboard.
Once the affiliate enters their payment details in settings, they can start requesting payouts — according to the parameters you set in your Admin area.
Admin Reports
Coupon Affiliates offers detailed sales and commission reports that you can generate from the Admin Reports menu.
It’s easy to generate multiple reports based on filters like date range, usage, sales, a commission earned, and more. You can also create comparative reports and reports based on a single affiliate.
Pro Modules
There are several add-ons you can enable when signing up for a Pro account. They’re called Pro Modules, and they extend the functionality of both the Admin and your Affiliate Dashboard.
Here are a few that I think are super useful:
Creatives
One thing that affiliates appreciate is having pre-made banners and images to share. You can make it easy for them to market your products and services by making them readily available. You can share several types:
- images
- banners
- videos
- PDFs
- brand colors
Affiliates can download directly or copy a code that they can use in their marketing campaign or website.
URL Modules
There are a few modules available to help your affiliates share links, as I mentioned earlier. You can enable Short URL Generator, QR Code Generator, and Direct Link Tracking. The latter allows affiliates to link directly to your site without needing a special affiliate link.
Custom Tabs
You can create your own tabs that will show up on the Affiliate Dashboard. This is handy if you want to share additional resources, such as marketing tips, and brand guidelines, and even embed shortcodes from other plugins.
Payouts
Several PRO Modules will help you manage affiliate payouts more easily. Payout Requests allow your affiliates to select a payment method, then request and track payouts for any unpaid commissions. There are also modules for PayPal and Stripe payouts for automatic payments that go directly to your affiliates’ accounts.
Pricing
Coupon Affiliates offers a 7-day free trial with a 14-day money-back guarantee, so there’s no risk in signing up.
Pricing starts at only $12.99/month or $9.99/month for a full year. That gets you one PRO license, plugin updates, and priority support for one site.
If you need a license for multiple sites, you can get a PRO account that allows for 10 sites at $25.99/month or $19.99/month for a full year.
Affiliate Coupon Management Couldn’t Be Easier
You don’t need to hire an employee to manage your affiliates. With the Coupon Affiliates plugin, you can automate registrations, administer coupons, and handle payouts. That frees up your time to work on your products and services, while your affiliates generate more revenue for you.
