How to Start a WordPress Affiliate Program (Easy Steps)

Ready to grow your business like never before?

Starting an affiliate program can give your business a big boost. More people talking about your products means more sales, right? But hold on. How do you even start an affiliate program? What do you need to make it successful?

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered!

In this blog, we’ll show you how to start your successful affiliate program. From understanding what an affiliate program is to finding the right WordPress affiliate plugin, we’ve got all the tips and tricks you need.

Let’s make your business bigger and better!

What is an Affiliate Program (Explained)

Before we dive into all the how-tos and whys, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page about what an affiliate program actually is.

Imagine you’re selling awesome, handmade T-shirts. You can set up an affiliate program where people (your affiliates) get a special link to your online store.

Whenever someone clicks that link and buys a T-shirt, the affiliate earns a percentage of that sale. So, if the T-shirt costs $20, and you offer a 10% commission, the affiliate earns $2 for every sale made through their special link.

So, when an affiliate earns a percentage of the sale, like the $2 from the $20 T-shirt, what’s happening? Well, for starters, it’s motivating your affiliate to spread the word even more. The more they sell, the more they earn.

Now, you might wonder, “What’s in it for me?” Good question! You get sales you might not have had otherwise. Each T-shirt sold means $20 for you, or to be more exact, $18 after the $2 commission. Plus, you’re gaining a new customer who might return or tell friends about your stellar T-shirts.

It’s a super-smart way to grow without spending big bucks on marketing.

So, now that we know what an affiliate program is, you’re one step closer to making one work for your business. But first, let’s understand more benefits of starting an affiliate program.

The Benefits of a WordPress Affiliate Program

But the goodness doesn’t stop there. Running your affiliate program on WordPress offers specific advantages with little risk involved.

You only pay your affiliates when they make a sale.

That’s it. This makes your investment virtually risk-free and provides almost immediate returns.

So, what else do you get?

• Expanded Reach: With affiliates promoting your products, your brand reach grows overnight, attracting new customers in the process.
• Added Expertise: Your affiliates are like an extension of your marketing team but without the salaries. They bring their own strategies and expertise into the mix.
• Time-Saving: Affiliate marketing takes a load off your plate, giving you time back to focus on core business activities.

Reports and referrals underline that this strategy is more than just hype. In fact, 40% of US merchants say affiliate marketing is their top acquisition channel.

Now, let’s dive deeper into how to make this work for your WordPress business!

Steps to Set Up an Affiliate Program in WordPress

Since over 40% of the web runs on WordPress, we will show you how to create an affiliate program in WordPress. 

If you’re not particularly technical, then this might seem a little daunting, but it’s incredibly easy. 

Here’s a quick overview of what we’re going to talk about:

1. Install AffiliateWP
2. Complete the setup wizard
3. Customize your affiliate area 
4. Approve affiliate registrations
5. Manage your affiliates
6. Unleash affiliate growth tools
7. Set up affiliate payments

It is as simple as five steps, and in a handful of minutes, you can set up affiliate marketing for your WordPress business.

Step 1: Install AffiliateWP

AffiliateWP is the best affiliate management plugin for WordPress. 

It integrates with a wide range of WordPress plugins to sync your products, memberships, forms, and other items. This means you don’t have to worry about a complicated setup and don’t need any technical knowledge. 

The easy setup wizard will help you set up your WordPress affiliate program in under 10 minutes, making affiliate management simple. You can manage everything from your WordPress admin, minimizing the time you spend running your program so you can take care of other important tasks.

Throw in some innovative growth tools like Affiliate Landing Pages, Vanity Coupon Codes, and Direct Link Tracking, and you’ve got the perfect platform to grow your business.

Simply head over to our pricing page, and choose the plan that best fits your business’s needs. 

Once you’ve completed your purchase, you can install the affiliate platform by going to the Plugins tab in your WordPress dashboard. If you get stuck at any point, just follow this handy step-by-step guide!

Step 2: Complete the Setup Wizard

The setup wizard makes AffiliateWP incredibly easy to set up. 

Open the setup wizard by hovering over AffiliateWP in the left-hand sidebar of your WordPress dashboard and click Settings. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select Launch Setup Wizard.

First, you’ll be asked to enter your license key which you can find in your confirmation email, or in your AffiliateWP account. Copy the key and paste it into the box before clicking Continue. 

Now you’ve got to the best bit!

To set up your affiliate program, all you’ve got to do is check the box next to your chosen integration. We’ve got 20+ integrations including WordPress favorites like WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, and MemberPress, but head over to our integrations page for the full list. 

We offer the best affiliate software for WooCommerce, as well as EED, and many other WordPress favorites, so whether you sell digital or physical products, we’ve got you covered!

Just select your integration and click Continue.

You’ll now be asked to choose a few basic settings. 

On the next page, input your currency, referral type (fixed rate or percentage of total value of sale), and referral amount before clicking Continue. This will set your global affiliate commissions rate (here’s a helpful guide on common commission rates) but don’t worry, you can easily adjust this in the AffiliateWP Settings tab. 

You’ll then be asked to choose your link structure and cookie expiration. Again, don’t worry too much about this as you can easily adjust the settings at a later date. 

Once you’re happy with your settings, click Continue and Save before finally clicking Finish Setup and Launch Wizard.

Your affiliate program will be live and ready to track links as soon as you do this!

Step 3: Customize Your Affiliate Area

When you complete the setup wizard, AffiliateWP will automatically create an Affiliate Area page on your website. As it connects through WordPress, this page will sync with your website theme and match your branding. However, it’s also very customizable. 

You can either use the template provided for you or choose your own page to use as your affiliate signup. Just create the page as you normally would in WordPress, and then select it as your main affiliate area page by going to AffiliateWP > Settings and choosing the page you want from the Affiliate Area dropdown.

This page is where affiliates and influencers will sign up for your program and log in to their account, so the first thing you might want to do is to customize your registration form. 

If you want to see more details on this, then follow our in-depth guide, but you can easily make basic changes by selecting Pages in the left-hand sidebar of your WordPress dashboard, and editing the Affiliate Area page (or whichever page you chose to use). 

Once your affiliate has registered, they will then use this same page to log into their affiliate dashboard. From here, they’ll be able to generate affiliate links, access creatives, and track clicks, sales, payouts, and other affiliate metrics. 

AffiliateWP gives you a powerful affiliate dashboard as standard, but it’s also extremely customizable. Check out how you can personalize your dashboard with Affiliate Area tabs to help your affiliate partners get more out of your program. 

Step 4: Approve Affiliate Registrations 

When you set up your affiliate marketing program, the default settings require you to approve all affiliate registrations. 

This might seem like extra work for you, but we highly recommend you keep this setting. 

Why?

Because not all people who sign up for your program are the right affiliates for your business, manually approving affiliates is one of the first steps in affiliate fraud prevention, so it’s well worth the few seconds it takes to vet your affiliates. 

Ensure you’re using your affiliate registration forms to collect relevant information, and then go to AffiliateWP > Affiliates to accept or reject applications. 

You’ll automatically get an email notification whenever someone signs up to your program, and your affiliate will be notified when their application has been accepted or rejected. To change your messaging settings, just go to AffiliateWP > Settings > Emails and use the check boxes next to Email Notifications.

If you want to change your settings so that affiliate applications are automatically accepted, head to the Misc tab in your AffiliateWP settings and uncheck the Require Affiliate Approval button. 

Step 5: Manage Your Affiliates

Once you’ve approved affiliates, you can easily manage them from your Affiliates page.

You’ll be presented with real-time metrics for things like paid earnings, unpaid earnings, unpaid referrals, paid referrals, and visits, but you can dig even deeper into affiliate management by clicking the affiliate’s name.

Here, you’ll be able to manage your affiliates’ details, set up affiliate-specific commission rates, add payment details, create personal notes, and much more.

One of the great things about setting up a WordPress affiliate program with AffiliateWP is you’re in complete control, and you own all the data, something that’s not true when you use an affiliate network.

Step 6: Unleash Your Affiliate Growth Tools

AffiliateWP offers some awesome growth tools to help you take your WordPress affiliate program to the next level.

Make sure to check out addons like:

• Vanity Coupon Codes: Allows affiliates to create their own branded affiliate coupon codes.
• Personalized Affiliate Landing Pages: Creates personalized affiliate landing pages for your best affiliates to boost conversion rates.
• Affiliate Portal: Upgrades the affiliate user experience with a beautiful, customizable dashboard.

You can activate these addons and many others by going to the AffiliateWP addons page in the sidebar of your WordPress admin. Explore the addons and use the toggle buttons to instantly install and activate them.

You’ve now got everything you need to grow your WordPress affiliate program.

Step 7: Set Up Affiliate Payouts

AffiliateWP gives you lots of flexibility over the way you pay affiliates, but we’re going to show you the most efficient way to set up affiliate payments. 

While we also offer ways to pay affiliates through PayPal and Stripe, the best option is to pay them directly into their bank accounts or debit or credit cards.

You can easily do this by signing up for our integrated payouts service. 

For the full tutorial on how to set up affiliate payouts check out this great article!

Or, simply head to your AffiliateWP settings and click on the Payouts Service tab. From here, click on the Connect to the Payouts Service link and fill out the form with your information. Then, go back to the Payouts Service tab and check the box next to Enable Payouts Service.

Once you’re signed up for the payouts service, your new affiliates can register for direct payments straight to their bank accounts from the Settings tab of their affiliate area. 

Now your affiliates are signed up for your program and have entered their payment details, you’re ready to grow your affiliate sales.

Affiliate Plugins You Can Add to Your WordPress Website

If you’re looking to set up an affiliate program on your WordPress site, you’ve got a range of excellent tools to consider. To simplify your choice, we’ve curated a list of the top affiliate plugins that are both powerful and easy to use.

1. AffiliateWP

AffiliateWP is the crème de la crème of affiliate plugins. Designed with ease of use in mind, it provides seamless integration with popular WordPress plugins like WooCommerce, Stripe, and PayPal.

Its analytics dashboard is robust, offering real-time tracking to help affiliates optimize their campaigns.

Key Features:

• Seamless integration with WooCommerce, making it an excellent choice for e-commerce.
• Recurring Referrals and Direct Link Tracking for advanced affiliate management.
• A comprehensive analytics dashboard to help you make data-driven decisions.

Pricing:

• Personal: $149.50 for the first year, then $299/year for a single site with essential features.
• Plus: $199.50 for the first year, then $399/year, supporting up to 3 sites.
• Professional: $299.50 for the first year, then $599/year, offering advanced features for up to 10 sites.

2. MonsterInsights

MonsterInsights is more than just an affiliate plugin; it’s a comprehensive analytics solution. It excels at affiliate link tracking and provides in-depth performance reports.

Key Features:

• Compatibility with other affiliate plugins, allowing you to extend your program’s capabilities.
• In-depth reporting features, providing actionable insights into campaign performance.
• eCommerce tracking, ideal for businesses looking to evaluate customer behavior.

Pricing:

• Plus: $99.50 for the first year, then $199/year suitable for small businesses.
• Pro: $199.50 for the first year, then $399/year, tailored for eCommerce sites.
• Agency: $399.50 for the first year, then $799/year, suitable for agencies.

3. Easy Affiliate

Easy Affiliate offers a streamlined approach to affiliate marketing. The plugin stands out for its user-friendly dashboard and high level of customization.

Key Features:

• Instant setup and beginner-friendly dashboard, providing a smooth learning curve.
• Customizable performance graphs and detailed reports to track your program’s success.
• Shopping cart integration, making it adaptable to various payment methods.

Pricing:

• Basic: $99.50 for the first year, then $199/year for a single site.
• Plus: $149.50 for the first year, then $299/year for up to 3 sites.
• Pro: $199.50 for the first year, then $399/year for up to 5 sites.

To find out more awesome affiliate plugins, check out our article on the Best WordPress Affiliate Plugins.

Now, Recruit Affiliates for Your WordPress Affiliate Program 

One of the most important parts of an affiliate marketing strategy is how you recruit affiliates.

You can set up a great referral program, but what will make the difference is the quality of your affiliates. The great news is, no matter what niche you’re in, there will be successful affiliates out there – you’ve just got to find them. 

Potential affiliates are marketing experts, so they will be pretty visible. Whether bloggers, SEO pros, Facebook ads experts, webinar and video content creators or whatever marketing channels they use, they should be quite easy to find.

One of the key parts of this is not being afraid to reach out. 

Build Relationships with Content Creators

To get your program off the ground, you might want to do manual outreach and build relationships with high-quality content creators.

A quick look through the search engines and social media platforms (LinkedIn is great for this), and you’ll get a good idea of who you want to target. 

The other thing we always stress is that you need to treat this like a sale:

• Optimize your affiliate sign-up page and product landing pages
• Leverage social proof to demonstrate the value of your program
• Follow up with email marketing (your email list can be incredibly powerful)
• Perfect your incentives through thoughtful affiliate rewards (think about how your commission structure can boost your average order value and recurring sales)
• Demonstrate how you will maximize conversion rates

Perfecting these steps takes a bit of time and effort (and takes away from this idea of a passive income), but they can boost your affiliate program.

Remember that affiliates have a ton of choices about the programs they sign up for, so you’ve got to find ways of standing out from the crowd and building win-win partnerships.

Check out our post on recruiting quality affiliates for your WordPress affiliate program and ways to retain high-quality affiliates.

FAQs: Start a WordPress Affiliate Program

Get Your Affiliate Program Running with AffiliateWP in Minutes

Launching an affiliate program doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. With AffiliateWP, you’re just minutes away from setting up a powerful affiliate tracking system that integrates seamlessly with your WordPress site.

Granted, you might want to invest extra time perfecting your sign-up forms or customizing your dashboard, but the core setup is quick and painless. Affiliate marketing is an incredibly viable strategy for business owners keen on seeing immediate results.

Now that we’ve shown you exactly how to do it let’s share a few more critical resources. 

• A Complete Beginner’s Guide to Affiliate Program Management
• How to Automate Your Affiliate Program in WordPress (Step-by-Step)
• What is Affiliate Fraud and How Can You Stop It?
• How to Track Affiliate Performance with Monthly Email Summaries

Now you know what it takes to set up an affiliate program successfully for your business. 

It’s time to get started with AffiliateWP!