How to Create a Referral Program in WordPress | EP 677

How to Create a Referral Program in WordPress

1. AffiliateWP 01:26

Read the full episode transcript below:

00:28 David Blackmon: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of wp the podcast i’m David Blackmon

00:29 Tim Strifler: And I’m Tim Strifler.

00:39  David Blackmon: And you may notice it’s a little bit different today here on YouTube. It’s not just a static image if you’re watching this video and listening to our podcast thank you, we appreciate you. We’re glad you’re here, we’re trying out some new things. For 2022 we’re going to be doing a lot more video content than we did in the past. You can still listen to us on all the platforms in audio form only but if you decide you want to see these beautiful faces of Tim and mine we’re going to be recording all of our episodes as well. We’ve been doing this for years we record these on a lot on a zoom call, so Tim and i see each other but we’ve just never hit the record button, and we’re hitting the record button now. So today we’ve got a great topic how to create a referral program in WordPress. Tim what the heck’s a referral program why would i want one.

01:34 Tim Strifler:  So a referral program is also known as an affiliate program, and basically it’s when you are selling some sort of product or service and someone refers business to you, refers a customer to you, they get a slice of the pie, they get a commission off of that referral. This is nothing new this is something that’s happened long before the internet uh you know, back in the day before the internet existed, everything was business was done the old-fashioned way. If you refer business to you know a colleague someone that’s in a different industry than you say a accountant referring business to a lawyer you know a lot of times they’ll pay referral fees to each other and so uh yeah. Actually i’m potentially getting laser eye surgery my optometrist doesn’t do uh laser surgery he refers me to a surgeon an eye surgeon that does laser. And that’s all he does and you better believe that this surgeon he’s referring me to is going to be paying my optometrist a referral fee for sending him me as a client. So that’s basically what happens. But on a website you can add special software that’s going to do all that for you manage all the the the commissions and and the tracking and all of that for you and David’s going to tell you what that software is.

02:56 David Blackmon: Well that software is Affiliate WP and that’s really the de facto standard affiliate software for WordPress. They’ve been around for a long time it’s what Tim and i use on our websites, just about everybody uses and there’s not really many options. One thing that i will say and add on to what Tim was talking about in the olden days as you can see i’m not much but slightly older than Tim barely um you know we used to call them a spiff you know. They were spiffs that you would get, you know, if you even if you bought a car, if i went in and bought a car from my old sales person, if i sent him somebody he’d give me a spit fifty dollar, you know referral fee and stuff. And um so back to the back to the regularly scheduled program Affiliate WP is a great software. Tim’s right it’s going to do everything you need it to do it’s going to track everything what i like about. It is you know some of the features that i like the most about it is it allows you to set the time at which how long you want to hold this cookie basically. And that’s what it is it’s a cookie you see all these you know websites when you go to them they want a permission to track cookies, and they basically want to know where you’re going on their site and stuff. And make sure it’s okay with you but you can set a cookie in there so i’ve signed up for Tim’s affiliate program, and he has it set to whatever he has it set to a month three months six months. If anybody uses this special link they’re going to it’s going to track them from the day that they come to the website with that special link for the next let’s say it’s set for six months for the next six months. Anytime that person comes to that website if they purchase anything you’re going to get a commission on it because the software tracks it. Tim what’s your favorite one of your favorite things in the Affiliate WP?

04:50 Tim Strifler:  I like that you can set a a coupon code to a a specific affiliate. So for example sometimes uh when you’re reading a blog and it’s talking about really cool software or something like that and they say click this link, and you can go over and and get the software, well some people like whoa well i don’t want to give this blogger commission you know. It’s like so then you go and you type it in yourself and so that way you you can uh not click on the the referral link um which i mean it’s why would you go out of your way to not give someone that told you about software a commission. That’s just stupid for some reason either yeah people get weird about that for some reason. But what you can do is you can you can give your your affiliates a coupon code, and so you can say “hey um use have your customers use this coupon code for 10 off”. And so when they use that coupon code for 10 off it automatically attributes that sale to that affiliate regardless of whether or not someone clicked on the link or not . So anything that any sale that comes through with that coupon code will automatically go to them as the the commission which is pretty cool. So that um it kind of negates any of you know that weirdness with people not wanting to click on affiliate links and stuff. And then also additionally, um even if if someone comes back you know, seven months later if you have a six-month cookie it’ll still give that affiliate the commission they deserve, because that coupon code is only given to them and they’re the only ones promoting it so…

06:32 David Blackmon: That’s a good point. That’s actually a really good point. I’m glad you said that Tim. Anyways it’s a great way to increase the revenue on your site by having other people promote your products and or services. And Affiliate WP is a great piece of software that’s going to allow you to track and manage all of it and you don’t have to do anything you just have to run the reports and it’s going to let it do its thing and stuff. So anything else?

07:15  Tim Strifler: Yeah one last thing i want to say. If you are a web designer and you want to give people uh you know pay people uh for referring you business, this is not for that this is for online purchases. So if you’re selling a product or if you are selling a service online and the transaction happens on your website then Affiliate WP is what you need. But if you want to do things the old-fashioned way where you have you know maybe a it professional or an accountant that is referring you as a web designer business, well you’re going to have to just manually do it the old-fashioned way. You don’t really need a complicated software this is only for when you’re getting a lot of traffic and sales are happening on the site itself.

07:50 David Blackmon: Awesome great point Tim. All right tomorrow we’ve got another great episode why you should add domain privacy to any website that you purchase. Tim until tomorrow we’ll see you then

08:06  Tim Strifler: Take care bye-bye