Affiliate Campaign

When working with KOLs and bloggers, it can be difficult to calculate profit shares with promotional partners through referral campaigns. SHOPLINE's Affiliate Campaign feature allows you to create a unique referral link, which partners and merchants can both use to track campaign performance metrics and evaluate results, thus making the profit distribution much clearer to calculate.

*You will need the Affiliate Campaign app to use this feature. This can be found by going to [Apps] > [Apps Store] in SHOPLINE Admin. 

 

This article will cover the following: 

• How to set up an Affiliate Campaign
• How to check campaign performance
• Notes

 

1. How to set up an Affiliate Campaign

Step 1. Check your plan 

In the upper right corner of SHOPLINE Admin, go to Hello, (Your name) > My Subscription & Billing to view your store's plans and modules.

• Under the Paid Subscription, there are Plans and Modules. Please check if your store has the "Promotions" module. If so, you can skip to Step 2. Create an Affiliate Campaign 
• If you are using the Basic, Advanced, Premium, O2O, Enterprise, or Cross Border plan (as shown below). Please confirm whether your store is using the Premium/O2O/Enterprise plan.
  
  If so, please go to [Apps] > [Apps Store] and install "Affiliate Campaign". 
  
  

Step 2. Create an affiliate campaign

In SHOPLINE Admin, go to [Promotions & Reward] > [Affiliate Campaign]. Click Add at the top right corner to add a new Affiliate Campaign. 

 

Step 3. Enter campaign name 

The campaign name entered here is for internal use in SHOPLINE Admin only, and will not appear on your storefront. After entering the campaign name, click Continue. 

 

Step 4. Setup Campaign Condition & Reward

A. Condition

Enter the conditions that will trigger a reward (i.e. when the subtotal of order goes over the "Condition" threshold, an affiliate will receive an "Order Reward"). Example: When the Total Order* amount is greater than $ ___** 

*The Total Order amount is equal to the subtotal amount (order amount minus any discounts, shipping, and additional fees). 

**You must enter a figure greater than zero. 

B. Order Reward

Enter the reward an affiliate will receive when the condition is met. There are three types of rewards:

• No reward: Selecting this option will mean an affiliate will not receive a reward for orders made via a referral URL.
• Percent of sale: When the order subtotal amount (=total order amount - shipping fee - additional fee) matches with / exceeds the spending amount you set in "Condition", the reward will be calculated by a percentage based on the subtotal amount. For example, if the percent of the sale is set as "5",  the reward of a referral order would be 5% of the subtotal amount.
  *The percent of sales must be set as numbers between 1-99. 
• Fixed amount per sale: When the order subtotal amount (=total order amount - shipping fee - additional fee) matches/exceeds the spending amount you set in "Condition", a fixed amount of reward would be given to the promoter. For example, if the fixed amount per sale is set as "100",  the reward of a referral order would be $100, regardless of how much the order subtotal amount is.  *You must enter a figure greater than zero.

Once you have filled in the required fields in Condition & Reward, click Continue.

 

Step 5. Set customer discount 

• No Discount: Customer will not get any discount on purchases made using an Affiliate Link/Affiliate Code
• Apply Promotion: Select promotion for the Affiliate Campaign. Customers will then get this discount when they make a purchase using an Affiliate Link/Affiliate Code. If you don't have a promotion already set up, you can do so in SHOPLINE Admin by going to [Promotions & Rewards] and setting up a campaign of your choice. When setting up a promotion, free shipping, or bundle price campaign, check off "For Affiliate Campaign Only" to use it as part of an Affiliate Campaign. For more details, please see: Promotions 

         

 

Step 6. Setup Affiliate link and Valid Period

A. Affiliate Link

The Affiliate Code entered here will be added to the end of your store's URL to create a unique Affiliate Link. Merchants can then copy and share this link with campaign partners.  

Please note: The Affiliate Code must be composed of a mixture of lowercase characters and numbers. For example, "youtuber01".

• To ensure the link is recognized by a customer's browser, you cannot include Chinese characters, spaces, or any symbols ( _ * ? # $ ^ - ( ) = + % &), etc.) as part of an Affiliate Code. The settings for an Affiliate Link are different compared to Promotions/Free Shipping. As the Affiliate Code is used to create a unique URL, each campaign partner must use a separate affiliate link. For example: youtuber01, youtuber02.
• If you wish to create an Affiliate Link that includes custom products, categories, and other non-storefront pages, you can do so by adding the Affiliate Code to the end of a specific page's URL. For example, if your Affiliate Link is https://www.test.com?sl-ref=test123, and you want to create a campaign link that redirects to  https://www.test.com/products/monkey, you can add the Affiliate Code (?sl-ref=test123) to the end of the product's URL: https://www.test.com/products/monkey?sl-ref=test123. This allows campaign partners to share links for specific products, and track campaign performance.
• If a customer accesses your store using an Affiliate Link then enters an Express Checkout Page, this order will not count toward the calculation of the Affiliate Reward total. If you wish to include an Express Checkout Page in an Affiliate Reward Campaign, please manually add the Affiliate Code to the end of the Express Checkout Page's URL. 

Our Valid Period setting will show a calendar for you to choose the start and end date as well as the hour, so please do not input a date or time in that field.

*Event start and end time will be based on the origin of the country/region that you have chosen for your online shop, if you are doing an offer at another country/region, then you need to refer to the specific local time.

 

C. [Coming soon] Affiliate Reward Rules 

Enter a description of campaign reward rules (this field is optional), such as the date Affiliate Rewards are calculated/disbursed, or the percentage/fixed amount reward per order. Promotional partners bound to the campaign will be able to view this information on the reports page of the KOL Partner Platform. For more examples, see below:

• On the 10th of each month, the Affiliate Reward will be calculated based on valid orders from the previous month. 
• If an order has been edited, the order amount after it is edited will act as the basis for the amount. 
• If an order is split, the reward will be calculated according to the parent order amount. 

Once you have completed the setup, click Preview to view a summary of the campaign.

 

Step 7. Confirm campaign settings

After checking your settings and making sure there are no mistakes on the preview page, click on "Publish this Campaign" in the bottom right-hand corner to finish creating your campaign. You can see a full list of created campaigns in [Promotions & Reward] > [Affiliate Campaign]. 

You can copy the campaign's Affiliate Link on the preview page, or from the list of campaigns in Promotions & Reward > Affiliate Campaign by clicking on the link icon next to a campaign entry (see image below): 

 

2. How to check campaign performance

After providing a campaign partner with the Affiliate Link, when a customer uses this Affiliate Link to make a purchase on your store, this order will be recorded in the Affiliate Performance Center. Partners will also be able to view a record of Affiliate Reward totals. For a more detailed guide on how to invite a partner to use the Affiliate Performance Center, please read this FAQ. 

 

Step 1. Choose usage record

Go to [Promotions & Reward] > [Affiliate Campaign] and click the Usage Record button next to a campaign entry.

 

Step 2. Check affiliate reward totals

If an Affiliate Campaign has been set up to include a reward, the "Affiliate Reward" field will be displayed regardless of order/payment status. After crosschecking the Affiliate Reward against the actual totals, the Affiliate Reward will be calculated according to the final order amount. 

*Please note: "Total" = the final order amount - discounts - member points - store credits.

Note: All orders created through an affiliate link, regardless of the order status/payment status, will appear in the usage history report as long as they are not deleted.

 

Step 3. Export usage record report

If you wish to export the record for the Affiliate Campaign, you may click Export. The report will be sent to whoever is currently logged in to SHOPLINE Admin. You can also download it at a later date in [Report & Analytics] > [Bulk Action Process]. 

 

3. Notes 

• If an order is edited by a merchant after it is created, the Affiliate Reward total will also be updated accordingly to reflect any changes. 
• If an order is split by a merchant after it is created, the Affiliate Reward total is updated and calculated according to the parent order total.  
• The timezone for start and end times for a campaign will be based on the store's country/region, which can be set in SHOPLINE Admin. Merchants with cross-border operations should pay particular attention to any time differences when publicizing the details of a campaign. 
• After a customer uses an Affiliate Link to access your store and/or enters an affiliate code, the cart will record a tracking code for this particular affiliate campaign. The tracking code will be deleted and the Affiliate Campaign-based purchase/checkout will be terminated under the following conditions: 

1. 1. 1. Cart is idle for more than 180 days
      2. Customer clears browser's cache
      3. Customer logs out from the store 
      4. The checkout process is completed

Note: If the customer clicks on the affiliate link/enters the affiliate code while logged in, yet the customer clears the cache or logs out of the store, the shopping cart and tracking code will be removed. However, if the customer uses the same account to log back in, since the tracking code is already still stored in the shopping cart of the member account, the tracking code of the promotion campaign will still be recorded when the customer places an order. 

 

Read more 

Affiliate Performance Center for KOL