Affiliate Campaign

Are you constantly unsure of how to properly share the revenue with influencers or bloggers after they help recommend your products? SHOPLINE's Affiliate Campaign feature can generate unique URL links for each referrer, allowing you to clearly identify the source of orders and evaluate their effectiveness, making commission calculation a lot easier!

*You will need to install the "Affiliate Performance Center" to use this feature. This can be found via [Apps] > [Apps Store] in the SHOPLINE Admin. 

 

This article will cover the following:

• How to set up an Affiliate Campaign
• Search an Affiliate Campaign in the Admin
• How to check campaign performance
• Duplicate promotion
• Notes

 

1. How to set up an Affiliate Campaign

Step 1. Check your plan 

In the upper right of SHOPLINE Admin, go to [Hello, OOO] > [My Subscription & Billing] > [Current Subscription] to view your store's plans and modules.

• Under "Paid Subscription," there are "Plans" and "Modules." Please check if your store has the "Promotions, KOL Group Buying, KOL Affiliate and Referral Program (HK2025)" module. If so, you can proceed to Step 2. Create an Affiliate Campaign for the setup.
  
  
  
• If you are using the Basic, Advanced, Premium, O2O, Enterprise, or Cross Border plan (as shown below), please first confirm whether your store is using the Premium/O2O/Enterprise plan.
  
  
  If so, please go to [Apps] > [Apps Store] to install "Affiliate Performance Center." 
  
  

Step 2. Create an Affiliate Campaign

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

 

Step 3. Enter Campaign Name 

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

 

Step 4. Set up Campaign Conditions & Commission

Set up the commission conditions, commission type, and other settings. You can set up the commission for the entire order and selected products.

i. Commission for the entire order

A. Commission Condition

Select Commission for the entire order for the total order over and the affiliate partner will earn a commission for a total order over NTD ___  (should be greater than 0). The total order amount is subject to Net Sales (Subtotal - Discount - Credits Applied - Point Redeem to Cash).

 

B. Commission Type

• No Commission: By selecting this option, it means an affiliate will not receive a commission for orders made via a referral URL.
  
  
• Percentage: Set up the commission by percentage. If the Net Sales are over the required amount, the commission will be calculated by the order's Net Sales x Percentage. For example: Entering a 5 means you'll get a 5% of the net sales as a commission.
  *Note:
  
  • Order Net Sales = Subtotal - Discount - Applied Credits - Points Redeem to Cash.
  • Please enter numbers between 1-99.
    
    
• Flat Amount: Set the commission by the flat amount. If the Net Sales are over the required amount, the commission will be calculated by the flat amount. For example: Entering 100 means you'll get 100 NT$ as a commission.
  *Note: Please enter numbers greater than 0.

Once completed, click Continue at the bottom right. Then, proceed to Step 5. Set Customer discount to continue the setup.

 

Step 5. Set customer discount 

• No Discount: Customers will not get any discounts on purchases made using an Affiliate Link/Affiliate Code.
  
  
• Apply Promotion: Select the 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 set up, you can go to [Promotions & Rewards] > [Promotions] and set 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 refer to Promotions.
  

 

Step 6. Setup Affiliate link and Valid Period

i. 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 like youtuber01 and 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 and then enters an Express Checkout Page, this order will not count toward the calculation of the Affiliate Commission. If you wish to include an Express Checkout Page in an Affiliate Commission 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.

*Note: 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 in another country/ region, then you need to refer to the specific local time.

 

iii. Affiliate Reward Rules 

Enter a description of campaign commission rules (this field is optional), such as the date Affiliate Commissions are calculated/disbursed, or the percentage/fixed amount of commission 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 Commission 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 commission 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 ensuring the accuracy of the preview page, click on Publish this Campaign. You can see a full list of created campaigns via [Promotions & Reward] > [Affiliate Campaign]. 

 

You can directly copy the campaign's affiliate link on the preview page or simply copy it from the campaign list as shown below.

 

2. Search an Affiliate Campaign in the Admin

If you would like to edit or view the effectiveness of Affiliate Campaigns, you can quickly search using the search bar. The system provides three filtering options: Campaign Name, Affiliate Code, and KOL Partner. Choose the filtering option you need and enter the corresponding keywords, and then click on the "Search" icon. 

 

*Note: The system does not support the use of special characters. When searching via email, please enter the content before the "@" symbol.

 

3. 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 in your store, this order will be recorded in the Affiliate Performance Center. Partners will also be able to view a record of Affiliate Commission 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 Usage Record next to the right of a campaign entry.

 

Step 2. Check campaign performance overview

The numbers are calculated based on orders not yet cancelled, including three metrics:

 

*Notes:

• Orders not yet cancelled include orders in pending/ confirmed/ completed status.
• The data of the campaign performance overview is updated hourly, and the last update time will be displayed in the top right corner.

 

Step 3. Check affiliate commission

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

• Order Net Sales: Subtotal - Discount - Credits Applied - Point Redeem to Cash
• [Coming Soon] Order Net Sales = Subtotal - Discount - Credits Applied - Point Redeem to Cash - Return Total
• Product Net Sales: Subtotal - Discount - Credits Applied - Point Redeem to Cash
• [Coming Soon] Product Net Sales = Subtotal - Discount - Credits Applied - Point Redeem to Cash - Return Total

 

*Notes:

• Order History Auto-Archiving: Only displays unarchived order lists. To view the full usage records, please export the report.
• 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.
• [Coming Soon] When return details are updated to the order, the system will recalculate the "Net Sales" and automatically update the field. If the amount of Net Sales / Product Net Sales is less than 0, the field will display NT$ 0.
  For more information on return details, please refer to: Advanced Return Management (New).
  
• If you set up "Commission for selected products" and the commission type by "Percentage," the Net Sales column will become "Product Net Sales."
  
  
  
• If you set up "Commission for selected products" and the commission type by "Flat Amount," the Net Sales column will become "Selected Product Quantity."
  

 

Step 4. 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 via [Report & Analytics] > [Bulk Action Process].

 

The report contains detailed information about the campaign and each order, which merchants and KOL partners can download for reconciliation.

 

Order History Auto-Archiving: Orders already archived will only display the order number, with all other fields marked as "Archived."

 

4. Duplicate promotion

In the SHOPLINE Admin, go to [Promotions & Reward] > [Affiliate Campaign]. Find the affiliate campaign you would like to duplicate, click open the drop-down menu, and select Duplicate.

 

The system will direct you to the affiliate campaign setup page and duplicate the following fields of the selected promotion.

*Note: After campaign duplication, you still need to click Preview and Publish this Campaign to successfully create the campaign.

Setup steps	Duplicated fields
1. General Information	Duplicate all fields, including Campaign Type and Campaign Name.
2. Condition & Commission	Duplicate all fields, including Summary, Commission Condition, Commission, Type, and Set Commission for Products.
3. Customer Discount	Duplicate all fields, ie. Select Promotion.
4. Affiliate Link	No duplication for any fields. All fields are empty by default.

 

 

5. Notes 

• If an order is edited by a merchant after it is created, the Affiliate Commission will also be updated accordingly to reflect any changes. 
  
  
• If an order is split by a merchant after it is created, the Affiliate Commission 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 four conditions: 
  
  1. Cart is idle for more than 180 days
  2. Customer clears the browser's cache
  3. Customer logs out of the store
  4. The checkout process is completed
     *Notice: 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.
     
     
• [Coming Soon] If you are using the "Multiple Product Attributes for Checkout" feature, each product attribute will have a tracking code when a customer uses the affiliate link. If you set the commission for selected products, the commission will be subject to the "Product Net Sales" or "Selected Product Quantity" of each product attribute.
  
  
• [Coming Soon] If you are using the "Multiple Product Attributes for Checkout" feature, the Net Sales and commission of each product attribute will be recalculated when you split orders or edit child orders. For more details, please refer to [Coming Soon] Multiple Product Attributes for Checkout.

 

 

 

Read more 

• Affiliate Performance Center for KOL