Affiliate programs

[flyhighwormfarm]

1.  I have an associate that has given me an affiliate link to use for products that I do not carry. How do I post it in my store?

2. She also wants to post links to products that I carry on her Shopify website. How do I generate a link for her?

[HC_Charlie]

Hello @flyhighwormfarm thanks for your post. I'm not exactly sure since I'm not familiar with affiliate links...but you should be able to take the URL web address that would point to the items on her site, and then add a URL hyperlink in your Square store. However, clicking this link would take the customer to HER website to check out. I don't think Square has the capability to take a payment for someone else (an affiliate) and then route that payment, or a portion of the payment, to their website or payment account. The payment would rest with you as Square as the processor, and you'd have to manually turn over any affiliate funds to her.

As far as a link on her Shopify website, I don't know if Shopify has this capability, but she could do the same as above, and add a URL link that would direct customers to your Square website where they would purchase and checkout. You can generate a unique checkout URL by following these instructions. But again, the payment wouldn't be split out and routed to both you and the affiliate for payment, this would have to be done manually unless Shopify has this capability.

[flyhighwormfarm]

The way I understood is there is a plugin or app in Shopify that generates an affiliate number and when it takes them to her checkout and they complete the purchase, it uses the cookie settings to track your percentage of the sale and and payment is issued monthly. Or, that is my understanding. But, in not even sure if I'm explaining it correctly. 

[Doran]

You're correct that is how affiliate sales work.  Is your website a blog or a store?  

There would be different ways to set up the affiliate links.  

You could use a plugin or a tracked link.  

Depending on how your site is set up I can give you tips on how to integrate affiliate marketing.  i do it on my own site with several brands.  It isn't really a blanket answer, unfortunately.

[flyhighwormfarm]

My website is a store. My friend (who's on Shopify) has an app or plugin. Thank you so much!!! I've been passively trying to figure this out for a while now. Any help is appreciated!

Kala

[telsaan]

I’ve been trying to figure out if there’s an affiliate app I can integrate with Square. I have zero experience working with affiliates. Recommendations would be great. tia 

[Doran]

You don't necessarily need a plugin.   If she gave you a tracked link, a link with a cookie attached to it that points to her website, then all you need to do is insert that onto the page where you are highlighting her products.  Use the insert link icon to place it.  

[telsaan]

Ah, I’m trying to do the opposite. I want to have affiliates selling my products. 

[willowsky]

Yes, I agree the opposite.  

[mindykittay]

Me too! Did you find something?

[BernadetteA]

Hi @telsaan & @mindykittay 👋 

Just to confirm, you both want to be able to sell your item on a third party website? If so, I would recommend using Square Online Checkout Links. 

You would be able to provide a URL link that they can then use on their website by either hyperlinking to text, or you can create an embeddable button with an html code snippet.

You can also easily track the amount of sales generated from each Square Online Checkout link which would allow you to track how links are performing. 

Please let us know if you have any additional questions, or if this is not what you were looking for. 😊

[willowsky]

I love this question as I have been wondering the same thing!

[JJ_]

At this time affiliate links are considered a feature request. Thanks so much for your interest in this @willowsky. In order to appropriately send these to our product teams we’d love it if you'd submit this request on our Ideate page for Square Online. Our team monitors these boards and we triage them to measure needs. You can search the boards to see if this has been requested before and add your use case if so!

[willowsky]

I think the affiliate thing is something for square to really look into.  I have some big ideas that would take a lot to put in place, but may be something that would separate square from its competitors.