Every ecommerce merchant knows Black Friday / Cyber Monday (BFCM) are the most profitable holiday shopping days.

According to the Adobe Report, Black Friday online spending continues to rise year after year and reached a record high in 2023.

For ecommerce brands, the increased spending is great news.

To be able to fully utilize BFCM, retailers should prepare their sites by optimizing page speed, improving product descriptions, setting up referral campaigns, etc. In this article, we'll cover all of those and much more.

The 15-Point BFCM Checklist: How To Prepare Your Store For Black Friday / Cyber Monday

Below is the 15-point checklist to ensure your store is ready for BFCM. 👇

1. Start early - Customers start looking for deals in October

Start planning for Black Friday now if you haven't started.

A 2023 Statista survey found that 50% of US consumers begin their holiday shopping as early as October. 

This is the time to start testing different offers and coupons. For the best results, A/B test different versions with third-party tools.

2. Learn from other successful Black Friday campaigns

You can use websites like Milled or Really Good Emails to learn from other brands running Black Friday marketing campaigns.

You just need to type in keywords like “Black Friday” to get a bunch of good marketing campaign examples:

3. Prepare your referral/affiliate campaigns

Referral and affiliate programs can be a great way to get existing customers to share word about your BFCM offerings.

For example, you could offer 30% off to both the advocate and friend for every successful referral to your Black Friday campaign.

You can set up your referral/affiliate program using ReferralCandy and notify new and existing customers about it via email. ReferralCandy also has a 14-day free trial available.

ReferralCandy is also available in the Shopify App Store.

If you need help with the referral/affiliate program setup process, here are some articles that can help:

• How to Build a Referral Program in 2024 (With 80+ Examples)
• 11 Best Referral Program Ideas (To Attract New Referrals)
• 25+ Referral Landing Page Examples (And Why They Work)

4. Check your site speed: A slow site means no sales

A lack of site speed directly hurts your profit margins. In fact, ecommerce sites that load within a second convert 2.5x more visitors than those that load in five seconds.

You want to make sure that doesn't happen on your website.

There are a number of free tools you can use to test your website speed. One of them is Google’s PageSpeed Insights.

If you find your site speed is too slow, simple things you can do are:

• Compress images with image optimization tools
• Remove unused apps/plugins from your website
• Reduce the amount of page redirects on your website
• Use third-party apps for page speed

Improved page speed can have a direct positive effect on your BFCM sales.

5. Improve your checkout process

The Baymard Institute identified the main reasons consumers abandon shopping carts, and they are:

• The extra costs (shipping, tax, fees) are too high
• Sign-up is necessary in order to buy
• Consumers aren’t trusting the site
• The delivery process is too slow
• The checkout is too complicated

Most of these are factors you can control.

To improve your checkout, you can do the following:

• A/B test different price variations
• Remove sign up process (if you have one)
• Improve your site’s overall trustworthiness
• Reduce unnecessary steps from your checkout
• Showcase return/refund policies
• Turn on a test mode and try that the checkout actually works
• Accept multiple payment methods

Especially during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, shoppers are fickle. They have thousands of stores to select from and a limited amount of time. They will leave your store if your checkout process is inefficient.

Taking a day to improve your checkout process could pay off for you on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

6. Take site backups

You'll also want backups for everything from site code to product images. Black Friday only comes once a year.

If you use Shopify, you can install one of the available backup apps (there are some great free options available).

Shopify backup apps

Even if you use an ecommerce provider other than Shopify, free backup apps are available.

7. Make sure your product descriptions sell

When creating your BFCM campaigns, write product descriptions that sell.

One well-known principle of influence is scarcity, which you can emphasize with limited-quantity items and limited-time offers.

Here are the two scarcity principles in more detail:

• Limited number: A product has a limited supply and won't be available once it runs out‍
• Deadline (Limited time): The item is only available during a specific time period

For more information about the above, check out our article on examples of scarcity principles in marketing.

8. Improve your site SEO

It's also important to do some search engine optimization (SEO) so shoppers can find what they are looking for. 

Here are additional resources to help you:

• SEO For Black Friday/Cyber Monday: Boost Sales And Traffic
• Ecommerce SEO Best Practices in 2024 (You Can Do Today)
• Strategies to Drive Traffic to Your Shopify Store
• An Ultimate Guide to Shopify SEO (with Templates!)

9. Review last year’s performance

If you had promotions last year, you will want to review your sales data to see what went well. This information can give you ideas on making alterations to existing products.

Plan ahead and create a product schedule that will determine the products that go on sale and the price. Get ahead of the game and make slight tweaks rather than making it up at the last minute.

10. Apply the right discounts

The average Black Friday sale in 2023 was 31% as reported by Demandsage.

Most retailers are offering at least 20% off on Black Friday. Many sites are even offering 50% off for first-time buyers or more specific deals like 30% off for 5 or more items.

Get creative with the discounts that you offer!

Here are some tips for your Black Friday discounts:

• Display discounts clearly: Whether on the home page, product description, or checkout, make discounts visible so customers know how much they will save. Take advantage of announcement bars, pop-up notifications, banner ads, etc.
• Add a countdown banner: A countdown banner adds urgency and builds excitement. You can create countdown banners with tools like Powr in a matter of minutes.

11. Take advantage of cross-selling

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are a great time to level up your cross-selling game.

If you have a customer who is making a purchase, you should refer them to something that will naturally fit together. 

Think of simple cross-selling examples, like:

• Socks + shoes
• Paper + pencils
• Yoga mats + yoga straps

Ask yourself: If someone is making a purchase, is there anything else they may need?

To create cross-sell offers, you can use third-party tools. For example, in Shopify App Store, you can find a variety of tools for this.

Even if you use other ecommerce platforms like WooCommerce or BigCommerce, you’ll find tools for this.

When creating cross-sell offers, you may want to create distinct Black Friday and Cyber Monday pages with related products for customers. This can consolidate your efforts.

If you currently have a SALE section on your website, it is easy to alter the text to make it a special Black Friday and Cyber Monday navigation bar.

Extra sales tip: During your BFCM promotions, you can also set up upsells. One way to showcase them is to include them in your thank you page after a customer makes a purchase. For example, you might offer the same product at a slightly higher discount.

12. Email marketing campaigns

According to Campaign Monitor, 116.5 million emails were sent on Black Friday, which is more than any other day of the year. These Black Friday emails also saw the highest numbers of opens and links clicked compared to other days of the year.

Black Friday emails give you an opportunity to connect with your loyal customers and provide them with a special discount.

Start your email marketing campaign at least a week prior to Black Friday to whet your customers' appetite. You want to pique their interest in the sales you'll be offering. Richard Lazarra, an ecommerce expert said:

• “Because emails are so critical and deliver huge ROI, prepare your emails well in advance. Have the copy ready, the images ready, and the email prepped to go. Give yourself plenty of time and lots of opportunities to review everything prior to the big day.”

You may want to start a month in advance and send weekly emails for four weeks until Black Friday. 

Send out an email the night before Black Friday and Cyber Monday. 

Finally, send out an email about the discounts on the big day. This will ensure that your list is well aware of the discounts that you're offering.

But don't stop there. Follow up after Black Friday and Cyber Monday to request feedback and invite them to revisit your store. 

You may want to add an automated abandoned cart recovery email to prevent customers from slipping away. With abandoned cart emails, they'll receive a follow-up email if they get to the checkout and fail to make a purchase. Shopify includes this feature as standard.

13. Write interesting email headlines

Bland headlines won’t cut your Black Friday campaigns.

A traditional discount-only approach will likely be deleted before being opened.

You'll want to be as personalized as possible. People are more likely to open something that they can tell is pertinent to them. You can include their name in the headline and a detail about the email. 

Be as descriptive as you can in your headline to catch the reader's attention. Too many emails get ignored because they are copies of the industry.

14. Pitch gift guides for Black Friday preparation

Gift guides for the holidays are a great way to increase sales. It helps you to get ahead of the curve and position your products early. Holiday gift guides are very popular with bloggers. Connecting with influential bloggers and sponsoring one of their gift guide posts is a great place to start. You could also create a gift guide for your own store.

15. Set up your analytics system

There are a bunch of tracking and analytics tools you can use to track the performance of your BFCM campaigns.

• Heat Maps: Tools like Hotjar or Crazy Egg help you understand user behavior by showing where users click, scroll, and spend time on your website.
• Google Analytics: Gives you insights into website traffic, user behavior, and conversion rates.
• Conversion Tracking: Set up conversion tracking in Google Analytics or through tools like Facebook Pixel to measure the effectiveness of your campaigns.
• A/B testing tools: A/B testing tools allow you to test different versions of your landing pages, emails, or ads to see which performs better.
• Email marketing analytics: Email marketing tools offer detailed info on open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates.
• Ecommerce analytics tools: Platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, or Magento often have built-in analytics dashboards that provide insights into sales, average order value, and customer behavior. These can be invaluable for tracking the success of your BFCM promotions.

Word-of-mouth marketing for your BFCM campaigns

Marketing will be extremely competitive this Black Friday / Cyber Monday season.

One of the ways to stand out from the crowd is through word-of-mouth marketing. 

With ReferralCandy, you can set up a referral program in minutes, rewarding customers for new referrals and incentivizing new purchases with special offers. 

Open up a new channel for growth and make the most of the holiday season with ReferralCandy.

WordPress users often ask us: What are the steps involved in creating a WordPress affiliate program? And is it difficult to create one?

To give you a quick answer, creating an affiliate program is easy thanks to the available WordPress affiliate marketing plugins and good integrations. The harder part is marketing your affiliate program and generating revenue from it.

To help you with that, we’ve put together this article! We will go through the seven practical steps for setting up and running a successful affiliate program in WordPress.

Why should you start a WordPress affiliate program?

Before going through the steps, let’s sum up the main benefits WordPress affiliate programs can bring.

The main benefits include:

1. Access to a new pool of customers. Affiliate programs give you access to a new pool of customers you would’ve otherwise missed.
2. Affiliate programs provide amazing ROI. The cost of starting an affiliate program is extremely low.
3. Low effort marketing strategy. The best affiliate plugins offer automation tools, so you can easily manage and scale your program.
4. Increased customer loyalty. Affiliates often become brand advocates who promote your products to their networks and drive repeat business.
5. Cost-effective growth. Unlike traditional advertising, you only pay affiliates when they successfully generate sales, making it a highly cost-efficient way to grow your business.

How to start an affiliate program with WordPress: 7-step process

The seven steps to launching an affiliate program with WordPress are as follows:

1. Install your affiliate plugin
2. Import your existing customers
3. Select your referral incentives
4. Design your affiliate landing page and emails
5. Make an outreach plan
6. Track the performance
7. Manage the affiliate payments

Let’s look into each of these in more detail.

1. Install your affiliate plugin

Most WordPress affiliate plugins work inside of WooCommerce, which is the most popular ecommerce solution for WordPress.

For that reason, we recommend having WooCommerce installed before installing an affiliate plugin.

Installing WooCommerce is easy from the WordPress plugins directory:

After you have WooCommerce installed and activated, you can install the affiliate plugin.

One of the best WordPress affiliate plugins is ReferralCandy, which can be found from the WordPress plugin directory.

To start using ReferralCandy, click here to head into our website and you can start your 14-day free trial.

During the sign up process, you need to select WooCommerce as your ecommerce platform.

Fill in your store URL, email, password, and select your plan to access the ReferralCandy dashboard.

From the dashboard, head into the “Integrations” and “Woocommerce”. 

In the integrations page, you will find clear instructions for the integration process.

The next step simply involves going to WordPress plugin directory and searching for “ReferralCandy”. After this, you need to click “Install Now”. 

Once the plugin is installed and activated, you need to copy your API Access ID, APP ID, and Secret Key from ReferralCandy’s dashboard.

You will need to paste these into the ReferralCandy plugin settings on WordPress.

Once you save the changes, ReferralCandy will automatically sync order and customer information for automated affiliate management.

After this, you can move on to the next step! 

P.S. If you don’t use WooCommerce for WordPress, you can try alternative WordPress affiliate marketing plugins.

2. Import your existing customers

When launching an affiliate program, you have to ask yourself: who are you going to market it to?

The most common source is existing customers.

If you use WooCommerce, you can download the list of your existing customers and import them to your affiliate program tool. This can be done from the "Customers" page by clicking the "Download" button:

Once you have your customer list, you can import it into your affiliate plugin, such as ReferralCandy:

The top affiliate plugins also automatically sync customer information, so when a customer makes a purchase, they will be automatically imported into your affiliate campaign. 

Additionally, you can use campaign filters to determine who gets invited to your affiliate program. Here are three filter options ReferralCandy offers:

If you want to import customers from another ecommerce platform, such as Shopify, you can download your customer list and import it into your affiliate plugin.

The best affiliate program plugins make importing customer lists from various marketing and ecommerce platforms easy.

3. Select your referral incentives

Referral incentives are the key motivators that encourage affiliates to promote your products to their friends, family, and followers.

Choosing the right incentive is fundamental for a successful affiliate program.

To help you select the right incentives, here are a few examples from successful brands:

• Give $100, get $300 in return. Wing Assistant credits advocates $300 for successful referrals, and the referred friend receives a $100 discount.
• Give 15% off, get 10% commission. Toki Mats used a percentage-based referral incentive to generate over $500,000 through its affiliate program.
• Give 10% off, get 10% off. Branch Basics used a simple Give 10%, Get 10% incentive to generate over $1.5 million in referral sales.

As you can see, the two most common incentives are cash rewards and coupon codes.

These are proven to be the most effective, so we recommend you use them also.

The incentives can be modified through your affiliate program plugin. This is how it looks like within ReferralCandy:

You can choose between coupons, cash, and custom incentives. Custom incentives could include free gifts, for example.

From the friend offer settings, you can choose if the incentive is one-sided or two-sided:

You can also make more advanced changes, such as how much the customer has to spend to be eligible for the reward.

For more information on incentives, read our in-depth guide on choosing the right referral incentives.

4. Design your affiliate landing page and emails

Once you have selected your incentives, it’s time to design your landing pages and affiliate emails.

The best affiliate program plugins offer you templates and make it easy to design them further.

For example, with ReferralCandy, you can start with an affiliate email template and customize it further to match your brand.

We also advise brands to use widgets such as sign-up forms and post-purchase pop-ups to attract more affiliates.

For more inspiration, check out our article on the best referral emails.

5. Make an outreach plan

To invite new customers to join your affiliate program, you need to have an outreach plan.

We recommend sending emails to all new customers and entice them to join your affiliate program.

When doing this, remember to send follow-up emails. According to Woodpecker, the first follow-up email receives a 40% higher reply rate than the initial email, and the ideal number of follow-ups is 2-3. 

Obviously, the main goal of affiliate emails is not to get replies but rather sign-ups for your affiliate program, but follow-ups help with that too.

With WordPress affiliate plugins, you can send affiliate emails to your customers:

ReferralCandy reminder email

Email might be the most powerful way to invite customers, but it’s not the only way.

Other great outreach strategies include:

• Influencer partnerships. Influencers can introduce your products to a new audience, and their endorsement can lend credibility.
• Content marketing. Write blog posts and create video content that highlights why readers should join your affiliate program and recommend your products.
• Social media. Advertise and share engaging posts and stories about your affiliate program on your social media pages.

6. Track the performance

After launching your affiliate program, you need to track the performance. 

Affiliate program plugins often include advanced analytics and reports that show you the performance.

Some important metrics to track include:

• Referral revenue. The total amount of money generated through your affiliate/referral program.
• Total amount of purchases. The total amount of purchases your affiliate program has generated.
• Affiliate email performance. Follow the open rate and how many new enrolled advocates you have gained from your affiliate emails.
• Industry referral rate. You can also compare your affiliate program performance against the average industry referral rate.

ReferralCandy affiliate and referral program analytics

Understanding these metrics can help determine whether your affiliate program provides a good ROI.

In addition, the top affiliate plugins offer A/B testing tools that help you test different variations of affiliate emails and landing pages. For example, you can A/B test between two email copies and see which performs better.

7. Manage the affiliate payments

Affiliate payment management is often integrated into an affiliate plugin.

Depending on your reward structure, the process varies a bit:

• Coupons and store credits. Coupons and store credits are often automatically applied to the affiliate’s account or the referred customer’s account after a successful referral.
• Direct cash payments. For cash-based rewards, the system will typically automatically calculate the affiliate’s earnings based on referrals and generate a payment report. Affiliates can be paid through PayPal and Stripe.
• Custom rewards. For custom rewards, such as free products or gift cards, you may need to track and fulfill these rewards manually

WordPress affiliate plugins, such as ReferralCandy, often guide you through affiliate payment management when onboarding.

You should also set clear payment thresholds and schedules, so affiliates know when and how they will be paid.

What additional things to consider when launching an affiliate program?

To help you further, we have listed additional things to consider below:

1. Compliance with regulatory requirements. Ensure that your affiliate program has clear terms and conditions and requires affiliates to disclose their affiliation with your brand (in line with FTC affiliate disclosure guidelines).

This is how Forbes complies with the guidelines by explaining that they're affiliated with several affiliate programs:

2. Fraud detection. Make sure your affiliate plugin has built-in fraud detection so your affiliates aren't using dishonest methods, such as self-referrals or fake leads. ReferralCandy is one of the plugins offering fraud protection.

‍3. Customer support. When launching your affiliate program, you must ensure that you have the resources to answer any questions customers may have.

4. FAQ section. Many brands add FAQ sections to their affiliate landing pages, where they answer the most common questions affiliates may have. This helps reduce the amount of customer service requests you get.

Here is an example from Nike:

5. Marketing resources for affiliates. You might consider offering your affiliates marketing materials, such as banners, email templates, product images, and promotional videos. This can be especially helpful if you use influencer marketing.

6. Affiliate tiers and bonuses. You can reward your best affiliates with higher commission rates, exclusive offers, or special bonuses based on their performance.

Launch your own affiliate program today

If you want to start your own affiliate or referral program, you can easily do that with ReferralCandy, which offers a 14-day free trial.

ReferralCandy offers all the key features you need to run a successful affiliate program, such as:

• Ready-to-use templates for affiliate emails and landing pages
• Integrations with the key e-commerce platforms, including WooCommerce, Shopify, etc.
• Integrations with the key marketing automation tools, such as Klaviyo, Mailchimp, etc
• Advanced affiliate segmentation
• Automatic affiliate payments
• Ability to send referral emails
• Fraud detection system
• And more

If you want to see how ReferralCandy customers, such as Wing Assistant have achieved a 27.9 x ROI through their affiliate program, check out our case studies.

Affiliate marketing is often not a brand's largest revenue source, yet: it often provides the highest ROI.

IAB Australia did a survey and 84% of marketers rated affiliate marketing ROI as 7 out of 10 higher than other marketing channels. Major brands often get 5% - 25% of their overall online sales from affiliate marketing.

To get similar results, WordPress store owners can use affiliate marketing plugins. To assist you with selecting the right plugin, we have reviewed the top options below.

What is a WordPress affiliate marketing plugin?

Before looking at the best tools, let’s clarify what is a WordPress affiliate marketing plugin.

A WordPress affiliate marketing plugin is a tool designed to help merchants start, manage, and optimize their affiliate marketing programs. 

These plugins include features such as ready-to-use templates, automatic tracking, and A/B testing to simplify affiliate marketing. One example of such a tool is ReferralCandy, which can be used to create affiliate and referral programs.

Why do you need an affiliate marketing plugin?

The main reasons why you should invest in an affiliate plugin include:

1. Cost-effective marketing. The only real cost of affiliate marketing is investing in an affiliate marketing plugin.
2. Grow your audience. Affiliate marketing plugins enable you to grow your audience by tapping into the power of affiliate marketers.
3. Build credibility. Affiliate marketing plugins allow you to partner with experts, influencers, and bloggers within your niche, which can help you build credibility.
4. Improve your website SEO. When affiliate marketers link to your affiliate landing page from their own blog or a website, the backlinks you gain improve your website's SEO. The top affiliate plugins enable you to create linkable affiliate landing pages.

What features to look for in a WordPress affiliate marketing plugin?

So, what features should an affiliate plugin have?

This is what we recommend:

1. User-friendly dashboard. Look for a plugin where you and your merchants can access all the necessary information quickly.
2. Link management. Affiliate links that can be shortened and cloaked are better protected against hijacking and look cleaner.
3. Automation. Automation features, such as the ability to send emails, fraud protection, and automated enrollment, save you time from repetitive tasks.
4. Ready-to-use templates. Your affiliate plugin should have templates for sending emails and creating landing pages.
5. Third-party integrations. Integrations with ecommerce platforms and marketing tools are essential for streamlining the affiliate marketing process.
6. Analytics and reporting. A must for tracking the performance of your affiliate program.
7. Cost-effectiveness. Choose an affiliate plugin that fits your budget. A free trial should be available to test out the platform's features.

20+ best WordPress affiliate marketing plugins in 2024

For each plugin, we will break down the key features, customer reviews, who it is suitable for, and the pros and cons. 

With this information, you can better understand the differences of each plugin.

1. ReferralCandy

• WordPress rating: 4.9 out of 5.0 stars (200+ reviews)
• Pricing: Paid plans start from $59/month
• Free trial: 14-day free trial
• Best for: Brands wanting to create a robust affiliate program

With ReferralCandy, you can create, manage, and automate your affiliate and referral programs for WooCommerce stores. 

ReferralCandy's key features include all-in-one affiliate and referral management, post-purchase popups and emails, automated customer rewards, and fraud detection.

You can use ReferralCandy's editor to design affiliate and referral programs to match your brand colors. ReferralCandy allows you to track and analyze the performance of your affiliate and referral programs.

ReferralCandy is available in the WordPress Plugin Directory as well as in the Shopify App Store. It also offers various other third-party integrations, such as with Mailchimp, Klaviyo, Google Analytics, and ReCharge.

Pros and cons

• All-in-one affiliate and referral marketing solution
• Integration with WooCommerce, Shopify, and other ecommerce platforms
• Integrations with marketing tools like Klaviyo, ReCharge, Mailchimp, and more
• Automation tools for detecting fraud, sending emails, and inviting customers
• Admin dashboard for tracking customer insights and industry benchmarks
• Templates for affiliate landing pages and emails
• Fair pricing and a 14-day free trial are available

2. Pretty Links

• WordPress rating: 4.8 out of 5.0 stars (1,220+ reviews)
• Pricing: Paid plans start from $99.60/year
• Free trial: No free trial is available
• Best for: Displaying affiliate links in a clean, short, and cloaked way

With Pretty Links, you can turn long and unclean URLs into short, cloaked affiliate links using your own domain name. The links can be added to any page you want, including emails, websites, social media, and more.

Here is an example of how the cloaked links look with Pretty Links:

Pretty Links creates the cloaked link automatically, but you can create your own custom slug if you wish. 

In addition to link cloaking, Pretty Links provides tracking and analytics features. You can see where the link traffic comes from, the browser, OS, and the host. You can also create reports showing the number of clicks per day in a configurable chart.

Pretty Links is available in the WordPress Plugin Directory. It can be used on other ecommerce platforms, but it does not offer specific apps for them.

Pros

• An easy-to-use platform for creating clean and on-brand affiliate links
• Simple admin dashboard to manage the affiliate links
• Reporting and analytics for following the performance
• Supports three link redirect types: 301, 302, and 307 redirects
• A centralized platform for managing and copying all of the links
• Ability to create Stripe-integrated links for selling affiliate products

Cons

• Only offers yearly plans, which may be too long for some brands to commit to
• Doesn't have more extensive affiliate program management features

3. ThirstyAffiliates

• WordPress rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 stars (230+ reviews)
• Pricing: Paid plans starting from $99.60/year
• Free trial: A free plan is available
• Best for: Showcasing affiliate links in a short and appealing way

ThirstyAffiliates is a free affiliate plugin solution for managing affiliate links and cloaking them into shorter and cleaner formats. While the platform also has a paid plan, the free version suits ecommerce brands and bloggers who want simple features for utilizing cloaked affiliate links.

ThirstyAffiliates comes with a dashboard for managing existing affiliate links and creating new ones. You can also add images and banners to the affiliate links. ThirstyAffiliates has reporting and analytics, where you can see how many clicks your links have gotten over time.

As for integrations, ThirstyAffiliates can be integrated with MonsterInsights to push data into Google Analytics.

Pros

• Free basic plan available
• Affiliate link management and cloaking capabilities
• Statistics and reports for following the link performance
• Integrates with MonsterInsights for pushing link data to Google Analytics
• You can choose from 301, 302, and 307 redirects
• Ability to geo-target visitors with links based on their location
• Link health checker for automatically notifying about broken links or 404s

Cons

• Made for link cloaking and lacks more comprehensive affiliate management features
• Only offers yearly plans for the paid plans

4. SliceWP Affiliates

• WordPress rating: 4.9 out of 5.0 stars (90+ reviews)
• Pricing: Paid plans start from $229/year
• Free trial: No free trial available
• Best for: WordPress store owners seeking an all-in-one affiliate management solution

SliceWP aims to be an all-in-one plugin for managing your affiliate program on a WordPress site. Its features include an affiliate dashboard for managing affiliate signups, real-time tracking of clicks, referrals, and conversions, and scheduled automatic payouts.

SliceWP makes the setup process easy, and you can create and customize custom pages for affiliates to sign up on. The affiliates' commissions can be set at a percentage or at a fixed rate.

Many of SliceWP's features are available as add-ons, which you have to pay extra for. The add-ons include third-party integrations, PayPal payouts, custom affiliate slugs, affiliate landing pages, and recurring and lifetime commissions. The extra cost is a slight disadvantage compared to competitors like ReferralCandy, which offers many of the features as part of its standard plan.

Pros

• A wide range of affiliate management features
• Advanced reports and analytics for understanding affiliate program performance
• PayPal payout option for paying the affiliates
• Affiliate dashboard for managing affiliate links and other parts of the program
• A variety of automation features are available, including automated emails, affiliate approvals, and social sharing
• You can customize the affiliate registration form to match your brand colors

Cons

• Many important add-ons come with an extra cost
• No monthly plans are available, unlike with solutions like ReferralCandy
• All-in-one solution for affiliate programs, but does not support referral programs

5. MonsterInsights

• WordPress rating: 4.5 out of 5.0 stars (2,960+ reviews)
• Pricing: Paid plans start from $99.60/year
• Free trial: Free plan available
• Best for: Utilizing Google Analytics for your affiliate program

MonsterInsights makes it easy to integrate and manage Google Analytics on your WordPress site. While it isn't designed exclusively for affiliate programs, it is a great way to track affiliate link performance.

The integration process to Google Analytics is simple. After done, you can track the performance of your affiliate links, as well as your customers' age, device, gender, and other information that can help improve your affiliate performance. You can also see more conversational statistics, such as top revenue sources, conversion rate, average order value, and top referrals.

All data is available in the reports MonsterInsights provides you, including ecommerce reports, audience reports, publisher reports, content reports, landing page reports, and more. MonsterInsights has a Pro version available, but the free version gives you access to many features.

Pros

• Easy Google Analytics integration available
• Free plan that gives access to most features
• Affiliate and link tracking
• 10+ reports available for data about your customers and affiliate link performance
• Integrations with other WordPress plugins, like AffiliateWP, Pretty Links, and WooCommerce

Cons

• Only an annual subscription option available for the paid plans

6. Coupon Affiliates

• WordPress rating: 4.9 out of 5.0 stars (60+ reviews)
• Pricing: Paid plans start from $19.99/month
• Free trial: 7-day free trial available
• Best for: Managing a coupon-based affiliate program on a WooCommerce store

Coupon Affiliates is unique because it focuses on coupon-based affiliate marketing, which allows store owners to assign unique coupon codes to affiliates. 

To manage the coupons, you get access to an admin dashboard. Affiliate users can track and submit payout requests through the available affiliate dashboard. From the same page, affiliates can generate referral URLs, set up link tracking, create referral campaigns, do link cloaking, and share links on social media.

Coupon Affiliates offers different reports and analytics to track affiliate coupon performance. 

Pros

• Affiliate dashboard for tracking performance
• Affiliate statistics, such as sales, commissions, recent orders, and more
• Commission and payout tracking for affiliates
• One-click Stripe and PayPal payout option
• Also possible to run referral and influencer programs

Cons

• Offers only basic referral and influencer program capabilities, as compared to alternatives, like ReferralCandy

7. BetterLinks

• WordPress rating: 4.8 out of 5.0 stars (55+ reviews)
• Pricing: Paid plans start from $79/year
• Free trial: Free plan is available
• Best for: Shortening links and tracking their performance

BetterLinks is a URL-shortening solution for WordPress sites. With it, you can create, shorten, and track the performance of any URL, including affiliate link URLs. The platform isn't made specifically for affiliate links, but it works great for them as well.

You can split-test different links with dynamic redirects, create 301, 302, and 307 redirects, check broken links, and track your performance. BetterLinks provides reports on the click-through rate, top referral links, top social media links, and more.

If you want more advanced features, BetterLinks has a Pro version that includes more advanced analytics, Google Analytics integration, Facebook Pixel tracking, the broken link checker, and the ability to control and manage user roles.

Pros

• Free plan available
• Admin dashboard to track affiliate links
• Ability to shorten links easily
• Multiple link direct options are available
• Offers migration from third-party apps, like PrettyLinks and ThirstyAffiliates

Cons

• It isn't specifically made for affiliate programs, so it misses features such as an affiliate dashboard, customizable affiliate landing pages, and fraud protection

8. Skimlinks

• WordPress rating: n/a
• Pricing: Skimlinks retains a specific percentage on every sale you get
• Free trial: Free to join
• Best for: Turning regular product links into affiliate links for content creators

Skimlinks is a content-to-commerce platform designed to help merchants monetize their content through affiliate marketing. It converts regular product links into affiliate links, allowing content creators to earn commissions on sales generated through their content.

Its key features include automatic product link converter, reporting and analytics, content monetization tools, geotargeting, and integrations with third-party software.

Skimlinks is unique in that it is free to use, but they charge a percentage of the sales you make. This can be a disadvantage for brands with high sales volumes, but it can also be advantageous for merchants with low sales volumes.

Pros

• Fast and easy way to convert regular product links into affiliate links
• Affiliate dashboard for affiliate partners to manage affiliate links
• Extensive analytics for tracking affiliate link performance

Cons

• Skimlinks charge a commission, which can get expensive quickly

9. Post Affiliate Pro

• WordPress rating: 4.6 out of 5.0 stars (20+ reviews)
• Pricing: Paid plans start from $139/month
• Free trial: 30-day free trial is available
• Best for: Starting a WooCommerce affiliate program

Post Affiliate Pro helps WordPress store owners create, manage, and optimize affiliate programs. It’s key features include an affiliate dashboard for management and analytics, as well as fraud protection.

One unique feature of Post Affiliate Pro is the marketing materials it provides to its new users. These include ready-to-use banners, discount coupons, and smartlinks, which can be used on your website and ads.

Post Affiliate Pro includes automation features such as email sending, social media posting, and automated commissions. For analytics, you can see impressions, click-through rates, conversions, sales, and more.

Pros

• Highly customizable affiliate program solution
• Email, social media, and commission automation
• Robust reporting to follow the affiliate program performance
• Offers integrations with multiple different ecommerce platforms
• Extra features, such as the available marketing materials for affiliate partners

Cons

• The pricing plans can be too expensive for smaller businesses with limited budgets
• Long setup process, and the available tools have a long learning curve

10. Easy Affiliate

• WordPress rating: 4.2 out of 5.0 stars (30+ reviews)
• Pricing: Paid plans start from $99.60/month/year,
• Free trial: Not available
• Best for: Creating and managing a WordPress-based affiliate program

Easy Affiliate’s key features include affiliate and commission management, tracking and reporting, fraud protection, custom link generation, and affiliate payout management.

One unique feature of Easy Affiliate is the ability to create an affiliate application process. It requires visitors to apply for your affiliate program before they are eligible to join.

Pros

• Affiliate dashboard to add affiliate links and manage them
• Real-time reports for tracking the performance
• Custom dashboard for administrators and affiliates
• 1-click PayPal payout for affiliates
• Integrates with WordPress and other major ecommerce platforms

Cons

• Doesn't include the tools to send affiliate emails. It has to be integrated with third-party software for that functionality

11. Goaffpro

• WordPress rating: 4.8 out of 5.0 stars (35+ reviews)
• Pricing: Paid plans starting from $29/month
• Free trial: Free plan available
• Best for: Running affiliate and influencer marketing campaigns

With Goaffpro, ecommerce merchants can launch and manage their affiliate programs. The platform offers a custom-branded affiliate portal, several commission options, affiliate tracking, and link sharing.

Goaffpro’s analytics provide data such as clicks, sales, new signups, net and gross revenue, and cost per conversion. The data is quite extensive and one of Goaffpro's standout features.

Goaffpro not only offers affiliate marketing tools for WordPress stores, but it is also a popular Shopify app. From the affiliate dashboard, affiliates can share their links and coupons on different social media platforms.

Pros

• Affiliate portal for affiliates to see their earnings
• Extensive analytics to see how your affiliate program performs
• Easy one-click PayPal payout for affiliates
• Free plan for small-scale affiliate programs
• Integration with WordPress and other ecommerce platforms, such as Shopify and BigCommerce
• Customers mention that Goaffpro has reliable support

Cons

• A few G2 users mention that the free plan is limited and you quickly need to upgrade to one of the paid plans

12. YITH WooCommerce Affiliates

• WordPress rating: 4.4 out of 5.0 stars (90+ reviews)
• Pricing: €179,99 per year
• Free trial: Free plan available
• Best for: Simple affiliate program management

YITH WooCommerce Affiliates lets you quickly create an affiliate registration page and start earning money. You can create a custom registration form and decide which one of your customers get accepted to the program.

The tool comes with an affiliate table, where brands as well as affiliates can track their commissions, earnings, and conversion rates.

For more capabilities, YITH WooCommerce Affiliates integrates with third-party tools.

Pros

• Registration form for affiliates
• Affiliate table for tracking performance
• Commission payment through PayPal and Stripe
• Free plan available

Cons

• Yearly plans only available
• You only get 1 year of technical support

13. AffiliateWP

• WordPress rating: n/a
• Pricing: Paid plans start from $149.60 per year
• Free trial: No free plan available
• Best for: Running an affiliate program on WooCommerce or Elementor

AffiliateWP offers an easy integration with WooCommerce and Elementor stores for running affiliate programs. It has an affiliate dashboard for affiliates, fraud detection, and one click PayPal and Stripe payouts.

Pros

• Ability to create affiliate links, banners, coupons, and landing pages
• Customizable affiliate dashboard
• Reports and analytics
• One click affiliate payouts

Cons

• Yearly plan is only available, which is not ideal if you’re just testing out

14. WP Affiliate Manager

• WordPress rating: 4.1 out of 5.0 stars (60+ reviews)
• Pricing: Paid plans start from $39 per site
• Free trial: Free plan available
• Best for: Running a simple affiliate program

WP Affiliate Manager integrates with WooCommerce and various shopping carts and helps you manage, track, and pay affiliates. The tool comes with email templates, customizable affiliate registration, and basic analytics.

Pros

• Easy installation process
• Real time tracking to see the performance
• Flat rate and percentage based commissions available
• Basic automation tools available

Cons

• No live chat customer support available
• Only the most basic affiliate tools available
• The admin dashboard is not so intuitive

15. Ultimate Affiliate Pro

• WordPress rating: n/a
• Pricing: Starts from $69 per month
• Free trial: No free trial available
• Best for: WooCommerce affiliate management

Ultimate Affiliate Pro is an affiliate program plugin for WordPress and WooCommerce store owners. The tool offers different commission types, such as product rates, membership-tailored rates, and recurring referral rates.

Ultimate Affiliate Pro integrates with different ecommerce, form, and membership platforms for more functionality.

Pros

• Simple PayPal affiliate payouts
• Affiliate portal to track commissions
• You can create affiliate landing pages
• Multi-tier affiliate campaigns

Cons

• The basic plan doesn’t include integrations
• The basic plan only has six months of customer support

16. Easy Affiliate Links

• WordPress rating: 4.2 out of 5.0 stars (30+ reviews)
• Pricing: Paid plans start from $49 per site
• Free trial: Free plan available
• Best for: Managing all of your affiliate links

As the name suggests, Easy Affiliate Links offers a simple tool for managing affiliate links. Whether you’re creating a landing page or a blog article, you can add the affiliate links easily to your text.

Easy Affiliate Links is compatible with the WordPress Classic Editor and Gutenberg Block Editor.

Pros

• Works with Elementor and basic WordPress themes
• Ability to create short (cloaked) links
• You can export and import links
• Can be used inside the WordPress text editor

Cons

• Only offers the most basic affiliate link management tools
• Can’t send affiliate emails to invite customers
• Link statistics only for the premium version

17. AAWP

• WordPress rating: n/a
• Pricing: Paid plans starting from $49 per year
• Free trial: No free trial available
• Best for: Managing Amazon affiliates

A competitor to EasyAzon, AAWP, lets you create and manage Amazon affiliate links  For example, if you run a blog and recommend products to your readers, you can lead them to Amazon through your affiliate links.

AAWP comes with templates, including boxes, lists, and tables. It works on all WordPress themes. 

Pros

• Manage Amazon affiliate links from one place
• More features than the competitor EasyAzon
• Works on all WordPress themes
• Product comparison tables
• Reports and analytics

Cons

• No free trial is available
• Lacks third-party integrations

18. AdSanity

• WordPress rating: n/a
• Pricing: Starting from $59 per year
• Free trial: Not available
• Best for: Ad management on WordPress sites

AdSanity lets you display ads anywhere on your WordPress site. To use it, you need to join an ad network and request a code snippet that the ad network will provide. 

You can then add the code snippet to AdSanity and display the ad on your website through ready-made blocks, widgets, and shortcodes.

Pros

• Add-ons to extend the functionality
• Templates for showcasing the ads
• Supports almost all ad networks
• Statistics to see the performance

Cons

• Yearly plans are only available
• No free trial available
• Add-ons only for the most expensive plans

19. EasyAzon

• WordPress rating: n/a
• Pricing: Free tool
• Free trial: Free to install
• Best for: Building Amazon affiliate links

Similar to AAWP, EasyAzon lets WordPress users create Amazon affiliate links. With it, you can control affiliate links through site defaults or individually. The links can be set up to open in a new tab, have a no-follow attribute applied, and be cloaked for SEO purposes.

Pros

• Link cloaking options
• Product popup option for more sales
• Simple-to-use software

Cons

• Focuses solely on Amazon affiliate links and is not suitable for other uses

20. Affiliate Coupons

• WordPress rating: n/a
• Pricing: Paid plans start from $29 per year
• Free trial: There is no free trial available
• Best for: Creating affiliate coupons

Affiliate Coupons is a tool for managing coupons on your WordPress site. Each coupon has a title, description, link, and validity date. Affiliates can share these with their audience, and when someone makes a purchase, both parties benefit.

Affiliate Coupons works for all WordPress themes. There are templates you can use to speed up the creation of your affiliate program.

Pros

• Works for all WordPress themes
• Different styles and templates are available
• Manage multiple coupons and vendors

Cons

• Focuses entirely on coupons and misses other important affiliate marketing tools
• Doesn’t support referral marketing

21. Solid Affiliate

• WordPress rating: n/a
• Pricing: $249 for a lifetime license
• Free trial: 7-day free trial
• Best for: Launching WooCommerce affiliate or referral program

Solid Affiliate lets WooCommerce store owners launch affiliate and referral programs. It includes an affiliate program where affiliates can manage referrals and payments.

One of Solid Affiliate's cool features is its marketing assets, such as banner ads and advertising videos. These can be shared with affiliates, who can use the materials to promote your products.

Referral emails can also be sent within Solid Affiliate.

Pros

• All-in-one affiliate management tool
• Marketing materials for affiliates
• Easy set-up process for WooCommerce
• Customizable commission settings

Cons

• Integrations with third-party analytics and marketing tools are lacking

3 questions to help you choose a WordPress affiliate marketing plugin

If you’re unsure what plugin to choose, ask yourself these questions:

• Are the available features enough? Make sure the plugin has templates, advanced analytics, A/B testing, etc.
• What integrations does the plugin have? For example, if you use Klaviyo for email marketing, make sure the plugin integrates with it.
• What is the pricing system like? You want to make sure the provider has fair pricing and a free trial available.

ReferralCandy offers all of the above and enables you to easily set up your first affiliate program, as well as send post-purchase pop-ups, emails, and pages to enroll new customers.

If you want to see how other ReferralCandy customers have done, like Wing Assistant, who got a 27.9x ROI on its affiliate program, check out our case studies. 

ReferralCandy also offers a 14-day free trial!