11 Strategies to Improve Affiliate Onboarding in WooCommerce

Running an affiliate program is a great strategy for business growth that comes with equally great challenges.

Therefore, to run it as successfully as you envisioned, you must build a strong affiliate onboarding process.

Your onboarding process will set the tone for the rest of your affiliate program and help your affiliates get a holistic understanding of your offering.

This includes the marketing activities they are supposed to do and how they are supposed to execute things to convert maximum entries.

At the same time, you must constantly work on developing a positive relationship with your affiliates and providing them with an unforgettable experience.

To make it easy for you, we’ve put together 11 strategies to create a perfect affiliate onboarding process. Let’s get started.

Recommended plugin to set up an affiliate program

Before you consider affiliate onboarding, creating a robust affiliate program is crucial. Along with picking the right techniques, there are a lot of boxes to tick.

If you are using WooCommerce, then you can set up your affiliate program with the Affiliate for WooCommerce plugin. The plugin helps you manage multiple aspects of an affiliate program from a single place.

Set up a powerful affiliate system with ease and all the features you need to run a successful affiliate program.

• Allowing users to sign up for your affiliate program.
• Turn all your customers automatically into affiliates or manually.
• Create commission plans for the affiliates with rules.
• Creating and providing the marketing/promotional material and relevant information to the affiliates.
• Providing an option for making automatic and manual payouts.
• Customized referral links, real-time reports and analytics to track performance.

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What should you know when onboarding affiliates?

Consider yourself a new affiliate who has signed up for an affiliate program. In that case, you may have these burning questions:

• Which product to choose or start with?
• What are the commission rates?
• How often are commissions usually paid out?
• What promotional material will I have available?
• Are there any restrictions on how I should promote the product?
• Who can I contact if I have questions or concerns?
• Are there any legal requirements that I need to be aware of?

With these questions, we’ve just scratched the surface. There is a lot that goes into creating a smooth affiliate onboarding process. More on that in the points to follow.

How to create a smooth affiliate onboarding process?

Creating a smooth affiliate onboarding process requires you to follow these strategies:

Improving communication with your affiliates

To run a hassle-free affiliate program, you must set a communication process so smooth and effective that your affiliates don’t have a tough time when they are doubtful or when they have to contact you urgently.

Create a dedicated email ID (avoid going for multiple IDs) where they can send in all their queries. If possible, assign the task to a team member or a couple of members (as required) who can be held accountable for handling them timely and smartly.

Also, know that this is not a one-time process but rather must be maintained constantly to know what your affiliates are up to and things are going well.

Besides this, you may also conduct some training or workshops for your affiliates to get an in-depth understanding of the program.

If there’s a demand, you can schedule some sessions to clarify doubts for them over weekends. This can also be done via forums that are exclusive to serve your affiliates and work towards the growth of the community.

Welcome emails for affiliate onboarding

Welcome emails set the tone for your relationship with new affiliates and provide them with the essential information that they need to get started.

A well-crafted welcome email must ideally thank the affiliate for joining. The outline should provide the key steps to begin promoting and provide direct access to resources like affiliate links, promotional materials, and tracking tools.

Moreover, it should encourage them to reach out with any questions, fostering a sense of support and partnership from the very beginning.

This initial communication is vital for ensuring affiliates feel equipped and motivated to succeed.

Make it easy for them

Even after providing them with every piece of information that you may have, there’s a possibility that your affiliates are sitting somewhere and still wondering, so how should I begin with it?

To make it even easier for them, you can create some crisp content pieces that would effectively convey the process.

You can also offer some customized solutions, such as:

• Promotional strategies as per the products
• Best keywords to use
• Exciting affiliate offers to choose from

Along with this, preparing a series of FAQs or documentation that has covered all the particular queries you’ve entertained in the past for your affiliates would be a great idea too.

Links and coupons

Affiliate links and coupons can be a great strategy as they are essential tools for driving conversions and tracking performance in affiliate marketing.

You can customize referral links to make them appear organized and more authentic. The store admin can customize the Tracking param name and an affiliate can customize the affiliate ID/identifier.

If this is the website’s URL: https://demo.storeapps.org/, then the default referral link would look like this:

• If the affiliate ID is #1: https://demo.storeapps.org/?ref=1
• If the affiliate ID is #54: https://demo.storeapps.org/?ref=54

After enabling the settings to convert referral links to pretty referral links, the links will look like these:

• https://demo.storeapps.org/aff/54
• https://demo.storeapps.org/recommend/smartmanager
• https://demo.storeapps.org/partners/KateCook

Links allow you to monitor clicks, sales and other key metrics, helping you assess the effectiveness of your campaigns.

Furthermore, it also helps ensure that commissions are accurately attributed to your efforts. On the other hand, coupons add value by offering discounts, which can incentivize potential customers to make a purchase.

Equip them with all the resources

Your affiliates may not be sales experts but your promotional material will do its job well. This will also go a long way to ensure a smooth onboarding process for your affiliates.

This material can include images, promotional copies, landing page links, product links, website links, product catalogs, FAQs, informative videos and more.

This enables the affiliates to start learning right away without wasting much time in one-on-one conversations. This will also minimize the questions you receive from your affiliates.

Make sure that the more information you provide, the quicker your affiliates can work like an in-house marketing team.

As shown, you can create affiliate campaigns using the Affiliate for WooCommerce plugin. Add assets your affiliates can pick and use to promote your brand better.

Leverage your past achievements, awards, remarkable mentions, endorsements and testimonials through this material.

Also, you can provide customized marketing material as per the platforms your affiliates are going to use.

For example:

• Creating highly convertible email copies and designs could be made to promote the product through email marketing.
• Attractive images could be designed for Instagram promotions.

Help them make their first sales

This step might demand you to go a little extra mile for your affiliates but take our word, it’s worth it.

It will not just help boost their confidence but also establish a great relationship with them which will further motivate them to do more than expected.

You can assist them with the following:

• Understanding their sales pitch and suggesting improvements wherever required.
• Guiding them with the right products for their target audience.
• Recommendations for marketing creatives.

The core intention behind providing this assistance is to develop that much-needed momentum at the beginning for your affiliates and then let them take it ahead on their own.

Show them ‘what’s in it for them?’

Sometimes, people start with a motivated mindset but fail to keep up with the pace. To keep them motivated you can constantly be in touch with them and occasionally remind them about the benefits of your program.

Educate them on how your program will help them scale in their life or business!

To keep them active and inspired to achieve more, you can:

• Show success stories of the past affiliates.
• Create a community that constantly communicates with them.
• Conduct surveys. Ask them if there’s any scope to make the program even better.
• Present them with irresistible offers and special incentives.
• Always make them feel valued and respected.

Personalize the experience

Be it the welcome email, sign-up page, or how you simply attend to their queries.

Again, it’s never a one-time process but the ongoing assistance that you provide will throughout the entire program.

Tracking and optimizing your affiliate program

Your affiliates can be highly motivated to see their earnings and commissions, helping them improve their marketing activities.

To ensure that their performance continues to improve, we suggest giving them all the data they require to evaluate their performance.

This will help them continuously optimize their efforts without continually reaching out to you.

Gamification techniques

Implementing innovative strategies can help you make the onboarding process even more streamlined.

This can be by offering product discounts, free subscriptions, or even early or exclusive access to the product.

Some business owners might also include gamification techniques such as badges, points, and leaderboards, to make the process fun.

Live webinars, Q&A sessions, mentorship networks, video libraries, knowledge base, certification programs and a lot more can be tapped into.

This engages and motivates your affiliates and helps them be loyal to your campaign.

Monitor compliance

While affiliate marketing can be rewarding, a key point to remember is that affiliate fraud exists as well.

You can review your affiliate agreement regularly to ensure that rules are followed at all times. Continuously keeping an eye on any violation can ensure that it continues to run smoothly and efficiently.

Conclusion

If you’re just taking baby steps in your affiliate program, we hope this article helped you get that head start!

At the end of the day, it is you who is in full control of the program, so make sure to make the most out of these tips using Affiliate for WooCommerce.

However, if in the process, you happen to dodge a bullet, don’t stress too much. Just get up and start again. After all, it’s all about trial and error when you begin with something new.

FAQ

How long does affiliate onboarding take?
The duration of the affiliate onboarding process depends upon the complexity of the program and the readiness of the affiliate.

What are some of the challenges that an affiliate faces during an onboarding process?
The most common challenges include gauging the technical aspects of setting up and tracking links, creating effective content that the audiences can relate to and learning how to use the affiliate dashboard and other reporting tools.

What should you ensure during the initial conversation with your affiliates?
Send a welcome email that includes an introduction to the program, important contact information and discussions on what to expect during the onboarding process. In case of any specific query or concerns, you must opt for casual and personalized communication.