How to set-up Affiliates in OpenCart 2.x?

Once you have successfully started your OpenCart, it is time to bring some traffic to your store. Setting up an affiliate program is a good way to start because it is a win-win situation in which both sides are satisfied with the result.

What is Affiliate Program?

The principle of the affiliate programs is very simple. It is the ability your partners (i.e. affiliates) to sell your products or services in exchange for a commission.

The affiliate program is an opportunity to get hundreds or even thousands of websites which will drive you tons of traffic to your site and make sales for you.  Your affiliates or marketers just have to place your links/information/banners of products in their blogs or websites.

How to create an Affiliate Program in OpenCart 2.x?


View how Affiliates work inOpenCart 3.x here!


Recruit Affiliates

Probably the hardest part here is to attract affiliates who are looking for products like yours to promote. You should seek for bloggers or websites with a big audience that is similar to your target market and invite them to be your affiliates.

Registering Affiliate

Once you have affiliates interested in promoting your products, ask them to register on your site via clicking the link Affiliates in the footer or simply give them the link http://yoursite.com/index.php?route=affiliate/login.

After opening the Affiliate Program page, they have to click on the Continue button:

A registration form appears where the affiliate has to fill in all the information needed. This page is very similar to the one for registering regular customer with the only difference that there is another section called Payment Information:

In this section the affiliate has to fill in Tax ID and the payment method that he/she prefers for the earned commission:

  • Cheque
  • PayPal
  • Bank Transfer

After the affiliate is done with the form, his/her account is created but whether it should be approved or not depends on your Affiliate Options.

Once the account is created and approved, the affiliate will be able to track his/her transactions from the account and generate tracking codes for each product. The generated link will be something like this: http://yoursite.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=60&tracking=563b3b89af97e

With this link, the affiliate can promote your product by putting it on a website, blog, Facebook, Twitter or other social media and start bringing you traffic.

Affiliate Options

To access the Affiliate Options for your store, you should go to the store administration, navigate to System > Settings and click on the blue Edit button which is next to your store.

Click on the Option tab as shown in the image and this find the Affiliates options:

  • Affiliate Requires Approval – You can set this option to Yes if you want your affiliates to be approved automatically. Otherwise, you have to approve them manually from Marketing > Affiliates.
  • Automatic Commission – This option is used if you want the commission to be added automatically to the affiliate’s profile after the order reached the “Completed” status.
  • Affiliate Commission (%) – You can set a default commission for all affiliates.
  • Affiliate Terms – These are terms and conditions just for the affiliates, forcing them to agree it before the account can be created.
  • New Affiliate Alert Mail – Sending an e-mail to the store owner when a new affiliate account is created.

Conclusion

We have shown you how to set-up the affiliates in OpenCart 2.x., it is your turn to start your first Affiliate Program in OpenCart and start bringing traffic to your store. Let us know if you have any further questions in the comments section.

 

 

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