Affireo - Affiliates for WooCommerce Free documentation

Affireo turns your WooCommerce store into an affiliate program. Each affiliate gets a referral link. When a shopper arrives through that link and places an order, Affireo records a commission for the affiliate. You and your affiliates can both see the numbers.

The plugin covers the whole program. People apply through a registration form, and you approve, reject or suspend them. Affireo tracks visits and referrals and holds commissions for a grace period so refunded orders are never paid out. You record manual or store credit payouts, and you can export your data as CSV. Affiliates use a dashboard on your site to see their earnings, referral links, commission history and payout history.

This free edition is meant for store owners who want a working affiliate program without paying for one. The readme states that every feature is fully functional with no time limit, quota or license key, and that you can approve as many affiliates as you like.

Affireo needs WooCommerce, so install and activate WooCommerce first. Then install Affireo from the WordPress.org plugin directory.

Affiliates > Overview gives you a snapshot of your program for the last 30 days.

• The summary cards show Attributed revenue, Commissions, Visits, Conversions (with the conversion rate) and Active affiliates.
• Commissions per day charts commission activity over the period.
• When applications are waiting, a notice tells you how many. Click Review now to go to them.
• Top affiliates (30 days) lists your best performers with their Conversions and Earnings.

Affiliates > All Affiliates lists everyone who has joined or applied to your program.

• Use the status links at the top to filter by All, Pending, Active, Suspended or Rejected.
• Search by affiliate with the search box and Search affiliates.
• Select affiliates with the checkboxes, choose an action from Bulk actions and click Apply. This is how you approve several applications at once.

The table shows each affiliate's name and email, Slug, Status, Unpaid balance, Lifetime earnings and the date they Joined. The slug is the part affiliates use in their referral links, for example ?ref=yourslug or /go/yourslug/.

Click an affiliate's name to open their details. According to the readme, this view shows their balance, lifetime earnings, custom commission rate, payout method, recent referrals and an activity log. A per affiliate commission rate overrides the default rate from the settings.

Affiliates > Referrals lists every commission record. Each row shows the referral ID, the Affiliate, the WooCommerce Order, the Type, the Commission, the Order base the commission was calculated on, the Status and the Date.

• Filter the list with the status and type dropdowns, then click Filter.
• Select referrals and use Bulk actions to act on several at once.

Referral statuses include Pending, Approved, Paid, Rejected and Refunded. New commissions stay locked for the Grace period set on the Commissions tab so refunded orders are never paid out. If a refund happens after approval, a full refund reverses the commission and a partial refund reduces it proportionally.

Add a manual referral

Use Add manual referral below the table to credit an affiliate yourself:

1. Enter the Affiliate ID.
2. Optionally enter an Order ID.
3. Enter the Amount and an optional Note.
4. Click Add referral.

Affiliates > Visits shows each click on a referral link. The table lists the visit ID, the Affiliate, the Landing page, the Referrer, the Device, the IP, whether the visit Converted and the Date.

Use the dropdown and Filter to narrow the list, and the page controls to move through older visits.

The readme notes that bot filtering keeps crawlers from creating fake clicks, that IP addresses are stored hashed, and that the plugin supports the WP Consent API.

Affiliates > Payouts is where you record what you pay your affiliates. Affireo does not send money itself. You pay using your normal method, and the plugin records each payout with a sequential invoice number.

• Run payouts now creates payouts for affiliates who are eligible. The number in brackets shows how many affiliates are eligible right now. An affiliate becomes eligible once their approved balance reaches the Minimum payout set under Affiliates > Settings > Payouts.
• Export completed (CSV) downloads completed payouts.
• Export processing for PayPal (CSV) downloads payouts that are still processing as a CSV file.
• Use the status dropdown and Filter to narrow the list.

The table shows the Invoice, Affiliate, Amount, Method, Status, Reference and Date of each payout.

Affiliates > Reports shows your program's performance for any date range.

1. Choose the From and To dates.
2. Click Apply to update the screen.

The report shows Attributed revenue, Commissions, Visits and Conversion rate, charts for Visits per day and Commissions per day, and a Top affiliates table.

To export referrals for the selected dates, pick an Export status (All statuses, Pending, Approved, Paid, Rejected or Refunded) and click Export referrals in range (CSV). Export affiliates (CSV) downloads your affiliate list.

Affiliates > Tools groups a few one-off tasks.

Broadcast announcement sends a message to every active affiliate. It appears in their portal notification feed.

1. Enter a Subject.
2. Write the Message (HTML allowed).
3. Keep Also send by email ticked if you also want to email it.
4. Click Send announcement.

Data exports downloads CSV files of all your data: Referrals (CSV), Affiliates (CSV) and Completed payouts (CSV). Unlike the Reports export, Referrals (CSV) here includes every referral.

Setup wizard lets you go through the setup wizard again with Re-run the setup wizard.

Go to Affiliates > Settings. The screen has six tabs: Commissions, Tracking, Affiliates, Payouts, Portal and Advanced. Click Save settings on each tab after you make changes.

The Commissions tab controls how much affiliates earn:

• Default commission: the rate, either Percent of the order or Fixed amount per order. Percentages are capped at 100%. A per affiliate rate overrides this default.
• Exclude discounts: calculate commission on the discounted line totals.
• Include tax and Include shipping: add line tax or shipping to the amount commission is calculated on.
• Minimum order amount: orders below this total earn no commission. Enter 0 to turn the check off.
• Grace period: the number of days commissions stay locked, so refunded orders are never paid out.
• Block self referrals: stops affiliates from earning on their own purchases.

The Tracking tab controls how long a click counts.

• Cookie duration: how many days after a click a purchase still credits the affiliate. The readme gives 30 days as the default.
• Clear cookie on purchase: when ticked, the attribution window ends once a commission is recorded.

Affireo uses last click attribution, so the most recent affiliate link a shopper clicked gets the credit.

The Affiliates tab controls how people join your program.

• Auto approve: tick Activate new applications instantly to make new applicants active right away. Leave it unticked to review each application under Affiliates > All Affiliates.
• Program terms: the text shown above the terms checkbox on the registration form.

The Payouts tab controls when and how affiliates can be paid.

• Minimum payout: affiliates are paid once their approved balance reaches this amount.
• Payout methods: choose which methods affiliates can pick in their dashboard. This edition offers Store credit coupon and Manual / offline.

Payout details that affiliates enter are stored encrypted and are only shown masked in the admin.

The Portal tab connects the affiliate dashboard to a page on your site and sets its look.

• Dashboard page ID: the ID of the page that contains the [ppl_afw_portal] shortcode. That page shows the signup form and, once an affiliate is approved, the full dashboard.
• Accent color: a hex color, for example #4f46e5.
• Corner radius: a CSS size, for example 10px.

To find a page ID, open the page in the editor under Pages and look at the number after post= in the browser address bar.

The Advanced tab has two options.

• Settings mode: Simple (recommended) hides less common options so setup stays approachable. Choose Advanced (show all options) to see everything. You can switch at any time.
• Delete data on uninstall: when ticked, all affiliate tables, options and user meta are permanently removed when you delete the plugin. Leave it unticked to keep your data.

Visitors who want to join your program see the Join our affiliate program form. It appears on a page with the [ppl_afw_registration] shortcode, and on the [ppl_afw_portal] page until the visitor is an approved affiliate.

The form asks for:

• Full name (required)
• Website or blog
• Main social profile
• Audience size
• How will you promote us? (required)
• A checkbox to accept the affiliate program terms. The text you enter in Program terms is shown above it.

Applicants click Apply now to submit. Their application then appears under Affiliates > All Affiliates, or becomes active right away if auto approve is on.

Once approved, affiliates use the dashboard on the [ppl_afw_portal] page to see their earnings, referral links, commission history, payout history and profile. The readme notes that the dashboard supports light and dark mode, works on screens down to 320px wide, is keyboard accessible and still works with JavaScript disabled. Its templates can be overridden by your theme.

Active affiliates also get a toolbar shortcut on your site that gives them the tracked referral link for the page they are viewing, ready to copy. WooCommerce normally hides the toolbar from customers and subscribers, so Affireo shows it again for active affiliates. To keep it hidden, return false from the ppl_afw_toolbar_restore_admin_bar filter.