Ecommerce stores are always looking for ways to grow revenue and increase conversions. However, most don’t realize that affiliates can supercharge your digital marketing efforts. That’s why you need the best affiliate marketing apps for your brand. Before we dive in, affiliate marketing can be done in many ways, using different affiliate software for Shopify.
Some Shopify stores strike up partnerships with select brand ambassadors who promote their products to their social media audiences. They then earn commission on affiliate orders. Typically, this is better than an ad and has much more trust among consumers.
Some online stores create an affiliate program landing page with a bar for entry that grow into a wider affiliate network. This is usually apart of a greater marketing strategy to turn every-day people into word-of-mouth advocates. Commission rates can be applied, or an affiliate program can be driven by discounts or free products.
No matter how affiliate marketers want to structure the affiliate marketing program, you need the right marketing tools to keep affiliate management clean and efficient in real-time. If your program grows to thousands of affiliates… you need something that scales with you.
So, here are the best Shopify affiliate apps on the Shopify app store (and many work with more ecommerce platforms than just Shopify!).
Here are the top 10 best affiliate marketing apps for Shopify
1. Social Snowball
Social Snowball is the best Shopify affiliate marketing app and word-of-mouth marketing platform for ecommerce. 1,000+ top brands use the platform to power customer referrals, and power the management of their influencer marketing programs. You can turn customers into referral program members through the checkout process in Shopify–by the time someone hits the thank you page, they’ll be a member of your referral program.
According to Commerce Caffeine, the Social Snowball affiliate marketing Shopify app boosts your affiliate marketing game with word of mouth marketing built into the system. The referral program app automates affiliate account creation for new customers and offers them options to make money promoting products. The app features a sleek design, powerful payment tools, and one of the simplest affiliate link creation portals on the market.
Key Features
- Easy automation for referral marketing and social sharing
- More incentives for customers like cash, store credit, discount codes, gift cards, free products and more
- Customizable programs where you can offer codes, links, and more
- Easy affiliate and influencer onboarding features
- Easy payouts to affiliates and influencers in two-clicks (no back-and-forth) with paypal, venmo, visa, and 700+ payout options.
- Integrations with email marketing and SMS marketing apps including templates for your program
Price
30-day free trial starting at $99/mo with 3% of affiliate revenue generated, or $499/mo with no commission added. The max you’ll ever pay is $499 per month.
2. Refersion
Refersion is a referral focused shopify affiliate software. Drive ecommerce growth from influencer and affiliate marketing programs for Amazon Marketplace and Shopify powered DTC channels. Easily onboard unlimited affiliates and manage their performance with built-in reporting for all campaigns across your brand ambassador, influencer and affiliate programs. Custom commissions with automated, direct and multiple payment options to build trust with your affiliates. Streamlined tax management included. Easily connect your ecommerce platform, Amazon Marketplace and popular marketing apps. Integrate your store’s product feed, get webhooks, developer APIs and our certified Shopify Plus features for larger programs.
Refersion is great for enterprise brands who sell through sales channels like Amazon marketplace or are on non-Shopify ecommerce platforms.
Key Features
- Custom commissions
- Tax management
- Amazon marketplace and various ecommerce platform integrations
Price
Starting at $99/mo with premium plans requiring a demo.
3. Referral Candy
ReferralCandy helps Shopify and Shopify Plus stores attract new customers, increase sales and grow their brand through word of mouth. A referral program is the best way to retain customers and reward them when they refer new paying customers to the store. We provide customers with a personal reward link that they can share with their friends to promote the brand. Referral programs are proven to perform well across various industries: fashion, nutrition, electronics, home, pets and many more.
Key Features
- Enable post-purchase popups & emails to enroll customers in referral programs
- Automate customer rewards
- Customize your referral program with your logo, images and brand colors
- Integrations with Klaviyo and Mailchimp
Price
Starting at $59/month + 3.5% commission on affiliate generated sales.
4. Smile.io
With over 10 years of experience in loyalty, referrals, and VIP, Smile.io powers reward programs that help increase sales and repeat purchases, save on acquisition costs, and boost brand loyalty. Creating a program with Smile takes minutes—no coding required! Launching and running Smile is effortless, but if you need help, you’re supported 24/7 by a team of experts who can answer any questions you may have—from technical questions to rewards and loyalty best practices for your business.
Smile focuses mostly on customer loyalty with their loyalty program that places a widget on the front-end of the website and lets customers interact with their loyalty program account. If you’re looking for a more comprehensive affiliate marketing campaigns that are focused on loyalty and retention, then Smile is a great option for you.
Key Features
- Loyalty program focus with referral functionality
- Create a loyalty points based reward program that encourages referrals
- Integrations with marketing apps to run your program
- Praised customer support in Shopify reviews
Price
Free plan available
5. UPromote
UpPromote is the only affiliate system small businesses ever need to easily build, recruit and manage affiliates. There are four steps required to launch an affiliate program, our built-in tooltips and responsive support team will help you navigate the app effortlessly. With our powerful functions, you can build growth loops and improve the sales funnel around affiliate partners, influencers, brand ambassadors, and current customers. Our pricing accommodates the needs and expansion of any business.
Key Features
- Have their own marketplace functionality
- Track referral traffic generated orders through affiliate links or coupon codes
- Customize the forms, links/codes, affiliate portal
- Reward with a bonus, auto-tier, store credit, or multi-level marketing.
Price
Free plan available
6. LeadDyno
Increase the revenue of your e-commerce store of SaaS business by launching an affiliate program with LeadDyno. Set up an all-in-one affiliate tracking solution, enabling you to engage and reward your affiliates, automate your marketing, and analyze your results. With LeadDyno, customize your affiliate website so that it truly becomes an extension of your brand. Affiliates can login, track their sales, commissions, and see what’s selling and who’s buying it.
Key Features
- Commission configurations
- Unlimited affiliates
- Visitor, lead and conversion tracking
- Unlimited transactions
Price
Starts at $49/month.
7. Goaffpro
With GOAFFPRO, you can start your own affiliate marketing program in minutes. Just install and you are good to go. How this works? 1. Your customers/influencers are given a portal to register and become affiliates. 2. After sign up, they are provided with a referral link which they use to promote your products on their blog, Instagram, etc. 3. They are then rewarded for any purchase made using their referral link.
Key Features
- Branded portal for your affiliates to get their referral links, see their stats
- Automated referral tracking, order attribution
- Android + iPhone mobile apps with push notifications to keep affiliates engaged
- Advanced multi level capabilities with customizable compensation and party plans
Price
Free plan and paid plans available.
8. Affilatly
Affiliatly is fully customizable to fit your requirements, set up in a few minutes & easy to use with no technical knowledge required. Our support team will solve your issues or even implement custom requirements. Track your referrals by link/QR, coupon, email, SKU, customer/order tags or a combination of those. Create your own commission structure, global or individually, for each affiliate. Access all of our features no matter the plan you choose. Only pay for ACTIVE affiliates. No hidden fees
Key Features
- Easy affiliate onboarding through personal dashboard login link
- Track your affiliates’ performance with stats & in-app analytics
- Real-time click and commission tracking & 3rd-party tracking
- Set rules and custom commission per SKU
Price
Starts at $16/month.
9. Shareasale
This Shopify App is simple to activate and facilitates a direct communication and technical tracking connection with affiliate partners (also known as publishers e.g. websites, tech solutions, influencers and bloggers) that are active in the ShareASale affiliate network.
Key Features
- Self-service model for setting up the platform
- Discovery of new affiliates through their platform
- Transparent and robust reporting
- Publisher focused
Price
Free plan available.
10. Bixgrow
Set up your own Programs, and manage affiliates efficiently using diverse commission structures and trustworthy tracking methods that create unique links and coupons automatically. You can boost trust and drive word-of-mouth seamlessly to encourage referrals by reaching new Affiliates or turning happy customers into Advocates. Skyrocket your sales with effortless Refer-a-Friend rewards and advanced add-ons. Zero technical knowledge is required with our intuitive interface and top-rated support!
Key Features
- Clear & simple interface with an intuitive & fully-customizable Affiliate Portal
- Incentivize affiliates to boost referrals & earn rewards with Performance Bonus
- Self-expanding affiliate network with multi-level marketing (MLM) structure
- PayPal integration
Price
Free plan available.
Closing Thoughts
There are many options for entrepreneurs choose from when it comes to Shopify affiliate marketing apps. With the right affiliate campaign and partner program, you can start driving affiliate sales through brand advocates and seamlessly paying affiliate commissions.
Overtime, optimize your affiliate program and grow it into a revenue driving machine.
If this list doesn’t suffice, there are even more apps like secomapp, tapfiliate, and more–Check out the Shopify app store to learn more.