How To Set Up an Affiliate Program for Your Squarespace Shop
Affiliate marketing is a “trend” that has turned into an industry mainstay. It really is such a great way to market your eCommerce business! Don’t worry if you don’t already have a referral or affiliate marketing program set up or aren’t sure where to start. In this post, I’m going to first remind you why you should definitely give this a go, then make sure you know which type of program to set up (affiliate or referral), and finally give you my #1 recommended tool to make the whole thing super easy breezy on Squarespace! Let’s go!
Why try affiliate or referral marketing?
So you don’t have all your marketing eggs in one basket! If I had a dollar for every eCommerce store owner who described their marketing plan as something along the lines of “I’m just going to post on Facebook” 🙈… well, let’s just say that I’d have a lot of dollars. But what happens when the algorithm doesn’t go your way, when Instagram crashes for the day again, or when Google ads stop working? Well, nothing will ever beat how effective it is to hear a friend say that you absolutely MUST try something. Rewarding your loyal fans and customers for every time they do what they do, well - that’s algorithm-proof.
So you can expand your reach on a limited budget. The other thing about paying for ads or boosting posts is that you’re fronting the costs on the mere hope that they will turn into sales. But with affiliate or referral marketing, you don’t pay unless you make a sale. It’s a win-win! Affiliate marketing also allows you to control your costs since it’s easy to know exactly what you’ll be spending on marketing for every dollar you make and can just build it into your budget accordingly. If you don’t have a lot of money to spend on marketing, I’d put it towards building an affiliate or referral program and email marketing first before I ever spent a dime on social media.
To boost brand awareness amongst your key demographic. Because all the web traffic in the world doesn’t mean a thing if the people visiting aren’t actually potential customers. And you know who may know people who could be your potential customers? That’s right, your current customers. Instead of trying to figure out how to build a fake buyer persona and replicate it in Google AdWords (mind numbing, if you ask me) - why not just… have your current customers do it for you? They know your people better than anyone!
Referral Programs vs. Affiliate Programs
Ok, before we get into which affiliate program is best for Squarespace let’s sort out the differences between referral programs and affiliate programs. Because they’re both kind of the same but very different and it’s just nice to know what’s what. Also, don’t worry, because my favorite tool can do both!
Referral Programs
A way to reward your current loyal customers who share about your brand.
Examples:
Refer a friend and save 5%!
Give $20, Get $20.
Get $10 off for every friend you refer.
Get a free sticker for referring a new client.
Affiliate Programs
A way to incentivize influencers (and micro-influencers!) to promote your brand.
Examples:
Receive 10% recurring commission on every new subscription.
Get $10 for every referral to our store.
Share your affiliate link and receive $5 for every sign up.
Use your affiliate code and receive 20% commission from every sale.
As you can see, both referral marketing and affiliate marketing are very similar. Both reward people for sharing about your business. The difference is that referral marketing is geared towards working with people who are also your customers and affiliate marketing would be more appropriate if you have fellow industry leaders or influencers that you’re hoping to partner with to build your brand. Both have their place and you may, in fact, someday use both strategies! To get started you may decide that one fits more with your current goals than the other.
Which affiliate program is best for Squarespace?
There are lots of affiliate marketing platforms out there that you could certainly try out but you know what? I’m not even going to bother linking all of them here. I’m going to help you cut to the chase and just go with the best: Peach’s (<— affiliate link). Here’s why:
You can set up either a referral program OR an affiliate program (or both!)
It’s made FOR Squarespace and integrates like a dream.
It’s super easy to use and their customer support is A+
It helps you keep everything organized and on (almost) 100% auto-pilot
There are lots of ways to customize to set up the perfect program for your business needs.
No commission fees!
You can try Peach’s free for 14 days. After that, their referral software is $49-149/mo and the affiliates one is $59-$199. Well worth the price for either one or both for how powerful these tools are!
