Managing Affiliates

Affiliates are the people who refer new customers to your business. They can be your staff (stylists, barbers), existing clients, social media influencers, or agencies. This guide covers how to add, organize, and manage them.

Affiliate Roles

Every affiliate has a role that describes their relationship to your business:

Roles are labels for organization. They don't affect reward calculations unless you create role-specific programs.

Adding Affiliates

Manual Addition

1. Go to Affiliates in the sidebar
2. Click Add Affiliate
3. Fill in the required information:
   • Name (first and last)
   • Email address
   • Phone number (used for portal login)
   • Role (Client, Influencer, or Agency)
   • Program (which referral program to assign them to)
4. Click Create

The affiliate gets a unique referral link immediately. You can share it with them, or they can find it in the affiliate portal.

Automatic via Viral Loop

When the viral loop is turned on for a program, referred customers automatically become affiliates. No manual step required. See Viral Loop.

Affiliate Status

Each affiliate has a status that controls whether their referral links are active:

You can change an affiliate's status from the affiliate detail page.

Tracking Links

Every affiliate gets a unique referral link in the format:

https://your-subdomain.viralref.com/r/name-abc123

When someone clicks this link:

1. The click is recorded
2. The visitor sees a branded signup page with your logo and the referral offer
3. They fill out a short form (name, email, phone)
4. They're linked to the referring affiliate
5. If the viral loop is on, the new customer also gets their own affiliate record and referral link

Affiliate Groups

Groups let you organize affiliates and give certain groups better reward rates.

Creating a Group

1. Go to Groups in the sidebar
2. Click Create Group
3. Enter a group name (e.g., "Top Performers", "VIP Stylists")
4. Optionally set commission overrides:
   • Override commission type (percentage or fixed)
   • Override commission value
5. Add affiliates to the group

Commission Overrides

Group-level commission overrides take priority over the program's default commission. This lets you reward top performers or special partners without creating separate programs.

Example: Your program pays 10% commission by default, but your "VIP Stylists" group earns 15%.

Commission Tiers

Tiers automatically increase reward rates based on affiliate performance. They're configured at the program level but apply to individual affiliates based on their results.

How Tiers Work

1. When a purchase is tracked, the system checks the affiliate's current tier
2. Tiers are evaluated by priority (highest matching tier wins)
3. Tier conditions can be based on:
   • Total number of referrals (e.g., 10+ successful referrals)
   • Time as an affiliate (e.g., active for 6+ months)
4. The tier's commission rate is applied to the reward

Tier vs. Group Priority

If an affiliate belongs to a group with commission overrides AND qualifies for a higher tier, the group override takes priority. The hierarchy is:

1. Group override (highest priority)
2. Commission tier (based on performance)
3. Program default (base rate)

Viewing Affiliate Performance

The affiliate detail page shows:

• Total clicks on their referral link
• Total conversions (successful referrals that made a purchase)
• Conversion rate (purchases divided by clicks)
• Total earned (total commission amount)
• Referral tree (who they referred, and who those people referred)
• Recent activity timeline

Bulk Operations

From the affiliates list, you can:

• Filter by role, status, program, or group
• Search by name or email
• Export affiliate data

Next Steps

Tracking Conversions

Understand how purchases are tracked and connected to referrers.

Payouts

Learn how rewards are calculated and distributed.