How to Track Affiliate Sales in Squarespace
Are you thinking about offering affiliate incentives to drive sales on your website? When done well, this can be an excellent way to increase revenue! You can create a network of affiliates that raise awareness about your courses or products, then reward them when they drive a sale.
Quick note: You may also be interested in how to add affiliate links in Squarespace.
There are two different ways to track sales that come from affiliates. One is free but takes more time and organization to manage, and requires a level of trust from your affiliates. The other is to choose a paid service that is robust, efficient, and saves you a lot of time. I’ll share my favorite tools for this, then jump into the free options.
originally published May 2020, updated for 2024
Robust Squarespace affiliate solutions
Looking for a way to easily add affiliates to your Squarespace e-commerce shop? You have a few options, and the first one is my personal favorite.
1. Peach's
Peach’s is my favorite way to quickly add affiliates to your Squarespace e-commerce site. They offer a free 14-day trial, friendly customer support, and setup is a breeze. Plans start at $59/month.
With Peach’s, your affiliates will see a dashboard that is clean, simple, and easy to understand. They can also generate custom links for ease of use.
Peach’s is built exclusively for Squarespace e-commerce, which means that all of their help documents and support are specific to the Squarespace platform. Based in Australia, they also have fantastic, personalized support and a lot of the time you will hear back from the founder himself: Matt, who is a genuinely nice guy.
2. Affiliatly
If you are looking for a lower starting price point, you can check out Affiliatly, which also works well with Squarespace. They offer a 90 day free trial and plans start at $16/month. They have a reasonable turnaround with support questions via email, typically within a day, but they aren’t as warm and helpful as Peach’s and their user interface isn’t nice. I haven’t been able to find out where they are based. Thanks to Alison of knitrino.com, who shared that she figured out Affiliatly is owned by Overcode LTD, and based in Bangkok:
3. Tapfiliate
If you are looking for a more feature-rich platform, take a look at Tapfiliate. The pricing is higher, with plans starting at $890/year, but comes with flexible commissions, automations and workflows, and a white-label option. Their user interface is a bit better than Affiliatly but it’s nothing special, but it integrates easily with Squarespace e-commerce.
4. Goaff Pro
GoAff Pro is the new kid on the block and has two big things going for it. First, it integrates directly with Squarespace with a one-click install. Second, it is completely FREE for merchants with <100 daily orders. Perfect for small businesses!
And also…
Rewardful has been taling about releasing a Squarespace integration for the last 4 years. They have been in the affiliate world a long time, so I'm excited to see what they would bring to the table. I'll update this post if it happens / when I know more.
The Free Way
If you are just managing a few affiliates and they trust you to give them accurate reporting, this free method is a good way to test out an affiliate program. Here are the steps I’ve used myself:
1. Set up a Discount Code for each affiliate
Create a Commerce Discount Code specific to your affiliate (I typically just use their first name, like CHRISTY). Set a percent or amount for the discount. Then choose whether the code applies to all orders, a category of products, or a specific product. You can then set an expiration date for the code, or set it to never expire.
2. Decide on an affiliate payout amount and schedule.
Let your affiliates know how much they will earn per sale. Will it be a percentage (20% is a common affiliate payout amount) or a flat rate ($5 per sale)? You’ll also need to decide on a payout schedule. Since this is a manual process, you may not want to do this every month, so consider a quarterly payout.
3. Show your affiliates their number of sales and pay them.
You’ll want to let your affiliates know how many sales they’ve generated in a payout period. You can do this by taking a screenshot like the one above that shows the number of Discount Code uses to share with each affiliate. Then you’ll need to manually calculate the affiliate payout, using the payout amount you chose in Step 2.
Since the Discount Code uses don’t reset, you’ll need to keep track of how many have been paid out per affiliate, so during the next payout period you’d subtract the previous uses and just pay the affiliate on new sales.
You’ll want to select a way to pay your affiliates - I recommend asking for their PayPal address and payout out that way. You’ll pay a small fee to PayPal for each transaction.
Does this work?
Yes, but it’s time consuming and requires solid record-keeping. It also means that affiliates have to trust you to provide accurate data and if questions arise you’ll need to find an independent mediator. I’ve used this method to test out an affiliate program with friends, but a lot can go wrong so I’d recommend a more robust solution if you open up your program to more than a few trusted affiliates. Keep reading for paid solutions that work well in Squarespace that do all the tracking for you.
No matter which affiliate program you choose to add to your Squarespace shop, you’ll want to develop a relationship with your affiliates. Keep them in the loop on any product or pricing changes, provide copy or graphics for them to use on their site and social media, and always pay them on time. Treat them well and they can drive substantial traffic to your website! And please… always, always pay your affiliates on time.
