By promoting your products to their network, affiliates can hugely help with expanding your marketing reach. In return, they can earn a commission for each new sale that they send your way.
In this article:
How to Exclude a Product For an Individual Affiliate
How to Exclude a Course For All Affiliates
How to Exclude a Community for All Affiliates
How to View Students Who Signed Up With An Affiliate Link
About This Feature
Promoting your site is a lot of work, but you don't have to do it alone. By assigning someone an Affiliate role, you agree to share some portion of any sales revenue that they bring in to your site; this creates an incentive for them to promote your products to their wider social network. This is a win for both of you, as you only pay them for students who wouldn't have otherwise come across your website.
Affiliates help you harness the power of social networks, and reward the people who are going above and beyond in helping spread the word about your products.
How It Works
- Any user within your Thinkific account can be assigned the Affiliate role.
- On any paid Thinkific plan, you can have an unlimited number of affiliates.
- Once they have been assigned, each affiliate will have their own set of unique affiliate links that they can use to direct traffic to your Thinkific site!
The first time any prospect visits your site, a browser cookie records how they got there; if it was through an affiliate link, the cookie will record that information. If the prospect then goes on to sign up for an account on your site, they will be associated with your affiliate.
Affiliate commissions are tracked for any purchases that are made by a user they are associated with; this includes installments of a subscription or payment plan. You have the option to exclude products within your affiliate settings if you want to limit your affiliate's commissions to specific products.
Our affiliate feature is designed for tracking purposes only. You can view the amount owed to each affiliate and have full control over approved payments, payout policies and schedules. The payouts themselves must be performed outside of Thinkific.
Our affiliate feature will only apply to purchases made through the Thinkific Checkout via Thinkific Payments, Stripe or Paypal.
Setting Up an Affiliate
The affiliate role can be assigned to either an existing user or to a new user.
Assign an Affiliate Role to an Existing User
- Go to Support Your Students
- Select Users
- Locate the user you want to assign the Affiliate role to
Note: You can do this by either scrolling down and manually locating the user, or by using the search to locate the user by their name or email. - Click the ellipses (three dots) to the right of their name
- Click Edit
- Under the Details tab of their user profile, scroll down to view the User roles section
- In the User roles section, check the box for Affiliate
- Enter the desired commission, either as a percentage or flat [per-purchase] amount
- (Optional) If you plan on using PayPal to pay your affiliates, double-check that the PayPal email listed in their profile is correct
- Select Save on the top right
Create and Assign a New Affiliate
- Go to Support Your Students
- Select Users
- Select +New User on the top right
- Fill in the user details
- In the User roles section, check the box for Affiliate
- Enter the desired commission, either as a percentage or flat [per-purchase] amount
- (Optional) If you plan on using PayPal to pay your affiliates, double-check that the PayPal email listed in their profile is correct
- Select Save on the top right
- (Optional) If you create a new user, we suggest sending them their account sign in credentials, or an Express Sign In Link, if you haven't enabled a Site Welcome Email with this information.
Managing Affiliate Products
By default, Affiliate commissions are tracked for every product purchased by their associated users. This also includes any products you create in the future. If you want to place limits on which products count towards which Affiliates' commissions, you can do so in two ways:
Exclude a Product for an Individual Affiliate
- Click on Support Your Students
- Select Users
- Locate the Affiliate within the list, and click on their name
- Navigate to the Affiliate tab
- Click the Excluded Products drop-down, and select which Product you wish to exclude from that Affiliate's commissions
- These changes are automatically saved
How to Exclude a Course for All Affiliates
The option to exclude for all Affiliates is only available for courses and communities. We don't currently have the option to exclude a bundle from all affiliates by default. If you would like to add your vote to this feature request, we would love to hear from you. Please send us your feedback!
- Go to Manage Learning Products
- Select Courses
- Select the course you want to edit
- Select Settings
- Click on Admins, Revenue Partners & Affiliates in the left navigation
- Scroll down to the Affiliates section
- Click on Bulk Remove Current Affiliates
- Check off the Exclude new Affiliates from this course by default to ensure that any new Affiliates you create will also not receive a link or commissions for this course
How to Exclude a Community for All Affiliates
- Go to Manage Learning Products
- Select Communities
- Locate your community, select the ellipses (3 dot icon), and click Edit
- Select Revenue partners and Affiliates from the left menu
- Click on Bulk Remove All. This will remove all current affiliates
- Check off the Exclude new Affiliates from this community by default to ensure that any new Affiliates you create will also not receive a link or commissions for this community
What happens when I exclude Affiliates from a specific course or community in settings?
The Bulk Remove button will add the course or community to the exclusion list for each of your existing Affiliate users.
If you want only certain Affiliates to be able to earn commissions off the product, you can follow the steps above for an Individual Affiliate, and then remove that product from their list of exclusions.
For more detailed instructions, see How can I allow only one of my Affiliates to promote my course?
How to Find Affiliate Links
Affiliate links are automatically generated for your home page and product landing pages. Both you and your affiliate will have access to these links where they can be easily copied and shared!
Copy Affiliate Links as the Site Owner or Site Admin
- Go to Support Your Students
- Select Users
- Locate the Affiliate user whose links you are looking for and click on their name
- Select the Affiliate tab, along the top of the page
- Under Product Links you will see a list of each product, along with an associated Affiliate link
- Simply copy these links and share!
How to Copy Affiliate Links as an Affiliate
Your Affiliates can also access these links, as well as a generic link to your home page, by logging into their account on your site and navigating to the Affiliate Menu (via the drop-down next to their profile picture).
For a more in-depth explanation, your Affiliates can read An Introduction to the Affiliate Menu (For Affiliates).
How to Generate Affiliate Links for Custom Pages and Checkouts
If you or your Affiliate want to provide links that go to a custom page on your site, or that link directly to your checkout page instead of the product landing page, you can do so by following the instructions in our article How to Create an Affiliate Link.
How to View Students Who Signed up with an Affiliate Link
You can keep track of which students have been referred by each of your Affiliates through the Users list, located under Support Your Students, Users. The Referred By column (you may have to use the scroll bar to scroll sideways until the column is visible) will show which Affiliate each student is associated with, if any.
To read more about how to do this, including some reporting options, check out How can I track which students are associated with which affiliates?
How to Manage Payouts
Our affiliate feature is designed for tracking purposes only. It allows you to view the amount owed to each affiliate, and have full control over approved payments, payout policies and schedules - but the payments themselves will have to be done outside of Thinkific.
For more details, please read our article on How to Manage Affiliate Payouts.
Frequently Asked Questions
How exactly does Thinkific determine whether a new student account should be associated with an Affiliate?
The exact details of how Thinkific tracks Affiliates, and how the initial association between an Affiliate and a new student account is created, can sound a little tricky, but there are just a few key details you need to know to make sure they are tracked successfully.
When a user first visits your Thinkific site, we place a cookie in their browser. If they came in through an affiliate link, that information is recorded in the cookie, which lasts for 30 days. If that same user returns at any point over the next 30 days, the cookie is not modified or updated; only the first visit is relevant. After 30 days, the cookie expires, and their next visit will create a new one, following the same rules.
When that user creates an actual account on your site, we check the cookie to see if they should be associated with an existing Affiliate.
So in order for a student account to be associated with an Affiliate, they must have visited your site for the first time from that Affiliate's link. If your student visited the site previously on their own, without signing up, but returned within 30 days via an Affiliate link, they will not end up associated with that Affiliate.
The account does not need to make any purchases, or even enroll in any products; the link between account and Affiliate is made as soon as the account is created, and persists indefinitely.
Finally, keep in mind that cookies are browser-specific, and the cookie will only be checked when the actual account is made.
If you are having any issues with sign ups not being associated with your affiliate, check out Why Aren't My Students Correctly Associated With My Affiliates?
Does Thinkific have a built-in Affiliate agreement or contract process?
No. You will have to manage any agreement or contract you make with your Affiliates separately, similarly to how any payments are also handled outside of Thinkific. Our feature is designed to let you track commissions and activity, but does not handle the broader business details of any arrangements you make with affiliates.
If you are unsure about what an Affiliate agreement might involve, there are many templates available online that can serve as a helpful starting point.
What is my affiliate's referral code?
Each Affiliate has a unique referral code, which we use to create and track their associations. The code appears at the end of the existing affiliate links, and is also used to build custom affiliate links. For more, check out How to Find an Affiliate Referral Code.
Can I manually assign an affiliate to a student after they have already signed up?
It is not currently possible to manually assign an affiliate to an existing student account. Similarly, it is not possible to remove an affiliate association, once it is created.
Can I use Thinkific's Affiliate feature if I have an external sales page?
Yes, but you will need to be using Thinkific's Built in Checkout. In order for an affiliate to be tracked successfully, you'll also need to to send visitors to Thinkific first and then immediately direct them to your external page. See how to set that up here: Redirect Your Landing Page to an External Sales Page.
Can I change the commission an affiliate gets?
If you update the percentage or dollar amount an Affiliate makes as a commission on sales on your site, this will affect all future orders linked to your affiliate. This includes ongoing subscription payments (renewals). For more information, check out: How are Affiliate commissions calculated for ongoing subscription payments if I change the Affiliate commission percentage or amount?
How many affiliates can I have?
On any paid Thinkific plan you can assign an unlimited number of users the Affiliate role.