Affiliate Marketing: let other people sell for you

An affiliate is anyone who promotes your online store and earns a share of what they bring in — a loyal customer, a friend with a big WhatsApp group, a market trader who sends people your way. Each one gets their own link. When somebody follows it and buys, Smart Shop records a commission for you to approve and pay. Nothing is paid automatically: you stay in control of every naira, and the affiliate sees exactly the same figures you do.

1. Where it lives

Affiliate Marketing is part of your online store (Wildfire), because that is where the links point and where the orders come from.

1. Sign in to your Smart Shop web portal.
2. In the left menu, under Tools, click Wildfire. Your online store's merchant area opens.
3. In the blue bar at the top, click Store Settings, then Affiliate Marketing (under Catalogue).

Four screens make up the feature, and every one of them has an Affiliates link at the top left that brings you back to the main page:

2. Turning the program on — Program settings

A new store starts with the program switched off. While it is off the main page shows an orange warning, no link earns commission and nobody can join. Click Program settings (top right of the main page, or the link inside the warning) to set it up.

Click Save settings. The change applies at once — including to links already in people's hands.

3. The Affiliate Marketing page

The four tiles

Commissions ready to approve

When any commission has cleared your hold window, a strip appears under the tiles: N commissions ready to approve — ₦X has cleared your 7-day hold window. Approve all approves them in one click; Review individually opens the Commissions page filtered to the pending ones (section 8). The strip disappears when there is nothing to do.

Your affiliates

The search box matches name, email, phone or code as you type; the status dropdown narrows the list to one status.

4. Adding an affiliate yourself

Click Add affiliate (top right). This is the right route for someone you already know — a regular customer who keeps recommending you.

Click Save affiliate. They are Active immediately, and the share window opens straight away — that is the point of adding them.

5. Sharing their link

From the list, click Link on their row (or save a new affiliate). Two addresses appear, and they are not the same kind of thing.

• Copy puts either address on your clipboard.
• Send on WhatsApp opens WhatsApp with a ready-written message containing both links, addressed to the affiliate by name. Pick their chat and send.
• Reset dashboard link — use this if the private link got out. The old link stops working immediately; their share link, code and earnings are not affected. You will need to send them the new one.

6. Letting people apply — the join page

Turn on Let people apply from your storefront in Program settings and a public join page exists. Its address appears under the switch with a Copy button; post it on your socials, print it on receipts, pin it in your shop. It shows your store name, the commission rate, your terms (if any), and asks for a name plus an email or phone.

When they click Apply, their share link and their private dashboard link appear once, with a warning to save the dashboard address now because it is not shown again. If they lose it, you can resend it from their page.

What happens next depends on Approve applicants automatically:

• On — they are Active and earning from that moment.
• Off — they appear on your list as Awaiting. Their link already works, but no commission is recorded until you click Approve on their row (or on their page). Their dashboard tells them their application is being reviewed.

If the program is off, or self-signup is off, the page says Not accepting applications and shows no form — and the server refuses any application regardless, so an old link to the page cannot be used to sneak in.

7. How a referral is counted

This is worth understanding before you argue with an affiliate about an order.

1. A visitor follows the share link. Smart Shop notes the affiliate's code on that visitor's browser for as many days as Remember a referral for says, records one click for the affiliate, and sends the visitor on to your storefront (or to the single item, if the link was to an item).
2. The visitor browses, closes the tab, comes back the next day — the note survives all of that, up to the day limit.
3. They place an order. Smart Shop checks the note, checks that the buyer's email and phone are not the affiliate's own, and records a commission: order value × the affiliate's rate, status Pending.
4. The commission waits out your hold window, then becomes ready to approve. You approve it (section 8); it is now Approved and counted in You owe.
5. You pay the affiliate however you normally pay people, and record it (section 10). The commission is Paid.

8. Commissions — approving, rejecting and reversing

Store Settings → Affiliate Marketing → the Review individually link, or go straight to Commissions. Every referred order is here, with a filter for each status.

The actions on a row follow the status:

• Approve — on a Pending row that has cleared the hold window. Approve all ready at the top does every eligible row at once.
• Reject — on a Pending row. Use it when the order never really happened (cancelled, never paid, a test). It becomes Not counted.
• Reverse — on an Approved row. Use it when an order you already approved is refunded. It becomes Reversed and leaves You owe.

Paid is final. A paid commission cannot be reversed here; settle a refund with the affiliate directly.

The total at the top of the page ("₦54,000.00 in total, excluding reversed and rejected") is everything that counts, paid or not — it is not the amount you owe. That figure is the You owe tile on the main page.

9. An affiliate's own page

Click a name on the main list.

• Visitors sent / Orders / Earned / You owe — the same four ideas as the main page, for this person only.
• Share link and their private dashboard, each with Copy; Reset next to the dashboard link does what section 5 describes.
• Commission rate — blank means the program default (the line underneath says what they currently earn). Type a rate and Save rate to give this person a different deal. It applies to orders from now on; recorded commissions keep the rate they were made at.
• Commissions — this affiliate's rows, with the same Approve / Reject / Reverse actions as section 8.
• Suspend (top right) — stops new orders through their link earning anything. Approved commission stays owed. The button becomes Reinstate. Use it rather than deleting someone; nothing here can be deleted, because money has been recorded against it.

10. Paying an affiliate — Record a payment

Smart Shop does not move money. You pay the affiliate the way you pay anyone — bank transfer, cash, mobile money, or as store credit — then record it, so the two of you have the same record and their commissions are marked as settled.

1. On the affiliate's page, click Record payment. The amount is pre-filled with everything approved and unpaid for this person; change it if you paid a different sum.
2. Choose How did you pay? — Bank transfer, Cash, Mobile money, Store credit or Other — and add a Reference (the transfer reference, receipt number) and a Note if you want.
3. Click Mark as paid.

The oldest approved commissions are marked Paid up to the amount you entered, You owe drops by that amount, paid to date rises by it, and the payment appears on the affiliate's dashboard under Payments you have received with the method and reference you typed.

11. What your affiliate sees

Their private dashboard link opens this page. No account, no password: the link is their identity, which is why it must stay private.

• Your share link, with one-tap WhatsApp / Facebook / Post buttons, and the rate they earn.
• Visitors sent, Orders, Earned so far, Due to you — the same numbers you see for them, including "still being confirmed" (pending) and "already paid to you".
• Your orders — order number, buyer's first name, date, value, rate, what they earn, status. The page explains Pending, Approved and Not counted in their words.
• Payments you have received — every payment you recorded, with date, method, reference and amount.

They never see the buyer's contact details — an affiliate is owed a commission, not given a customer list. If their application is still awaiting approval, or their account is suspended, the page says so at the top and tells them their link still works (awaiting) or that new orders will not earn (suspended).

A link that has been reset, or copied short, shows This link is not valid and tells them to ask you for it again.

12. Things to know

• Commission is cash, not store credit. It never appears as spendable balance at your till. Store credit is one of the ways you can choose to record a payment, but that is your arrangement with them.
• Changing the program rate changes what new orders earn for everyone on the default. Affiliates with their own rate keep it. Commissions already recorded keep the rate they were made at.
• Switching the program off does not cancel what you owe. Approved commissions stay approved and still need paying.
• The join page is public. Anyone with the address can apply; keep auto-approval off if you want to vet people first.
• Nobody gets an email from Smart Shop about their link, their approval or their payment. Send the link yourself (WhatsApp button), and tell them when you pay — their dashboard will show it.
• Affiliates cannot be deleted, only suspended, because commissions and payments are recorded against them.

13. Quick reference

Open the full illustrated guide on matsmartshop.com