If in our last product update we talked about the affiliate password reset functionality, today we’re going to cover a couple of cool new features we’ve been working on these past few of weeks.
Let’s jump right to them.
Affiliate Start ID Add-on
When you’re just starting out your affiliate program with SliceWP, affiliate registrations will by default begin at ID #1. Your first affiliate will have ID #1, your second ID #2 and so on.
However, if you’re migrating from another affiliate plugin or if you want to portray a more established affiliate program, you’ll want to start affiliate registrations at a higher ID value. Instead of your first affiliate having ID #1, you can set it to #21, or #389, or any other value.
This is where the Affiliate Start ID add-on comes into play. With it, you’ll be able to specify the ID of your next affiliate registration.
How does the add-on work?
The add-on has two flows:
- When you don’t yet have any affiliates. If you haven’t registered any affiliates yet, the value you set will represent the ID for your very first affiliate.
- When you already have affiliates. In this case, the value you set will represent the ID for the next affiliate that is registered. The add-on will not change the IDs for your existing affiliates. Doing so would break the existing referral links your existing affiliates are already using.
How do I set it up?
- From your SliceWP account page, download the .zip file of the add-on.
- Navigate to your WordPress admin dashboard > Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin and select the .zip file you’ve just downloaded from your account.
- Install and activate the add-on.
- With the add-on up and running, navigate to SliceWP > Settings > General (tab) > Affiliate Start ID (section). Here, set the ID you wish your new affiliates to start at. Please note that you can only specify an ID greater than the ID of your last registered affiliate.
- Save the settings.
- (Optional) If you don’t plan on changing the ID for new affiliates in the future, you can safely deactivate and delete the add-on.
Cross-site Tracking Add-on
The Cross-site Tracking add-on comes to help with a specific need some of our customers have. Bridging the gap between their marketing site and their eCommerce site.
If your store (that is hosted, for example, at this link: https://store.yoursite.com/) and your marketing site (that is hosted on this other link: https://yoursite.com/) are two separate WordPress instances, than this add-on is for you.
The problem this add-on solves
To be able to power your affiliate program, SliceWP needs to be installed on the same WordPress instance where your eCommerce plugin (WooCommerce for example) is also installed. This would be on your store site (https://store.yoursite.com/).
However, if you want visitors to firstly land on your marketing site (https://yoursite.com/) and only then, if their happy with what they see, to be redirected to your store to make the purchase, referred visits will not be tracked.
Because the marketing site is another WordPress installation, SliceWP can’t track these visits by its own. A connection between the two sites is needed. The Cross-site Tracking add-on facilitates this connection.
How does it work?
Once the add-on is installed on your marketing site, you can specify the URL of your store site. The add-on will then modify any links leading to your store into referral links.
This of course will happen only when a referred visitor reaches the site. If someone accesses your marketing site directly, the links leading to your store will not be transformed into referral links.
How do I set it up?
- From your SliceWP account page, download the .zip file of the add-on.
- Install and activate the add-on on your marketing site.
- Navigate to your marketing site’s admin area > Settings > Cross-site Referral Tracking.
- Here, set the URL for your eCommerce Site in the Target Website URL. All links starting with this URL will be modified when a referred visitor reaches your website.
- Then, in the same page, set the Affiliate Keyword, Credit First/Last Affiliate and Cookie Duration options to match the ones you’ve set in SliceWP on your store site.
Make sure to update
To have everything working nicely with these two new add-ons, please make sure to update SliceWP core to the latest version.
P.S. We’re constantly looking to improve SliceWP, so if you’re missing certain functionality from the plugin, please don’t hesitate to reach out and let us know what you need.
