Setting up your affiliate referral links

The affiliate referral links are the URLs your affiliates use to promote your WordPress powered store or your membership website.

Through them, SliceWP tracks referred visits. Then, based on these visits, SliceWP is able to generate commissions for your affiliates once a successful order is created.

Each one of your affiliates will have their own unique link.

For example, if your website’s URL is https://www.your-website.com/, the default referral link will look like this:

• for affiliate with ID #21: https://www.your-website.com/?aff=21
• for affiliate with ID #24: https://www.your-website.com/?aff=24

As you can notice, the referral link is built from your website’s home URL followed by the ?aff=21 string (in the case of affiliate #21).

This string is also made of two parts:

1. the aff keyword, which is known as a query variable
2. the value associated with this variable, which, for the default referral link, is the affiliate’s ID

With SliceWP, both the affiliate query variable and its value are customizable. This means your referral links can look like these:

• https://www.your-website.com/?aff=21 (the default referral link)
• https://www.your-website.com/?partner=21
• https://www.your-website.com/?partner=S7cm2bld5ib91
• https://www.your-website.com/?partner=DwayneJohnson

The above links can also be prettified, to look like these:

• https://www.your-website.com/aff/21/ (the default pretty referral link)
• https://www.your-website.com/partner/21/
• https://www.your-website.com/partner/S7cm2bld5ib91/
• https://www.your-website.com/partner/DwayneJohnson/

As you can notice, you have a lot of flexibility to customize your affiliate referral links. Let’s dive in and check out how you can customize your links as you want to.

Customizing the affiliate query variable

Before changing the affiliate query variable, please note that WordPress uses a clear set of query variables for internal processes. Make sure your affiliate keyword isn’t part of this set, as this may lead to unexpected errors. Click here to view the list of WordPress reserved query variables.

To modify the affiliate query variable, please follow these steps:

1. Navigate to your admin area > SliceWP > Settings > General (tab) > Affiliate URL Settings (section).
2. Set the Affiliate Keyword to your preferred value:

   

Using a random string instead of the affiliate ID

As mentioned before, the affiliate’s default referral link will use the affiliate’s unique ID. However, you can replace this with a random generated alphanumeric or alphabetic string.

The referral link will change:

• From this: https://www.your-website.com/?partner=21
• To this: https://www.your-website.com/?partner=S7cm2bld5ib91

Here’s how you can do it:

1. Install the Custom Affiliate Slug add-on. Please note that this add-on is available only with an active Pro or Pro Plus license. If you’re not sure how to install a premium add-on, this article will guide you step-by-step.
2. Once you have the add-on installed and active, navigate to your WordPress admin dashboard > SliceWP > Settings > General (tab) > Custom Affiliate Slug (section).
3. Here, enable the Auto Random Slugs option. With this option enabled, whenever a new affiliate registers for your affiliate program a random slug will be generated for them. This slug will be used to build the affiliate’s referral link.
4. Then, select whether you want these strings to be alphanumerical or just alphabetical and also set the length you wish these strings to have.
5. Lastly, set the Affiliate Referral Link Format option to With affiliate custom slug and save the settings. This way, the referral link showing in the affiliate area will be built using the affiliate’s slug, instead of the affiliate’s ID.

Using a custom string instead of the affiliate ID

The same way you can use a random string for your affiliate links, you can use custom strings. These come in handy when you wish to offer your affiliates a way to personalize their links.

For example, with a custom string, the referral link will change:

• From this: https://www.your-website.com/?partner=21
• Or this: https://www.your-website.com/?partner=S7cm2bld5ib91
• To this: https://www.your-website.com/?partner=DwayneJohnson

Here’s how you can do it:

1. Install the Custom Affiliate Slug add-on. Please note that this add-on is available only with an active Pro or Pro Plus license. If you’re not sure how to install a premium add-on, this article will guide you step-by-step.
2. Once you have the add-on installed and active, navigate to your WordPress admin dashboard > SliceWP > Affiliates. Here, click to edit the affiliate you wish to have a custom string for their referral link.
3. Once in the affiliate’s edit page, scroll down to the Custom Slug section and set the Custom Slug for your affiliate. This custom slug will be used as the value for the affiliate query variable in the referral link.
4. Then, navigate to your WordPress admin dashboard > SliceWP > Settings > General (tab) > Custom Affiliate Slug (section).
5. Set the Affiliate Referral Link Format option to With affiliate custom slug and save the settings. This way, the referral link from the affiliate area will be built using the affiliate’s slug, instead of the affiliate’s ID. For affiliates that don’t have a custom slug set, the referral link will default to using the affiliate’s ID.