All about
Tapfiliate is a robust affiliate marketing software that works both for Ecommerce merchants and for technology companies. It’s frequently used for those selling into Ecommerce, but if you’re a Commerce Enablement provider, I did a different write up on Tapfiliate here.
In Tapfiliate, you have groups and programs. The program is the overall base/affiliate program you want to create, and groups can be some “power users” or “silver affiliates” or whatever you want to call it that get various commission rates and bonuses based on what group they are in. This allows you to create commissions based on the program and then let affiliates move through the groups as they sell more for you, getting extra commissions, or the like.
In order to set various commissions by product or category, you do have to do a little custom coding to add in an “identifier” of the unique commission amount, then set a quick tracking of that identifier in the backend settings of Tapfiliate.
They have an invitation email sequence you can set up to invite, for example, every new customer to become an affiliate.
You can export your payout balances and send over to accounts payable to payout affiliates, or you can set the minimum threshold for payouts and set up automated payouts via their rest API (but it is not out of the box). They offer some fraud detection software that looks out for sales coming in directly from say the affiliates IP address, or the like.
What’s a Rich Text element?
The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.
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Static and dynamic content editing
A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!
How to customize formatting for each rich text
Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.
Tapfiliate is a well-established top of market solution with dozens of integrations and a robust feature set, making them a serious option for anyone considering launching or growing an affiliate marketing program. One of the features that I like the most is the ability to customize the social sharing info and graphics for your affiliates and advocates.
They also have a direct integration into the Admidad marketplace, which can gain you access to 100,000+ different publications.
All affiliate marketing software is trying to help you grow traffic and sales from your affiliate network. They can also be used to increase social media followings and engagement (through getting affiliates to tag you in posts and/or share your content), as well as, similar to influencer marketing, help generate content that you may then be able to repurpose, be it for advertising or social proof on your website. You’re also going to want to track your number of affiliates, active affiliates, referred customers (by affiliate), as well as your affiliate payouts. Remember, the more money you’re paying your affiliates, the more successful the program, and likely the more successful you are
You should also be aware, because you are typically paying between 10%-30% commission on sales, that affiliate marketing will hit your margin. That said, you set the rates and this could be cheaper than your advertising Cost Per Acquisition (CPA). You do the math and make sure it is right for your business.
Typically it is going to be the head of marketing, head of Ecommerce, affiliate or influencer marketing manager, or you as the solo founder or CEO that is running Tapfiliate.
For a platform like Shopify, you follow some quick copy/paste instructions, and then do a quick test with their tool to make sure it's working properly. From there you setup your commission rates and get started.
You should absolutely expect to use this tool a few times a week to outreach and close affiliates, encourage them with special offers or promos, and check up on them regularly. The more effort you put into your affiliate program the more you will get out of it. This is not a “set and forget” type of tool.
Tapfiliate is for established merchants looking for a robust affiliate program managing dozens of affiliates, affiliate groups, Multi-Level affiliate groups (MLM, optional of course), and tracking all of this through one platform, typically with at least one head count part-time on affiliate manager, even better if you can have one full-time headcount on this channel.
Smaller brands probably don’t need as robust a tool and can move down to a basic referral program or brand ambassador type program.
Typically the CMO or head of marketing is creating goals for the affiliate manager to say “grow affiliate revenue to $100k/month in 3 months” or the like.
Tapfiliate is not for brands that cannot afford to set affiliate commissions. If you just want referrals from your customers, loyalty points, or some tool that helps give cash back in some other way, I’d recommend another solution.