Affiliate Campaigns

This article covers the process of creating and sending out unique affiliate links to the creators in your campaign.

Affiliate Deliverable Prerequisites

In order to successfully have affiliate deliverables for Later Influence campaigns, there are 3 prerequisites that must be met:

1. You (the brand) must be on an affiliate network supported by Later Creator, and 
2. You (the brand) must have approved Later Creator as a publisher on your network, and
3. The creator must have a Later Creator account (it’s free!) that is connected to Later
   • This can be completed during the application process (which we recommend), or afterward from their campaign manager

Note: Later Creator is the platform we’ve partnered with to manage affiliate deliverables directly within Later. For more details on how the integration works, see Affiliate Marketing With Later Influence.

We cover each of these prerequisites in more detail in the following sections:

Supported Affiliate Networks

These are the affiliate networks that Later Creator currently supports—you must be on one of these networks to use Later’s affiliate integration:

• ShareASale
• Impact
• Commission Junction
• AWIN
• Partnerize
• Rakuten
• AvantLink
• Ascend

Important: If you have separate websites for different countries’ shopping experiences, you’ll need to set up separate affiliate programs for each website. Alternatively, if your country-specific websites share the same base domain, you’ll only need one affiliate program.

Example: Dunder Mifflin uses dundermifflin.com for its American experience and dundermifflin.ca for its Canadian experience. Since these are two separate websites (.com and .ca), they would need to set up a separate affiliate program for each one.

In contrast, if they used dundermifflin.com for the American shopping experience and dundermifflin.com/ca/ for the Canadian experience, they would only need one affiliate program—this is because both websites share the same base domain of dundermifflin.com.

Approve Later Creator as a Publisher

Once you’ve confirmed that you’re using a supported affiliate network (listed above), you’ll need to approve Later Creator as a publisher on that network.

This is done through your affiliate network—refer to your network’s documentation (linked below) on how to approve a publisher on their platform:

• ShareASale
• Impact
• Commission Junction
• AWIN
• Partnerize
• Rakuten
• AvantLink
• Ascend

Tip: You can think of approving Later Creator as a publisher as similar to approving them as an affiliate. It enables them to generate affiliate links for your network on your behalf.

Later Creator Account Connection Requirement

By default, when an affiliate deliverable is added to a campaign, we’ll add Later Creator as a required account on the campaign application. This means creators will need to connect their Later Creator accounts in order to apply to the campaign.

You can make Later Creator an optional account instead, but we recommend keeping it required because it’s needed for creators to receive their affiliate links.

If you make it optional and creators don’t connect Later Creator during the application, they’ll have to do so from the campaign manager later on. We won’t be able to generate affiliate links for them until they’ve connected their Later Creator account.

For creator instructions on connecting Later Creator to Later, see Connect Your Later Creator Account to Later.

Set Your Commission Rates

Before creating and sending out affiliate links, you’ll want to ensure your commission rates are set correctly. 

Commission rates are configured within your affiliate network, not within Later Influence. The availability of certain features, like setting custom rates per product category, depends on your network’s capability. Refer to your network’s guidance on how to set commission rates on their platform.

Once your rates are set in your network, Later Influence will automatically pull in those rules through the Later Creator integration—there is no additional configuration needed within Later.

Create Affiliate Deliverables

Once you’ve approved Later Creator as a publisher on your affiliate network and confirmed your commission rates, you’re ready to create affiliate campaign deliverables! This can be done at the campaign-level, or for individual creators—both processes are outlined below:

Tip: If you’d like, you can run a test conversion to confirm affiliate tracking is set up correctly before creating your actual deliverables. For details, see [Optional] Run a Test Conversion below.

For a Campaign

To create an affiliate deliverable for an entire campaign, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Setup > Influencer Deliverables tab of the relevant campaign
2. From the lower-right corner, select + Add Deliverable > Affiliate Link
3. Enter the Destination URL, then select Next
   • Our system will double-check that this link is connected to Later Creator through a supported affiliate network—if not, you’ll be shown an error
4. Customize the Link Title
   • This title will be visible to influencers in the campaign manager
   • By default, we’ll input the title of the page associated with the destination URL
5. Review the commission rates associated with this link
   Note: These commission rates are pulled directly from your affiliate network by Later Creator. To modify these rates, make the changes in your affiliate network.
6. Select Add Link

For an Individual Creator

To create an affiliate deliverable for an individual influencer, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the relevant campaign
2. Select the Workflow tab and the relevant workflow stage
3. Select the Show Campaign Details icon to the right of the creator’s name:
   
   
4. Select the Affiliate Links tab
5. Click + Add Affiliate Link Deliverable from the lower-right corner
6. Enter the Destination URL, then select Next
   • Our system will double-check that this link is connected to Later Creator through a supported affiliate network—if not, you’ll be shown an error
7. Customize the Link Title
   • By default, we’ll input the title of the page associated with the destination URL

8. Review the commission rates associated with this link

   Note: These commission rates are pulled directly from your affiliate network by Later Creator. To modify these rates, make the changes in your affiliate network.
9. Select Add Link

Edit Affiliate Deliverables

You can edit the Link Title for affiliate deliverables at the campaign-level or for individual creators as follows:

For a Campaign

1. Navigate to the Setup > Influencer Deliverables tab of the relevant campaign
2. Scroll down to the Affiliate Link (Pays Commission) section
3. Select the pencil icon next to the link you'd like to edit:
   
4. Enter the new link title in the Link Title field
5. Select Save

For an Individual Creator

1. Navigate to the relevant campaign
2. Select the Workflow tab and the relevant workflow stage
3. Select the Show Campaign Details icon to the right of the creator’s name:
   
4. Select the Affiliate Links tab
5. Select the pencil icon next to the link you'd like to edit:
   
6. Enter the new link title in the Link Title field
7. Select Save

Archive Affiliate Deliverables

You can archive an affiliate deliverable at the campaign-level or for individual creators as follows:

For a Campaign

1. Navigate to the Setup > Influencer Deliverables tab of the relevant campaign
2. Scroll down to the Affiliate Link (Pays Commission) section
3. Select the archive icon next to the link you'd like to archive:
   
4. Select Archive Link to confirm

For an Individual Creator

1. Navigate to the relevant campaign
2. Select the Workflow tab and the relevant workflow stage
3. Select the Show Campaign Details icon to the right of the creator’s name:
   
4. Select the Affiliate Links tab
5. Select the archive icon next to the link you'd like to archive:
   
6. Select Archive Link to confirm

[Optional] Run a Test Conversion

To test out affiliate tracking before creating your actual campaign, you can run a test conversion as follows:

1. Create a new campaign as a test
   • You can archive it once the test is complete
2. Add a test affiliate deliverable by following the Create Affiliate Deliverables > For a Campaign steps above
3. Set the test campaign to live
4. Apply to the test campaign and connect your Later Creator account
   • Create a Later Creator account for free if you don’t have one already
   • You can access your test campaign’s application URL via the Setup > Application tab of the campaign in Later Influence
5. Navigate back to the test campaign in Later Influence and accept yourself via the Workflow > Applied tab
   • Select the checkbox next to yourself in the list and then select Accept
6. Once accepted, select your creator card and then the Affiliate Links tab
   • You should see the test affiliate deliverable you created in step 2
7. Copy the Unique Link for your test affiliate deliverable and navigate to it in your browser
   • This will simulate a click

8. Execute a transaction on the site to trigger a conversion

   Important: Make sure it’s a product that isn’t excluded from commission.
9. Wait for the conversion data to populate in Later
   • This may take 24–48 hours

Send Creators Their Affiliate Links

Once you’ve created your affiliate link deliverable(s), you can send your creators their links so they can start promoting!

Affiliate links can be sent to creators individually or in bulk; both processes are outlined below. For more details on merge tags, see Merge Tags & Campaign Links.

Send Affiliate Links Individually

To send affiliate links to an individual creator, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the relevant campaign
2. Select the Workflow tab and then the workflow stage that the creator is in
3. Select the Show Campaign Details icon to the right of the creator’s name:
   
4. Click Send Message
5. Write your message
6. Place your cursor where you want to insert the affiliate links, then select the Merge Tags icon from the toolbar:
   
7. In the dropdown, scroll down to the AFFILIATE LINKS section:
   
8. Select the specific affiliate link you want to insert, or select All Affiliate Links to insert all of the affiliate links associated with this creator
   • The inserted content will look something like {{affiliateLinks.all | ''}} or {{affiliateLinks.21 | ''}}—this is normal! In the actual message sent to the creator, the links’ titles and URLs will be populated
9. Send (or schedule) the message

Send Affiliate Links in Bulk

To send affiliate links to multiple creators at once, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the relevant campaign
2. Select the Workflow tab and then the workflow stage that the creators are in
3. Select the checkboxes next to the creators you’d like to send links to, or select all of the creators on the page via the Select All checkbox at the top:
   
4. Select Send Message
   • The campaign must be live for you to send a message
5. Write your message
6. Place your cursor where you want to insert the affiliate links, then select the Merge Tags icon from the toolbar:
   
7. In the dropdown, scroll down to the AFFILIATE LINKS section:
   
8. Select the specific affiliate link you want to insert, or select All Affiliate Links to insert all of the affiliate links for this campaign
   • The inserted content will look something like {{affiliateLinks.all | ''}} or {{affiliateLinks.21 | ''}}—this is normal! In the actual message sent to the creators, the links’ titles and URLs will be populated
9. Send (or schedule) the message

Track Performance

For Campaign(s)

On the Overview tab of the Reports section, you can view aggregated affiliate performance metrics for a single campaign or multiple campaigns as follows:

1. Select Reports from the left navigation menu
2. Select the Overview tab:
   
3. Select the All Campaigns dropdown and check one or multiple campaigns to display aggregated data for
4. Select the date range you’d like to view data for
5. Scroll down to the Campaigns section and select Customize View
6. Check the affiliate metrics you’d like to display in the table, then select Save:
   
7. Scroll down to the Top Influencers section and select Sort By
   • You can also select the table view icon to view this data in a table instead:
     
8. Select which affiliate metric you’d like to sort the influencers by:
   
   • Or, if using table view, select Customize Metrics to select which data to display

The Campaigns table will display aggregated affiliate data metrics (the ones enabled from the Customize View menu) for the selected campaigns:

In table view, the Top Influencers table will display individual creators’ affiliate performance metrics (the ones enabled from the Customize View menu) for those campaigns:

Toggle between display formats for the Campaigns and Top Influencers data by using the grid and table icons above them:

For an Individual Creator

You can view an individual creator’s affiliate links, as well as their affiliate performance so far, as follows:

1. Navigate to the relevant campaign
2. Select the Workflow tab and the relevant workflow stage
3. Select the Show Campaign Details icon to the right of the creator’s name:
   
4. Select the Affiliate Links tab

From this tab, you’ll see all the information about this creator’s affiliate link(s) (link title and URL) as well as the following performance metrics:

• Clicks
• Conversions
• Conversion Rate
• Sales
• Commission Earned
• Highest Commission

Troubleshooting Affiliate Links

If any affiliate links fail to generate, you’ll see a message that says Couldn’t Generate Affiliate Links for Influencer on the Affiliate Links tab of the creator’s profile. Hover over the caution symbol next to the failed link (which will be in orange) to see the reason why it failed:

Then, refer to the relevant section below for troubleshooting steps:

The influencer’s Later Creator account isn’t connected

In this case, you’ll need to ask the creator to authenticate their Later Creator account with Later in order to create affiliate links for them. For instructions for creators on this process, see Connect Your Later Creator Account to Later.

Something went wrong

This error could be caused by an issue or outage on either Later Creator or Later’s side. In this case, please try moving the affected creator back to the Applied workflow stage in the campaign, and then back to the current stage. This can trigger the affiliate links to re-generate correctly.

If that doesn’t work, please ask the creator to reach out to our support team for help troubleshooting. For details, see Getting Creators in Your Campaign Technical Support.