How to Use UniLink Affiliate (Run an Affiliate Program From Your Page)

A complete walkthrough for setting up an affiliate program on your UniLink page — create a program, invite affiliates, track clicks and conversions, and pay commissions without needing a third-party affiliate platform.

Most creators who sell digital products, courses, or services rely on word-of-mouth — but word-of-mouth at scale requires giving people a reason to recommend you and a way to track whether their recommendation led to a sale. That is what an affiliate program does: it turns satisfied customers, community members, and content creators into a paid referral network. The UniLink Affiliate app puts that infrastructure directly on your page, so you do not need to sign up for a separate platform like Tapfiliate or Impact, integrate via API, or manage two separate dashboards. Your program lives where your products already live, affiliates sign up through a link you share, and every tracked click and conversion is visible in one place.

What the Affiliate app does

The Affiliate app creates a self-contained affiliate program linked to your UniLink store. When you create a program, UniLink generates a public signup page where prospective affiliates can apply — or you can invite specific people by email and skip the open application flow entirely. Each approved affiliate receives a unique tracking link that points to your page (or a specific product page). When a visitor clicks that link, a cookie is set on their browser for the duration you specify — the default is 30 days. If that visitor completes a qualifying purchase within the cookie window, the conversion is attributed to the affiliate who referred them, and the commission is calculated and recorded automatically.

The program creator sees a full dashboard: a list of every affiliate with their individual click count, conversion count, total commissions owed, and payout history. This view lets you identify your highest-performing affiliates, spot affiliates who have clicks but no conversions (possibly a sign their audience is a poor fit for your product), and see the total liability in unpaid commissions at any given moment. Sorting and filtering by performance means you can prioritize building relationships with the affiliates who are actually driving revenue rather than treating all affiliates identically regardless of results.

Affiliates see a separate, restricted dashboard that shows only their own data: their unique link, their click and conversion totals, their earnings to date, and their payout history. They cannot see other affiliates' performance, commission rates, or any other program data beyond what is relevant to their own activity. This separation is important for programs where different affiliates are on different commission tiers — a top-performing affiliate on a 30% rate should not be able to see that other affiliates earn 20%, which could create friction or negotiation pressure.

Getting started

1. Open the Affiliate app in your Dashboard: Log in to UniLink and go to Apps in your Dashboard sidebar. Find the Affiliate app and click Install (if not already installed) or Open if it is active on your account.
2. Create your first program: Click Create Program. Give the program a name — this is visible to affiliates on the signup page and in their dashboard, so use something clear like "Brand Name Affiliate Program" rather than an internal code name. The program name is the first thing a potential affiliate sees when deciding whether to join.
3. Choose your commission structure: Select one of three types — Percentage (a percentage of each order total, e.g., 20%), Flat fee (a fixed amount per qualifying conversion, e.g., $10 per sale), or Tiered (percentages that increase at sales milestones, e.g., 20% for the first 10 sales, 25% for sales 11 and above). Enter the rate or amounts for the type you choose. If you are unsure, percentage-of-sale is the most common starting point because it scales naturally — a high-ticket sale earns the affiliate more, which incentivizes them to send qualified buyers rather than just raw clicks.
4. Set the cookie duration: Choose how long after the first click an affiliate receives credit for a conversion. The default is 30 days. A longer duration (60–90 days) benefits affiliates and is worth considering if your product has a longer consideration cycle — courses and coaching programs are often researched for weeks before purchase. A shorter duration (7 days) makes sense for impulse-purchase products where if the visitor has not bought in a week, they are unlikely to buy at all.
5. Write your program terms: Add a brief terms section explaining what commissions are based on (order total before tax and shipping), when affiliates are paid, and any disqualifying conditions (e.g., self-referrals are not counted). Clear terms prevent disputes later — especially the detail that commissions are calculated on the pre-tax, pre-shipping order amount, which can surprise affiliates who expected a percentage of the full checkout total.
6. Save and copy the signup link: After saving the program, UniLink generates a public affiliate signup page. Copy this URL — you will share it with potential affiliates via email, social media, or your page itself.

How to manage affiliates and track performance

1. Invite affiliates or share the signup link: Either paste the signup link into a social post, email newsletter, or your UniLink page (as a Links block button labeled "Join my affiliate program"), or go to the Affiliates tab in the app and click Invite by Email to send direct invitations to specific people. Invited affiliates receive an email with a link to claim their account — they do not go through the open application form.
2. Approve pending affiliates: If you use the open signup form, new applications land in the Pending tab of your affiliate list. Review each applicant and click Approve or Decline. Approved affiliates immediately receive their unique tracking link by email and gain access to their affiliate dashboard. There is no limit on the number of active affiliates you can have in a program.
3. Mark products as affiliate-eligible: In the Affiliate app settings, confirm which products in your UniLink store are tracked for affiliate commissions. By default, the setting may not include all products — any product not marked as affiliate-eligible will not trigger a commission even if a visitor arrives via an affiliate link. This is the most common setup error (see Troubleshooting below).
4. Monitor the performance dashboard: Open the Performance tab to see aggregate program stats: total clicks across all affiliates, total conversions, total commissions owed (unpaid), and revenue attributed to the program. Use the per-affiliate breakdown to identify who is driving results and who has signed up but not yet promoted your products.
5. Record payouts when you pay affiliates: Affiliates are not paid automatically. When you send a payment (via bank transfer, PayPal, or any method), go to the affiliate's record, click Record Payout, enter the amount and date, and save. This deducts the amount from their pending commission balance in the system and creates a payout history entry both you and the affiliate can see. If you use PayPal Mass Pay, the PayPal Mass Pay integration in the app settings can pre-populate the payout file — but the actual payment and the system record are still two separate steps.
6. Communicate with affiliates: Use the affiliate list's email function to send updates about new products, promotional windows, or commission changes to all affiliates at once. Affiliates who receive regular communication about what to promote perform significantly better than those who get their tracking link and nothing else.

Key features and settings

How to get the most from the Affiliate app

The creators who run the most effective affiliate programs are not the ones with the most affiliates — they are the ones with the right affiliates. Ten affiliates who each have an audience that closely matches your product profile will outperform a hundred affiliates who signed up out of curiosity and never sent a single visitor. When recruiting, target your own existing customers first: people who have already bought from you and gotten results are the most credible promoters of your products and the most likely to convert their audience because they can speak from experience. Send a personal email to your top customers explaining the program before you post the signup link publicly. First-mover affiliates who joined because you invited them personally are far more engaged than those who found you through a cold signup form.

Commission rate is only one part of what motivates affiliates to actively promote you. The other parts are clarity (knowing exactly what to promote and to whom), materials (having a ready-made image, copy, or email they can use without creating everything from scratch), and communication (knowing when you have a new product, a sale, or a promotional window they can amplify). Create a simple "affiliate kit" — a short document with your best-performing product description, a few images they can use in social posts, and one or two email copy templates — and send it to every new affiliate when they join. Affiliates with materials promote; affiliates without materials procrastinate.

Monitor your performance dashboard weekly, not monthly. The click-to-conversion rate per affiliate is the most useful signal: an affiliate sending hundreds of clicks with zero conversions may have an audience that does not match your product, may be promoting via a context (e.g., paid ads, which may violate your terms) that inflates clicks without intent, or may have a broken link. Catching these patterns early lets you reach out, adjust, or remove the affiliate before commission liability accumulates on low-quality traffic. An affiliate who has high clicks and low conversions is worth a direct conversation — they may just need guidance on how to position your product to their specific audience.

Tiered commission structures are the most effective long-term incentive for affiliates who are already producing results. A flat 20% rate gives a high-performing affiliate no additional reason to push harder after they have already made ten sales. Raising their rate to 25% after ten sales costs you marginally more per conversion but creates a strong incentive to keep going — and signals that you value and reward results rather than treating every affiliate the same regardless of performance. Set up tiers before you launch rather than trying to negotiate individual rate increases later, which is administratively messy and creates inconsistency across your affiliate base.

Troubleshooting

Frequently asked questions