How To Create Affiliate Links (URLs) In Shopware 6

Below, we explain how to create a basic affiliate marketing campaign in Shopware 6. The platform lets you generate affiliate URLs and provide them to your partners by default. The affiliate codes are then saved upon order creation or registration when a customer uses such links to visit your store. Next, you use this information to reward your partners. That’s how everything works in a nutshell. Below, we cover more aspects of the default affiliate mechanisms of Shopware 6. You will learn the core principles of the Shopware 6 marketing tool. Next, we describe how to create affiliate links in Shopware 6. The last chapter unveils the basic aspects of affiliate code filtering. Before going any further, check other Shopware 6 tutorials in our cookbook.

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What Shopware 6 Marketing Tool Is

Shopware 6 provides a marketing instrument developed to evaluate affiliate links by default. Everything is pretty standard here: you provide partners with modified URLs and offer a percentage of the sale. Next, they place these links on their websites, leading traffic to your e-commerce store. You can also leverage the partner marketing tool to distinguish customers from a particular comparison portal or a price search engine. But how to implement this technic if there is no affiliate marketing module in Shopware 6?

You don’t need extra tools to create a separate partner URL with a unique code for each partner. It is only necessary to ensure that your partners link to you with the provided affiliate URL. We describe this process in the next chapter. What happens next, you will ask?

A potential buyer uses an external affiliate link to get to your Shopware 6 website. If they complete the checkout or register, the affiliate code gets stored in the order or the newly created customer account. As a store owner, you can evaluate this information later. No cookies are involved since codes are stored in the database. That’s it! Now, let’s see how to create affiliate URLs in Shopware 6.

How To Create Affiliate Links In Shopware 6

You cannot create affiliate URLs for partners in the Shopware 6 admin, as we’ve just mentioned. However, the platform lets you do that by setting the appropriate syntax behind your shop URL. Next, you provide such URLs to your partners. 

Note that Shopware 6 lets you create the following three types of partner links:

• Affiliate URLs;
• Campaign URLs;
• Combined URLs.

Affiliate URLs

Affiliate URLs in Shopware 6 are associated with creating a separate partner URL for each partner. They enable you to track a customer flow per partner. So, how to create affiliate URLs in Shopware 6? 

Just add ?affiliateCode= followed by a self-defined code to your shop address. Thus, your affiliate URL may look as follows:

http://www.myshop.eu/?affiliateCode=IndividualCode

Don’t forget to replace IndividualCode with your custom value. Let’s assume that the unique custom value is 123Rt5V7. Your affiliate URL should look as follows:

http://www.myshop.eu/category/?affiliateCode=123Rt5V7

Campaign URLs

As for campaign URLs in Shopware 6, they involve the same logic: you extend your store URL to filter all customers and orders that come from a specific banner or ad. The additional element is ?campaignCode= followed by a self-defined code. Thus, your campaign URL may look as follows:

http://www.myshop.eu/?campaignCode=IndividualCode

Don’t forget to replace IndividualCode with your custom value. Let’s assume that the unique custom value is BNR1. Then, your affiliate URL should take the following appearance:

http://www.myshop.eu/category/?campaignCode=BNR1

Combined URLs

You can freely combine partner codes with campaign codes with the help of “&” as follows: ?affiliateCode=IndividualCode&campaignCode=IndividualCode. Considering the two examples above, your combined URL should look as follows:

http://www.myshop.eu/?affiliateCode=123Rt5V7&campaignCode=BNR1

Or like this one, depending on the store page, it leads to:

http://www.myshop.eu/category/?affiliateCode=123Rt5V7&campaignCode=BNR1

How To View & Filter Affiliate Codes In Shopware 6

Your Shopware 6 administration stores used affiliate codes in a customer and order overview. Follow these steps to activate the feature:

1. Open a customer or order overview;
2. Proceed to the column row;
3. Open the context menu;
4. Enable Affiliate Code and Campaign Code.

Shopware 6 lets you use filters to show customers or orders with a specific code.

Note that Shopware 6 only assigns the affiliate code to customers if they register in your shop via the affiliate link. If they already have an account and place an order via the affiliate link, Shopware won’t assign them to a new code in the overview. However, the affiliate code will appear in the order overview. 

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