Signing Up With Merchants

Understand the process of scouting and applying to a merchant’s program.

Nick Castellano avatar
Written by Nick Castellano
Updated over a week ago

When you play your cards right, affiliate or influencer marketing is an opportunity with enormous potential to grow and to earn for both you and your merchant partner. The key to success is to make smart choices about who to partner with, and then, understand how the signup process works.

Scouting Out Programs

You can join the Refersion Marketplace to search for merchant programs and even have programs recommended to you. You may also see opportunities to join affiliate marketing programs in lots of places. Some examples:

  • An ad or a post about an ambassador program on social media.

  • An email or display after you’ve purchased a merchant’s product.

  • In the navigation bar of a merchant’s website.

Regardless of where or how you learn about them, it’s important to evaluate these merchants and programs carefully before signing up. The best merchant-influencer relationships are formed on the basis of clear expectations and ongoing communication.

When evaluating an opportunity, take a close look at the brand and their ambassador application, and ask yourself:

  • Am I passionate about this brand and their products?

  • Do I believe in this brand’s cause or mission?

  • Are we a good match?

  • Am I prepared to faithfully follow their terms and conditions — promoting their products how and where they need me to?

  • Are their commission offer and payment terms acceptable (how will they pay me for any sales I generate, and in what timeframe)?

If you’ve answered yes to all the above questions and taken the time to fill out and submit an application, then you may be wondering what comes next.

How the Affiliate Program Signup Process Works

1. Applying to Join a Program

The Refersion Marketplace makes it easy to sign up for any merchant’s program. Once you discover a brand or product that you'd like to promote, you'll click on the “Apply to Offer” button.

This will take you to the specific brand's affiliate registration form for you to fill out. Once you submit your application, it will be pending approval from the merchant.

If you find the program a different way such as on the merchant’s site where they are promoting their affiliate program, you can always fill out the registration form provided.

In either case, once you’ve submitted the application, you may receive an email stating that your account is pending review and approval. This means the merchant is looking over your application and will send you an email if and when you are accepted. It’s important to note that not all merchants communicate the exact same way, so some will tell you how long their review process takes while others might not.

2. Welcome Email

Once you are accepted to a program, you’ll receive a welcome email from the merchant. Click the URL inside to login and access your Affiliate Portal.

Within the Marketplace you’ll be able to see your active accounts on the My Offers page by toggling “Active” on the Status selection:

Leveraging a Marketplace account allows you to see all of your active programs in one place. You can also click into any of the individual affiliate program portals from this screen.

You’ll have a different affiliate portal for each of the merchants you work with in Refersion. But if you use the same email for all of your accounts, then you’ll see them all listed when logging in from the Refersion homepage.

3. Affiliate Portal

Your portal is where you’ll:

  • Scan your Dashboard to track progress and payments.

  • Grab, customize, and share your referral link.

  • Test and download marketing creative.

  • Review your conversion history and pull reports.

  • Manage your account settings.

You may also communicate with your merchant here.

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