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How to Automatically Create Vanity URLs for Affiliates
How to Automatically Create Vanity URLs for Affiliates

Automatically create short, personalized vanity URLs for all of your affiliates.

Andre Tan avatar
Written by Andre Tan
Updated over 4 months ago

Vanity URLs are often used to transform a long URL into a short, personalized, easy-to-remember URL. At its core, a Vanity URL is a URL redirect, but because these URL redirects are often personalized, they are called “Vanity URLs.

Example Vanity URL: www.brand.com/jane

For brands on Shopify, you can manually create personalized vanity links for your affiliates following these instructions. However, as your program grows it may no longer be feasible to manually create a Vanity URL for every newly approved applicant and email it to them individually. That’s where Refersion’s Vanity URL automation feature comes in handy.

Note: Refersion’s Vanity URL automation feature is only available to Shopify merchants on our Enterprise Plan.

How Vanity URL automation for Shopify works in Refersion

When you approve new affiliates for your program, Refersion can auto-generate a Vanity URL for the affiliate using a combination of their first or last name plus 2 - 4 random numbers, first and last name, company name, or their affiliate ID.

Here are some possible vanity URL format combinations we can enable for your account:

  • brand.com/{firstname}{random4numbers} - (i.e. brand.com/jane1234)

  • brand.com/{lastname}{random4numbers} - (i.e brand.com/doe1234)

  • brand.com/{firstname}{lastname}{random2numbers} - (i.e. brand.com/janedoe12)

  • brand.com/{firstname}{lastname} - (i.e. brand.com/janedoe)

  • brand.com/{companyName} - (i.e. brand.com/janescarwash)

  • brand.com/{affiliateID} (i.e. brand.com/12345678)

Some affiliates are not comfortable with having their full name in a URL so we recommend going with just their first name plus 2 - 4 random numbers. These random numbers will prevent name collisions with other affiliates.

Alternatively, the Vanity URL can be chosen by the affiliate on your registration page using a custom field as shown in the image below:

Please note: The exact wording of how this field shows up in your registration form will be completely up to you. The vanity URL should not contain spaces or any other special characters so it’s best practice to note this on your registration form. Be as specific as possible in your description as it’s completely up to the affiliate to follow best practices when creating their personalized URL.

Once you’ve selected your preferred Vanity URL format and the feature is enabled, Refersion will automatically create new Vanity URL redirects within Shopify for your affiliates. It will be set up as a redirect from their personalized Vanity URL to their longer affiliate URL, and conversions will be tracked when customers click their personalized link.

Their personalized vanity URL will be displayed in their affiliate dashboard as well as within the welcome email from Refersion:

Affiliate dashboard:

Welcome email:

Please note: The Vanity URL automation feature only works for one domain and is incompatible with Refersion’s multi-domain feature.

How does this feature differ from manually creating URL redirects in my store?

URL redirects created in your store only live within your store and will not be displayed anywhere within Refersion, and will require that you inform each of your affiliates of their personalized link.

What if my store is not on Shopify or I am not on the enterprise plan?

Vanity URLs are URL redirects and you can create them in other ways:

Feature comparison chart:

Ready to have this feature enabled? Shoot us a message at [email protected] or use the in-app chat and let us know.

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