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Affiliates are far more likely to promote your offers if you make it easy for them.
One of the best ways to make it really easy is to share their personal affiliate link directly inside your emails to them. That way they don’t have to login to find their link and they can’t grab the wrong link or get confused where to find it.
If you also share some swipe copy they can use alongside their link, there shoudl be no barriers to them sharing. (I find sharing PS swipe works well as anyone can add a simple PS shouting out your offer to their already planned newsletter content.)
Now this is a nice idea in theory but how can we set this up? How can we automatically bring across each affiliate’s ID into Convertkit so that we can share their Thrivecart affiliate ID in emails?
I figured I would probably be able to do this with Zapier and was surprised when I realised that updating a custom field wasn’t an option. I spoke with both Convertkit and Zapier and the only solution we could find was to manually upload a CSV file with affiliate ID’s before sending an email to my affiliates.
That was far too time consuming for my liking – I try to automate as much of my business as possible so I kept seeking a way and trying out new tools that might help me do this.
That’s when I discovered that Pabbly Connect does allow you to edit the subscribers custom fields and it’s really simple to set up.
In this blog post I will share with you
- how to add a custom field for affiliate ID in Converkit
- how to automatically bring across an affiliate’s ID into Convertkit
- how to use their affiliate ID to share their exact personal affiliate link from within an email (without sharing it with anyone else.)
How to add a custom field for affiliate ID in Convertkit
Find any subscriber (it doesn’t need to be an affiliate) and click into their profile.
On the left you will find their name, email address subscriber tags & segments. Just below their name and email address, there is an option to ‘add a new field.’
Create a new field and in the field name, call it ‘Affiliate ID.’ You can leave the value blank for now.
How to automatically bring across an affiliate’s Affiliate ID using Pabbly Connect
Why use Pabbly Connect for this?
Pabbly Connect is a cheaper version of Zapier.
There is a free version – for up to 100 tasks – and plans are an affordable one-time-only fee.
1 year of Pabbly Connect is cheaper than 1 year of Zapier (for the same number of tasks) but then every year with Pabbly Connect is then free.
I’ve also found that Pabbly Connect is much easier to use, uses less tasks for each action and offers more options for ‘do this or that.’
How to set up this affiliate ID automation in Pabbly Connect
Pabbly own a few tech tools so when you register for a Pabbly account, you will need to first select Pabbly Connect from your dashboard.
Once inside your Pabbly Connect dashboard, select ‘new workflow.’
Start with the trigger and search for Thrivecart. It will prompt you to connect your Thrivecart account via your API key (which can be found under your Thrivecart settings.)
From there you can search the drop down box for ‘affiliate approved’ and then assign for which of your products will trigger this automation. You can assign a single product or multiple products.
You will now need to test this step.
First click on ‘save and send test request.’
Second, sign up to your own affiliate program with one of your own email addresses.
It’s important you do this in this order!
Once it has found your new affiliate registration, you will see your details showing just below the step.
You can now move on to add an action.
Start by searching for Convertkit (or whichever emails service provider you are using.)
Again if this is the first automation you are setting up, you can connect your account via API.
For this step, we are going to choose ‘find subscriber.’
In the email address field, start typing email to find the matching email field in Thrivecart.
Click save and send test request.
Next create a new action inside Convertkit again.
This time you need to select ‘Update a subscriber.’ Now you will need to match up the following fields from Thrivecart
- Subscriber ID
- First name
- Email address
- Affiliate ID.
Click save and send test request again.
Now if you find your email address in Convertkit, you will see that your affiliate ID has now been added to your subscriber info.
How to add someones personal affiliate link to a newsletter (or broadcast) in Convertkit.
Navigate to Thrivecart and find the affiliate link you need for one of your affiliates – it doens’t matter who.
Copy and paste it into your broadcast or email sequence. Then identify the affiliate ID and remove it. Keep your cursor in the same place as where the affiliate link was and click the + sign to get the option to add content. From here click personalisation then custom field – affiliate ID
It should look a little like this link:
https://{{ subscriber.affiliate_id }}–passiveincomesuperstars.thrivecart.com/affiliate-marketing-superstars/
Now when you send this broadcast, each persons’s email will be slightly different with their own affiliate link included so they can copy and paste directly from your email!
How to update existing subscribers with affiliate ID
You can do this by downloading a CSV file of all your affiliates and then uploading that into Convertkit. It only takes a few moments to do and with this automation, you’ll only need to do this once!
Other recommended resources for running your affiliate program
If you are setting up your affiliate program within Thrivecart, you may wish to check out this course.
If you’re the sort of person who wants to do 20% of the work for 80% of the benefits then check out this resource.
If you are someone who loves templates and wants all the bells and whistles, this course will be right up your alley.
If you want a template to set up your affiliate program hub in Notion then check this one out.
How to get a bonus for signing up to Pabbly Connect!
If you use my affiliate link to purchase Pabbly Connect, you are eligible for Superstar bucks credit (aka credit you can spend inside my business over the next 12 months.)
To claim your credit, please use this link directly before purchase and then email support@passiveincomesuperstars.com with a copy of your invoice.
- Purchase a standard plan – get $50 Superstar bucks credit
- Purchase a pro plan – get $100 Superstar bucks credit
- Purchase the ultimate plan – get $150 Superstar bucks credit
I also offer bonuses for