Hi all,
Hopefully this is the right place to post this question. It seems the most relevant place as I wanted to reach those of you who build stores for merchants.
As store creators, presumably you make app recommendations to your clients regularly, so that you can deliver a fully developed store to them where sometimes an app or two was necessary to give them what they needed.
I’m curious if you currently recommend apps which have an affiliate programs, where you get a cut of the ongoing revenue while your client continues to pay for the app? Or are you currently simply recommend apps that your client needs regardless of earnings potential? If you had a choice a apps that do the same thing, and both worked equally well, would you install the app that pays you ongoing commission for referrals?
I’m asking as an app developer who has just launched a new app, Order Deadline 2, on Shopify. Our first app launched in 2016 and we’ve just completed a rebuild from the ground up. We never used to have an affiliate program, but we know that agencies and freelancers regularly installed our app on many of their clients stores. In all the years we’ve been running, we’ve only ever had a very small handful of people ask whether we have an affiliate program, but the answer back then was no.
Now that Order Deadline 2 has arrived and the platform has come a long way since 2016 where affiliate programs are viable with tracking/attribution of installations, we’ve signed up to Shoffi who provide an affiliate solution. This is fairly expensive at almost $100 per month so I wanted to gauge how likely you theme developers, store creators, agencies and freelancers are to sign up to something like our affiliate program. Do you think it’s something you would bother to spend the time signing up for, or is it just not worth your time? I’m trying to get an idea of whether we should keep using Shoffi or switch to a cheaper alternative.
For clarity our app costs $14.99 per month or $149.99 annually and we’re giving back 30% to referrals for 36 months (while the store owner continues to subscribe of course). Is that incentive enough to bother signing up as an affiliate of Shoffi and recommending our app(s) to your clients?
Many thanks for your feedback.
Mat