An affiliate program is one of the simplest ways to grow traffic and sales without spending on ads: you give other websites, creators and influencers a unique link to your products, and you pay them a commission only when that link actually leads to a sale. No sale, no cost. In 2026, with organic search harder to win and ad costs still climbing, affiliate programs have become one of the more reliable, low-risk channels for stores that sell digital products, themes and templates.
If you use WordPress, setting one up usually means installing a dedicated affiliate plugin (AffiliateWP and Easy Affiliate are both solid options for WooCommerce stores). If you sell on Squarespace, you will typically rely on a third-party affiliate network instead, since Squarespace does not have native affiliate tracking built in.
How does an affiliate program work?
Once someone signs up for your program, the software assigns them a unique referral code or link, usually tied to their account. They grab that link from their affiliate dashboard and share it on their own site, in a blog post, an email newsletter or on social media.
Say one of your products lives at “www.theshop.com/products/business-theme/”. The affiliate’s version of that link might look like “www.theshop.com/products/business-theme/?ref=AF_0123”. The visitor never notices the extra code, but a tracking cookie is set in their browser the moment they click through, and your affiliate software logs that this visit came from affiliate AF_0123. If a purchase happens, before the cookie expires, the affiliate earns their commission automatically.
That cookie duration matters more than most store owners expect. A short window, say 24 hours, only rewards affiliates for impulse purchases. A longer window of 30 to 60 days is more realistic for higher-priced items like website templates, where a visitor might compare a few options before buying.
Setting commissions that actually attract affiliates
Commission rates for digital products tend to run higher than physical goods, often between 20% and 50%, since there is no manufacturing or shipping cost eating into the margin. A $50 product with a 25% commission pays the affiliate $12.50 per sale, which is enough to be worth an affiliate’s time to promote if your product converts reasonably well.
The rate itself is only part of the pitch, though. A higher commission on a product nobody wants will still attract no one. Affiliates care just as much about conversion rate, average order value and whether you give them anything to work with beyond a bare link.
Give your affiliates something to work with
The affiliate programs that actually perform are the ones that make promotion easy. That usually means a small kit of ready-to-use assets in the affiliate dashboard: banner images in a few common sizes, a handful of pre-written social captions, and current product screenshots they can drop straight into a blog post or newsletter. The less friction between “I want to promote this” and “here’s my link, here’s an image,” the more your affiliates will actually post.
Pay on time, and be upfront about the threshold
When you pay affiliates matters almost as much as how much you pay them. Most programs set a minimum payout threshold, often $40 to $50, though some push it as high as $100 to $200, which can quietly discourage smaller affiliates who never quite reach it.
A simple, predictable schedule builds more trust than a high commission rate on its own. Paying out on a fixed date each month, regardless of whether an affiliate has earned $10 or $700, signals that your program is reliable and worth investing time in.
One more thing: disclosure isn’t optional
Affiliates promoting your products are legally required in most regions to disclose that their links are paid or commission-based (in the US, this falls under FTC guidelines). It’s worth stating this clearly in your affiliate terms, both to protect your affiliates and to keep your program on solid legal footing. A short, standard disclosure line (“This post contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a commission if you make a purchase”) is usually all that’s required.
Is it worth setting up?
For most template and theme stores, yes. If your own site gets modest traffic on its own, an affiliate program is one of the few channels that scales with almost no extra cost. Fifty affiliates each sending you 100 visits a month is 5,000 extra visits you would otherwise have had to earn through ads or content alone, and you only pay when those visits actually convert.
It does take some ongoing attention, keeping commission rates competitive, refreshing affiliate assets and paying out reliably, but compared to running paid ads, the downside risk is close to zero.
If you have not created your website yet, you may be interested in Create Your Website With WordPress, and Create Your Website With Squarespace.
You may also like: Tips Before Starting A Blog.
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