The different types of Shopify discount codes & how to use them effectively in affiliate marketing

There are 4 different types of discount code in the Shopify ecosystem, but this article will explore the two most important:

  1. Amount off products – discount specific products or collections of products
  2. Amount off order – discount the total order amount

Each discount type offers different features. Avelon uses Amount off order as it is the simplest and most effective for affiliate promotions. If you would like to restrict discount code use to specific Shopify product collections, then we will explain how to set this up in this guide.

 

Amount off products

Amount off products is designed to restrict discount code usage to specific products or collections of products. This means you can set up the discount code to work with a collection of products and it won’t work on other products outside of this collection.

Amount off products is ideal if you would like your affiliates to promote a specific collection, i.e if they have been gifted a specific product and you just want them to promote that product – or only attribute sales of that specific product. This is not ideal and affiliates prefer being attributed sales on every product.

Avelon currently does not create ‘Amount off products’ discount codes from Avelon to Shopify through its native integration, but uses Amount off order.

If you would like to restrict discount code use to specific collections, then we have designed a workflow to set this up:

1. Create the discount code in Shopify first

You must create the discount code in Shopify first. If you create the discount code in Avelon with the Shopify integration, it will generate the discount code as an ‘Amount off order’ code and you will not be able to change it afterwards.

  1. Go to your Shopify Dashboards > Discounts
  2. Click Create Discount
  3. Select Amount off products
  4. Enter the discount code in the Discount code box (this will be what you add to Avelon later)
  5. Enter the Discount values, i.e 20% off
  6. Click the Search collections box and find the collection you’d like to restrict the code usage to
  7. Press Save

2. Assign the discount code to the affiliate in Avelon

You must now assign the discount code to an affiliate in Avelon. To do this:

  1. Go to your Avelon Dashboard > My Affiliates
  2. Click Promo codes
  3. Click Add promo code
  4. Select the affiliate from the dropdown (or type their name in)
  5. Enter the same discount code you created on Shopify in the Enter promo code box
  6. Add the same % as what the Shopify discount code was set up with into the Discount % box
  7. Untick the ‘Create code in Shopify’ tick box
  8. Click Add
You MUST untick the ‘Create code in Shopify’ tick box. If you do not, then our integration will either overwrite the discount code you have just set up, or it will stall and produce an error. This is because the discount code already exists.

Amount off order

Amount off order is the most useful discount code type and is what Avelon uses as its primary discount code creation tool between Avelon and Shopify. It allows the affiliate to promote your store and for the customer to redeem a % off their total order (excluding shipping, obviously).

We also use this type for gifting. You can learn more about gifting on Avelon here.

To create an amount off order promo code, you can do so from within the Avelon ecosystem:

  1. Go to Dashboard > My Affiliates
  2. Click Promo codes
  3. Click Add promo code
  4. Select the affiliate from the dropdown menu
  5. Enter their promo code 
  6. Add the discount %
  7. Click Add

Please make sure you have the latest version of our Shopify app installed to access this feature. You can tell if you have it installed by:

  1. Click Add promo code from the Promo codes interface
  2. If there is a tick box which states ‘Create code in Shopify’ – then you have the latest version installed.

Posts related to this article

Explore other posts related to this article below, or head back to Affiliate Support.

Sign in

Request access

Discover more from Avelon

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading