Affiliate emails: What gets sent, to whom, and when

Affiliate for WooCommerce sends automated email notifications to keep your affiliates engaged and your store administrators/affiliate managers fully informed.

These emails are divided into three categories:

1. Affiliate emails: Notifications sent to your affiliates.
2. Affiliate Manager emails: Internal updates sent to your store administrators/affiliate managers.
3. Order emails: Affiliate data added to your standard WooCommerce and WooCommerce Subscriptions order receipts.

Emails sent to affiliates

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These emails keep your affiliates up to date on their account status, earned commissions, monthly performance, etc.

1. Affiliate – Welcome Email

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• Who receives it: The newly approved affiliate.
• When it is sent: Whenever an affiliate joins your program by submitting through the affiliate registration form (whether manually approved by you or automatically accepted).
• What is included: A welcome greeting, their unique referral link and ID, instructions on how to start promoting, a direct link to their affiliate dashboard, a site product catalog link, etc., to get started.

2. Affiliate – Pending Request

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• Who receives it: The person applying to be an affiliate via the affiliate registration form.
• When it is sent: Immediately after they submit the registration form (if your store requires manual approval for new affiliates).
• What is included: An acknowledgment that their application was successfully received and is currently under review by your team.

3. Affiliate – New Conversion Received

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• Who receives it: The referring affiliate.
• When it is sent: Every time a customer makes a successful purchase using that affiliate’s link, coupon, lifetime binding, direct link, etc.
• What is included: The order number, total order amount, the commission they just earned, and a link to view their updated performance dashboard.

4. Affiliate – Commission Paid

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• Who receives it: The affiliate receiving the payout.
• When it is sent: As soon as a payout is processed (via PayPal, Stripe, Store credit, Coupon or manual payout).
• What is included: The total payout amount, the date range for the earnings, the payout method used, a link to their payout history, etc.

5. Affiliate – Summary Email

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• Who receives it: All active affiliates.
• When it is sent: Automatically on the 1st of every month (Note: This email is disabled by default and must be turned on in your settings).
• What is included: A summary of their performance from the previous month, including total commissions earned, visitor clicks, number of converted customers, overall conversion rate, their top-performing links, etc.

Emails sent to affiliate managers/store admins

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These emails help store administrators and affiliate managers monitor program growth, review applications, and manage payouts.

1. Affiliate Manager – New Registration Received

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• Who receives it: The Affiliate Manager (or the store admin).
• When it is sent: Whenever someone submits the affiliate registration form on your site.
• What is included: The applicant’s name, email, the website or promotional channels they provided, any custom questionnaire answers (if using a custom form), a quick link to approve or reject them, etc.

2. Affiliate Manager – Summary Email

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• Who receives it: The Affiliate Manager and Store Admins.
• When it is sent: Automatically on the 1st of every month at 1:00 PM.
• What is included: A high-level overview of your affiliate program’s monthly performance. It highlights gross affiliate-driven revenue, commissions paid, total orders, a leaderboard of your top affiliates, etc.

3. Affiliate Manager – Automatic Payouts Reminder

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This email is only active if you have automated payouts enabled.

• Who receives it: The Affiliate Manager or Store Admin.
• When it is sent: This alert is sent twice: 2 days and 12 hours before an automatic payout is scheduled to execute.
• What is included (and why it matters): It provides advance notice that commissions are about to be dispersed. This gives you a convenient window to check your payment gateway balance (like your PayPal funds), review the pending commissions, or pause/skip the scheduled payout from your dashboard if needed.

Native order emails

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Instead of sending a separate email, the plugin can add affiliate information directly into the standard order receipts you already receive for every new order.

Referral details in admin New Order Emails

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• Who receives it: The Store Administrator / Shop Manager.
• When it is sent: Attached to the standard WooCommerce “New Order” email as well as WooCommerce Subscriptions renewal “New Renewal Order” and switch “Subscription Switched” emails, if applicable.
• How to enable it: Go to WordPress admin > WooCommerce > Settings > Affiliate > Referrals and enable Send referral details to admin.
• What is included: It injects the referring affiliate’s name, the campaign name, the referral method used (link vs. coupon), and the exact commission breakdown directly into your order notification email.

How to manage and customize your emails

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You have full control over which emails are sent and how they read.

To turn emails on/off or change the subject lines:

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1. In your WordPress dashboard, go to WordPress admin > WooCommerce > Settings > Emails.
2. Scroll down to find the emails starting with Affiliate – or Affiliate Manager –.
3. Click Manage next to any email to turn it on or off, edit the Subject line, customize the Heading, or add additional text to the main body.

Using smart tags (Merge Tags)

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When editing the email text, you can use these special tags to automatically insert personalized details for each user:

1. {afwc_affiliate_name} – Displays the affiliate’s name.
2. {afwc_affiliate_link} – Displays the affiliate’s default referral link.
3. {afwc_affiliate_id} – Displays their specific affiliate ID.
4. {site_title} – Displays the name of your store.

Template Overrides

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For content updates and design changes, all email templates can be safely overridden.

Feature request

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Have a feature request or enhancement suggestion for Affiliate For WooCommerce? Submit a request or send it to us from here.