Shopify Affiliate Reporting Guide

Welcome to the Shopify Affiliate Reporting Guide! For Shopify Affiliates, understanding the reports available to you in Impact is essential to tracking performance and maximizing earnings. This guide will introduce you to key reports from the Shopify Affiliate Program, each offering valuable insights into your referral activities. Let’s dive into the essential reports that can elevate your success as a Shopify Affiliate!

What you need to know about Impact

To effectively leverage your reports, it’s crucial to understand the platform behind them—Impact. Impact is a robust platform that Shopify uses to manage its affiliate program. This trusted third-party affiliate marketing platform offers Shopify Affiliates essential tools for tracking performance, accessing promotional assets, creating referral links, and receiving commission payments. With its reporting and deep insights, Impact allows you to monitor your referrals and optimize your marketing strategies effectively.

 

Navigating Impact reports

As a Shopify Affiliate, you have access to several powerful Shopify specific reports within your Impact dashboard. Here are the key reports that you should leverage to maximize your performance:

1. Shopify Advanced Action Listing Report

• Overview: This custom report is built exclusively for Shopify Affiliates to view detailed action-level data related to their referrals. It meticulously tracks each stage of the merchant's journey, from Free Trial to Paid Trial, and through to an Online Sale.
• How to use: 
  • Access this report from your "Reports" menu by searching "Shopify Advanced Action Listing". 
    
  • Choose your date range and run the report by clicking on the magnifying glass button. 
  • Review action types, dates, potential earnings, and current statuses of your referred Shopify merchants (pending/approve).
• Benefits: Gain a granular view of your commissionable actions, understand your revenue potential, and swiftly identify which strategies work best. 

2. Cohort Reports

• Overview: Cohort Reports enable you to track the performance of your referrals over a specific time period based on referral dates to see how many of them convert into commissionable actions (Online Sales). These reports provide insights into the long-term effects of your marketing efforts. 
• How to use: 
  • Navigate to the "Reports" menu in your Impact dashboard and search for "Cohort Report". Then, select which of the four Cohort Reports you wish to analyze: performance by country, day, month, or SubID.
  • You can view the data in two ways: “Cohort” and “In Period”.
    • Cohort view: Select the “Cohort” date range to analyze the performance of your referrals based on their initial referral date over a specified time frame. This view allows you to focus on how Paid Trials convert into commissionable actions (Online Sales) after the trial period ends. Remember, Paid Trials can last up to 3 months, so take this duration into account when evaluating your results. 
    • In Period view: If you want to see all actions that occurred within a specific time frame, regardless of when the referrals were made, select the “In Period” date range view. This view shows actions based on the actual months they took place, without being linked to the referral month.
  • Input your desired date range and press the magnifying glass button to generate the report.
• Benefits: Analyze conversion rates, optimize campaigns, and make informed financial projections. 

3. Performance by Ad Report

• Overview: The Performance by Ad report allows you to analyze the effectiveness of your promotional strategies, identify your highest-converting content and spot opportunities for improvement.
• How to use: 
  • From the "Reports" menu, select "Performance by Ad".
  • Examine: clicks, conversions, and the performance of your ads over time.
• Benefits: Identify which advertising methods yield the best results, enabling you to focus your resources effectively. 

 

By utilizing the Shopify Affiliate reports available in your Impact dashboard, you can gain comprehensive insights into your affiliate performance, optimize your marketing efforts, and increase your earning potential. Stay proactive by regularly analyzing your reports and adjusting your strategies as needed.

If you have any questions or need assistance, don't hesitate to reach out to the Shopify Affiliate Team at affiliates@shopify.com.