WooCommerce is built to sell products directly from your website. It can display products, process orders, manage checkout, and handle customer purchases, but it does not include a built-in affiliate system. As such, it cannot generate affiliate links. To do this, you'll need an affiliate marketing plugin.
What is a WooCommerce Affiliate Link?
A WooCommerce affiliate link is a URL containing a unique ID assigned to an affiliate. When someone clicks that link and makes a purchase from your store, the affiliate can be credited for the sale.
A typical affiliate link might look something like this: https://yourstore.com/?ref=affiliateID.
The exact format depends on the affiliate plugin you use.
When affiliate links are set up properly, they allow your store to:
- Identify which affiliate referred a customer
- Track clicks and visits
- Connect referred visitors to WooCommerce orders
- Calculate commissions
- Record referrals for reporting and payouts
What You Need to Create Affiliate Links in WooCommerce
To create affiliate links for your WooCommerce store, you’ll need a plugin that can handle the full referral process.
A good WooCommerce affiliate plugin should include:
- Affiliate registration and approval
- Automatic affiliate link generation
- Unique referral IDs or custom slugs
- Click and conversion tracking
- Commission calculation
- WooCommerce order integration
- Payout management
- Reporting and analytics
The most important part is WooCommerce integration. Affiliate links are only useful if they can be tied accurately to real WooCommerce purchases.
That means your affiliate system should be able to detect when a referred visitor places an order, calculate the correct commission, and update the referral if the order is refunded, canceled, or changed.
If the plugin doesn’t integrate properly with WooCommerce, you may end up manually checking orders, reconciling spreadsheets, or dealing with unreliable referral data.
Creating Affiliate Links in WooCommerce Using Solid Affiliate
Solid Affiliate is designed specifically to help WooCommerce store owners create and manage an affiliate program, including the generation of affiliate links.
The basic process works like this:
- An affiliate signs up for your program.
- You approve the affiliate automatically or manually, depending on your settings.
- Solid Affiliate assigns that affiliate a URL containing a unique referral ID.
- The affiliate shares the link on a blog, website, email list, social media profile, or other channel.
- When someone clicks the link and buys from your WooCommerce store, Solid Affiliate tracks the referral.
- The commission is calculated and recorded automatically.
All of this happens inside WordPress, without needing an external affiliate platform.
Generating Affiliate Links
With Solid Affiliate, each affiliate receives a default referral link, usually in a format like this: https://yourstore.com/?ref=affiliateID
Affiliates can find this link inside the Affiliate Portal:
They can then copy and paste the link into blog posts, product reviews, landing pages, emails, social media posts, or anywhere else they promote your products.
If you don’t want to use the default referral format, Solid Affiliate also supports custom affiliate slugs.
For example, instead of a link like https://yourstore.com/?ref=123, you may be able to use a custom slug that looks nicer in the referral URL:
This makes affiliate links easier to recognize, share, and manage.
Because Solid Affiliate is deeply integrated with WooCommerce, these links connect directly to your store’s order system.
Why WooCommerce Integration Matters
Creating the link is only one part of the process. The link also needs to connect properly to WooCommerce orders.
Solid Affiliate was built for WooCommerce, which means its referral links are tied directly into your store’s order system. This gives you several important advantages:
Accurate order-based tracking
When someone clicks an affiliate link and completes a purchase, Solid Affiliate connects the referral to the actual WooCommerce order.
Reliable commission calculations
Commissions can be calculated using real order data, including product totals, discounts, taxes, and other order details.
Automatic handling of refunds and cancellations
If an order is refunded, canceled, or updated, the associated affiliate commission can be adjusted automatically.
Support for normal WooCommerce workflows
Product variations, coupons, and other common WooCommerce features can work naturally alongside your affiliate program.
Everything runs inside WordPress
You don’t need to send data to a separate affiliate network or manage your program from an external platform.
This kind of integration makes affiliate links much easier to trust and manage. Instead of simply tracking clicks, Solid Affiliate connects affiliate activity to real purchases in your WooCommerce store.
Managing Affiliate Links and Performance
Solid Affiliate also gives store owners tools to manage the affiliate program behind those links.
From the dashboard, you can review:
- Affiliate registrations
- Clicks
- Referrals
- Commissions
- Payouts
- Affiliate performance
- Program reports
Affiliates also get their own interface where they can find links, view stats, and track their earnings:
These interfaces are designed to be intuitive, so both store owners and affiliates can usually understand the basics without needing to dig through complicated documentation.
Want to see more examples? Check out this short video:
Final Thoughts
WooCommerce does not create affiliate links for your products on its own. If you want affiliates to promote your store and earn commissions, you’ll need a dedicated affiliate plugin.
Solid Affiliate is our recommended option because it creates affiliate links, tracks referrals, calculates commissions, manages payouts, and integrates deeply with WooCommerce.
With the right plugin in place, creating affiliate links for WooCommerce becomes straightforward: affiliates sign up, receive their links, share them, and Solid Affiliate tracks the results automatically.
For other options, see our article, The 8 Best WooCommerce Affiliate Plugins.
