Adding a sign-up form to your website is a great way to convert non-buying store traffic into affiliates. Social Snowball provides you with a simple, frictionless sign-up form that you can seamlessly include on any page of your Shopify store. Additionally, you can auto-approve each applicant or manually approve the applicants coming via your sign-up form.
We recommend that you build a page around your sign-up form that does a good job explaining why people should be interested in joining your affiliate program. Here's an example of a simple landing page we built using Shopify's page builder and Social Snowball's sign-up form:
TUTORIAL:
To create a sign-up form, go to the Customize tab in your dashboard and open the Sign-Up Forms section.
Create a new form.
In the Create Sign-Up Form popup, name your form, select the program to which you wish to add affiliates joining through this form, and select whether you wish to approve applicants automatically.
'Automatically approve applicants' toggle allows you to create a signup form that either (1) automatically approves each applicant and adds them as an affiliate instantly or (2) requires applicants to be manually approved by you before they're added as affiliates. Keep it switched on if you wish to approve applicants automatically, and switch it off if you wish to approve or reject applicants manually.
After you click Create Form, the sign-up form editor will open. You can then add fields, edit all text, adjust the colors and styles of the form, insert an image, and even edit the form's CSS. You can also ask applicants to connect their Instagram or TikTok account - see Requiring social connections on your sign-up form below.
Pro Tip:
You can also add Terms & Conditions to your sign-up form in the Text editor tab. Use the Add a required checkbox toggle to add a checkbox that the affiliates must tick before submitting the application.
You can also edit the Confirmation Page, which will appear after an affiliate fills out and submits the sign-up form.
If you choose to auto-approve affiliates, the confirmation page can display their program information and pull custom variables from their profile, such as discount code, link, discount value, commission, etc. Add custom variables using the {var} button above the Body Text editor box.
Pulling these custom variables in the confirmation page is not possible for sign-up forms with manual approval because the applicant has not yet been approved by you and, therefore, has not yet been added as an affiliate. The confirmation page for manual approval will look like this:
After you've made the changes, click Save & Publish. The Add your form to Shopify popup that appears after you save and publish allows you to embed the sign-up form on your website with iFrame or App Blocks.
We recommend adding a link or button to the sign-up page (where your sign-up form is embedded) in both your main menu and footer menu to maximize the number of sign-ups.
Include text and/or images above the sign-up form highlighting the benefits of joining your affiliate program. Refer to the image below for an example.
Once your sign-up form is live on your website and you start receiving sign-ups, one of two scenarios occur:
If automatic approval of applicants is enabled, the applicant is added as an affiliate immediately, requiring no further action from you.
If automatic approval of applicants is disabled, you will need to manually approve or reject the applicants based on their applications. You can review them in the Affiliates > Applications tab. Please refer to this tutorial for more information on manually approving or rejecting applicants.
You can also switch on the appropriate emails for your sign-up form from your dashboard's Customize>Emails section.
Note:
If you're using Klaviyo integration to send emails, the flow trigger to send an email to the auto-approved affiliate will be:
Social Snowball - Signed up as an affiliate via sign up form
Klaviyo triggers for the manual approval process are:
For applicants: Social Snowball - Pending affiliate applicationFor approved applicants: Social Snowball - Approved affiliate application
For rejected applicants: Social Snowball - Rejected affiliate application
You can automate capturing consent from affiliates to send emails and SMS via our Klaviyo integration. (tutorial)
If you currently use a sign-up form with auto-approval and wish to switch to manual approval, you can create a new form with auto-approval toggled off.
Requiring social connections on your sign-up form
You can ask applicants to connect their Instagram, TikTok, or both as part of your sign-up form. Because they have to log in to the account rather than just type a handle, it helps confirm you're hearing from real creators.
In the sign-up form editor, open the Social menu and add Instagram, TikTok, or both. Each one has its own setting, so you can make one required and leave the other optional:
Required - applicants can't submit the form until they've connected that account.
Optional - applicants are prompted to connect, but can still submit without it. You'll get more connected creators without turning anyone away.
This only works on standalone sign-up forms. It isn't available when the form is embedded on your site with iFrame or App Blocks.
Any TikTok account can connect, so there's no extra setup for applicants. Instagram is stricter:
What applicants need for Instagram: a professional account (Business or Creator, not personal) that's connected to a Facebook Page they're an admin of. Applicants without this setup can't connect, so if you make Instagram required, they won't be able to submit. Meta's guide to connecting Instagram to a Facebook Page walks them through it.