Midnight Interview with Myself: Did Our Affiliate Program Actually Work?

I built our affiliate system over two late nights with Affiliate Pro - WordPress Affiliate Program Plugin for WooCommerce as the backbone. My goals were humble: don’t wreck checkout, don’t drown support, and don’t ship a dashboard that only a spreadsheet monk understands. What follows is the full arc: setup, math, fraud controls, UX tweaks, and the little automation that saved us from “manual payout regret.”

Q1 — Why even add affiliates now, and why this stack?

A (me): Timing. Ads were volatile, content SEO was working, and partners were asking for referral links anyway. I wanted rails that speak WooCommerce without a wrestling match. Affiliate Pro - WordPress Affiliate Program Plugin for WooCommerce looked like the pragmatic middle: enough knobs to be safe, not so many that I’d spend Sunday reading panel tooltips like sacred texts.

Also, I try not to mix five addon packs if one can carry 80% of the job. When I need breadth I window-shop WordPress Addons, but once the plan is set, I commit to a single kit.

Q2 — What does “done” mean for an affiliate rollout?

A: I wrote a one-pager in the runbook. “Done” meant:

• A partner can self-serve: sign up, get a link, see clicks, see commissions, request payout.
• Tracking doesn’t break core flows: carts, coupons, logged-in users, subscription renewals.
• House rules are visible: cookie window, last-click logic, restricted channels (e.g., no branded keyword bidding).
• Dispute math is decidable: a step-by-step way to answer “who gets credit?” without arguing feelings.
• Payouts are boring: batchable, tagged, and reversible with paper trails.

If it didn’t support those, I’d rather wait than ship a “mystery box.”

Q3 — What’s the shortest path to a working MVP?

A: Here’s the 90-minute flow I followed. It’s not exhaustive; it’s just enough to be proud of:

1) Install & Isolate - Stage first. Disable all cache for logged-in users during setup. - Toggle on Affiliate Pro; confirm it detects WooCommerce orders and statuses.

2) Commission Model (MVP) - One global percent (e.g., 15%) and a floor (orders < $X get 0, to avoid $1 spam). - Exclude shipping & taxes; include discounts after coupons (your accounting will thank you).

3) Attribution - Last click wins within a cookie window (30 days to start). - Logged-in buyers: attribute by last click or last unpaid coupon—pick one, write it down.

4) Affiliate UX - Signup form with 4 fields max; instant approval for low-risk traffic sources. - Dashboard: show Clicks | Orders | Pending | Approved | Paid in one row; hide the circus. - Terms page in plain language; link to it from signup and footer.

5) Payouts - Net-30 approval window. - Minimum payout threshold (e.g., $50). - Export batch CSV with order IDs embedded in memo fields.

6) Guardrails - Block self-referrals (same email, same hashed card, or same IP cluster). - Cap coupon stacking with referral (choose either coupon or affiliate—document this).

7) Smoke Tests - Guest flow: click → add to cart → buy. - Logged-in flow: repeat; confirm attribution sticks. - Refund flow: initiate refund, verify commission reversal.

You can ship this and sleep.

Q4 — Show me the exact settings you toggled (the “copy me” table)

A: I don’t trust long paragraphs for settings, so here’s the compact map I pasted into my runbook.

Q5 — What did you measure, and how soon?

A: Day 1 metrics were intentionally boring:

• Click → Order rate: number, not a judgment.
• Top partners by approved commission.
• Top SKUs by referred revenue (watch margin here).
• Time to first payout per partner (is the program motivating, or vague?).
• Refund rate on referred orders vs. baseline (spikes signal misaligned promos).

Anything else can wait a week.

Q6 — How did you keep fraud from becoming your full-time job?

A: I prefer tripwires over manual review:

• Same device fingerprint across referrer and buyer? Flag for human eyes.
• Velocity rule: >N orders from new affiliate in <M hours → hold commissions.
• Coupon + referral collisions: if a coupon is meant for email subscribers, don’t stack it with referral clicks (policy, not vibe).
• Geo mismatch: affiliate location and buyer location can differ, but if all traffic funnels from one VPN ASN, we peek.

I’m not trying to be a cop; I’m trying to avoid paying for manufactured “orders.”

Q7 — What broke first?

A: Two things:

1) Cache + attribution on a front page banner. The ref param was stripped by a redirect plugin. Fix: whitelist the param, update caches to respect query keys only where needed.

2) Renewals for subscriptions. First order credited fine; renewals shouldn’t re-credit unless you want recurring commissions (write it down!). We went with first purchase only for now.

Q8 — Give me your “make it calm” checklist (the laminated kind)

A: Print this. I did.

• [ ] Cookie window set, documented, and visible on the terms page
• [ ] Last-click model confirmed; edge-case list written (email coupons, renewals)
• [ ] One global commission; razor-thin SKUs excluded
• [ ] Self-ref prevention toggled (email + payment hash + IP cluster)
• [ ] Net-30 approval; min payout threshold; CSV export tested
• [ ] Refund reversals tested; partial refunds behave predictably
• [ ] Signup friction low; dashboard shows Clicks/Orders/Pending/Approved/Paid in one row
• [ ] Partner rules: no brand bidding, no forced redirects, no email scraping
• [ ] Support macros: three canned replies (approval, threshold, payout timing)
• [ ] Observability: daily email digest to me with top partners + anomalies

Q9 — What copy changes mattered most?

A: Less “join our amazing program,” more “here’s what you get”:

• “15% on approved orders, paid net-30. Minimum payout $50. Cookie 30 days. Last-click wins. No double-dipping with coupons.”
• “Allowed: reviews, tutorials, honest comparisons. Not allowed: brand bidding, coupon scraping, forced redirects.”
• “Disputes welcome within 7 days—add order ID and context; we’ll reply within 24 hours.”

Partners thanked us for clarity. Clarity makes good affiliates stay.

Q10 — How did you keep support from drowning?

A: Three moves:

• A tiny FAQ inside the dashboard (not a link to a wiki no one reads).
• Email macro for “threshold not reached yet” with current progress included.
• A status bar at the top: “$37 to go before your next payout.” You’d be amazed how this cuts tickets.

Q11 — What about branding, UTM chaos, and “ten links per partner” headaches?

A: I kept it small:

• One clean referral link by default. If a partner needs sub-IDs, allow subid params but ignore unknown query soup.
• Provide two starter banners (light/dark) and a basic copy kit. Don’t make everyone invent assets.
• Use server-side redirects that don’t nuke the referral params. If you must shorten, shorten after attribution, not before.

Q12 — Code or config tweaks worth stealing?

A: Two snippets I paste into almost every build.

1) Respect reduced motion (keeps dashboards readable)

@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) {
  * { animation-duration: 0.001ms !important; transition-duration: 0.001ms !important; }
}

2) Minimalist “status strip” pattern (no heavy CSS framework)

<div class="aff-strip">
  <span>Clicks: 124</span>
  <span>Orders: 9</span>
  <span>Pending: $83</span>
  <span>Approved: $120</span>
  <span>Paid: $0</span>
</div>
<style>
.aff-strip { display:flex; gap:12px; flex-wrap:wrap; padding:.5rem .75rem; border:1px solid #eee; border-radius:8px; }
.aff-strip span { font: 500 14px/1.4 system-ui, -apple-system, Segoe UI, Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; }
</style>

The point isn’t pretty; it’s at-a-glance.

Q13 — Any advice on tiers, exclusivity, or custom deals?

A: Start flat. Watch behavior for a month. Then:

• If a partner is driving high-intent, raise their tier quietly (20% for them, 15% base).
• If someone keeps fighting the rules, they’ll fight you at 20% too—don’t buy trouble.
• Write a one-liner for exclusivity: “We’ll match your best public rate, reserve the right to audit landing pages quarterly.”

Policies save friendships.

Q14 — What did you actually link to, and why only two links in this article?

A: I promised myself to avoid link pile-ups that look spammy. I only linked to: - WordPress Addons — when I’m scouting addon patterns.
- Affiliate Pro — the specific plugin I used.

Everything else I referenced in plain text (including gplpal) to keep the focus on decisions, not a maze of URLs.

Q15 — Final notes, then coffee

Rolling out affiliates isn’t a stunt; it’s a governance problem disguised as marketing. If you set boring, explicit rules; keep the dashboard clean; and test refunds before you brag about signups, you’ll avoid 90% of the “we regret everything” stories. The last 10% is judgment—so write your judgments down before you need them.

I’m not pretending this is the only way. It’s just the way that let me ship on two quiet nights and wake up to fewer tickets, not more. If you follow the same arc—MVP, guardrails, humane copy, and small automation—your affiliate engine will feel like part of the store, not a bolt-on hustle.

And yes, future-me: the runbook you’re looking for is in the same folder where you stash your checkout tests. The filename starts with AFF_ because you promised yourself you’d be less cryptic this year.