Turn Your Customers Into Your Best Sales Team

Aiva Skill: Affiliate/Referrals

Every successful e-commerce business knows that word-of-mouth referrals are gold. But tracking them? That’s always been the challenge. Until now.

AIVA’s Affiliate & Referral Tracking System doesn’t just track referrals it encourages them and makes affiliate/referral marketing effortless, profitable, and completely automated. Whether you’re running a boutique Shopify store or managing multiple brands, our Aiva handles everything from cookie tracking to commission payouts.

The Problem With Traditional Affiliate Programs

Most affiliate systems force you to choose between two bad options:

1. Discount codes only - Great for tracking, but terrible for premium brands that don’t want to look “discount-driven”
2. Manual tracking - Accurate but completely unsustainable as you scale

The result? Merchants either lose margin on unnecessary discounts or miss out on affiliate opportunities entirely.

How AIVA Solves This

Our system gives you the best of both worlds:

Cookie-Based Attribution (No Discount Required!)

When someone clicks an affiliate link, we set a first-party cookie that lasts 60 days (configurable per affiliate). Even if they don’t purchase immediately - or don’t use a discount code - we still track the referral and award the commission.

Example flow:
1. Customer clicks: https://yourstore.com/products/premium-item?ref=AF-PARTNER
2. Cookie set automatically (valid for 60 days)
3. Customer browses, compares, thinks about it…
4. Customer purchases 2 weeks later (no discount code needed)
5. Commission automatically credited to affiliate

Priority-Based Attribution

We support BOTH cookies and discount codes, with smart priority handling:

1. Discount Code (Priority 1) - If customer applies a code at checkout, that affiliate gets credit
2. Cookie (Priority 2) - No code? We check for a valid cookie within the attribution window
3. Previous Referral (Priority 3) - For LTV tracking, we credit the original referrer on repeat purchases

This means merchants can offer optional discounts without breaking the tracking system.

Features That Scale With Your Business

Lifetime Value (LTV) Commissions (optional)

Why stop at one commission? Enable LTV tracking and affiliates earn on EVERY future purchase their referrals make.

Real-world example:

Customer A referred by Affiliate B
First order: $100 → $30 commission (30% rate)
Second order: $100 → $5 commission (5% recurring rate)
Third+ order: $200 → $2 commission (1% recurring rate)
Total: $30 initially, with ongoing benefits when referred customers have a high repeat order LTV.

Tiered Commission Structure

Reward your top performers automatically:

Bronze (Default) - All new affiliates start here
Silver - $1,000 in sales OR 10 orders
Gold - $5,000 in sales OR 50 orders
Platinum - $10,000 in sales OR 100 orders

Higher tiers = higher commission rates. All automatic upgrades. Tiers are configurable, you can keep it simple and have only one tier if you want to. Tiers can also be used to separate role, e.g. Public/customers, Influencers, B2B Affiliate, each having configurable rewards (% comission/flat rate, capped, and discount % for referres.

Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) Support (optional)

Enable 3-level deep MLM and affiliates earn from their downline, if you want to:

Level 1 (Direct recruit): 30% of base commission
Level 2 (Recruit’s recruit): 5% of base commission
Level 3 (3rd level): 3% of base commission

Example:

Affiliate A recruits Affiliate B
Affiliate B recruits Affiliate C
Customer purchases from Affiliate C ($100, 30% commission)

Commissions:

Affiliate C: $30 (direct sale)
Affiliate B: $5 (recruited C)
Affiliate A: $3 (recruited B)

Compare $38 to your current CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost). Is MLM the right fit for you? This setting is optional and you can have a simple 15% on first order only set up if preferred. In many low margin highly competitive markets this just doesn’t work, in others where profit margins and CAC are high, this can be a very effective form or new customer acquisition - let your current customers be your sales team!

Seamless Shopify Integration

No App Store listing needed. We use your existing Shopify Admin API token to:

1. Auto-install tracking script
2. Webhook integration - Orders automatically processed for attribution
3. First-party cookies - No browser blocking, no third-party tracking issues

The entire setup takes literally 2 minutes - just configure reward settings and you’re done!

Affiliate Dashboard: Zero Login Friction

Forget passwords. Every affiliate/referrer gets a unique, unguessable access token:


https://portal.aiva.nz/affiliate?token={their-unique-token}

They click, they’re in. No signup, no password resets, no friction.

What Affiliates See:

Configuration dashboard (rates, types, enable/disable etc)
Real-time commission tracking
Option to cash out for store credit immediately (dynamic, secure coupon codes issued instantly)
Pending vs paid commissions
Referral statistics and conversion rates
Current tier and progress to next level (if enabled)
MLM downline performance (if enabled)
Custom affiliate link & QR code generator
Marketing materials

Smart Attribution Windows

Not all products have the same sales cycle:

Premium products: 90 days (customers need time to decide)
Standard products: 60 days (default)
Impulse buys: 30 days (quick decisions)

Configure per affiliate for maximum flexibility.

New Customer Validation

Prevent gaming the system: Commissions only apply to first-time customers.

We validate against the customer’s full order history. Existing customers attempting to use affiliate codes? Logged, but no commission awarded.

Post-Purchase Auto-Enrollment

Turn buyers into affiliates automatically:

1. Customer completes purchase
2. System auto-enrolls them as affiliate (after x days post order, or instantly)
3. Welcome email sent with their custom link
4. They can start earning immediately

Perfect for building a network of brand advocates.

How It Could Work

Three worked scenarios. These are illustrations of how you would configure the skill, with made-up numbers to show the shape of it, not results from a live store.

A Premium Fashion Brand

The problem: discount codes are killing the brand. Every code that goes out teaches customers to wait for the next one, and the margin never comes back.

The setup: cookie-only tracking on a 90-day window. No codes exist at all. A customer shares a link, their friend buys three weeks later, the referrer still gets credited.

How it could play out: say 50 of your best customers take a link and a quarter of them refer someone. You have added a referral channel without a single discount hitting your storefront, and the brand positioning survives intact.

A Subscription Box Service

The problem: affiliates get paid on the first order and then lose interest, even though the referred customer sticks around for a year.

The setup: LTV tracking on, with a recurring rate on every renewal.

How it could play out: an affiliate refers a customer worth $40 a month who stays 18 months. On first-order-only they earn $20 once. On a 5% recurring rate they earn $36 over the life of that customer, so they keep promoting you. Change the rate and the numbers move, but the incentive shift is the point.

A Multi-Brand E-commerce Store

The problem: recruiting affiliates one at a time does not scale, and you do not have anyone to run it.

The setup: 3-level MLM plus tiered commissions, with thresholds set to whatever your margins actually support.

How it could play out: your affiliates start recruiting each other because they earn a slice of what their recruits sell. Twenty affiliates who each bring in two become sixty without you making a single approach. Worth saying plainly: this structure suits high-margin categories. In a thin-margin market the maths does not work, and a flat first-order commission is the better call.

Technical Highlights

For the developers in the audience:

First-party cookies - Domain-matched, Lax SameSite, 60-day expiration
Last-click attribution - Most recent referral wins
Google Analytics integration - Tracks affiliate_click events automatically
Secure token authentication - GUID-based, no password management
Webhook-driven - Real-time commission calculation
Multi-platform - Shopify, WooCommerce, custom stores

Pricing

The Affiliate & Referral Skill is currently included in all AIVA plans. Pricing will be announced in Q1 2026, Aiva is the most valuable affiliate, sitting at the top of the pyramid!

You set the commission rates. You control the costs. Aiva just makes it work.

Getting Started

1. Enable the skill in your AIVA dashboard
2. Set default commission rates (we recommend 20-50% for new affiliates)
3. Create your first affiliate (or import existing ones, invite Shopify customers, optional filter - ‘bought in x months and left positive review’)
4. Install tracking script (automatic for Shopify)
5. Share affiliate links with B2B partners

That’s it. Commissions start tracking immediately.

What Merchants Say

Nothing yet, and we are not going to invent it. Aiva's affiliate tracking is in beta with our first merchants. When they have run it long enough to have a view worth reading, we will publish what they say, with their name and their business on it. Until then this space stays empty on purpose.

Ready to Build Your Affiliate Army?

Stop spending a fortune with Meta and Google! Stop manual tracking. Stop worrying about attribution.

AIVA’s Affiliate & Referral Tracking System turns your customers and B2B affiates into a sales army! She handles it all automatically, letting you focus on what matters: spending time with yourself and your family, as Aiva grows your business! - Want to learn more?

Questions?
Email us at hello@aiva.nz or chat with us in the dashboard.