7 leading WordPress referral plug-ins

No one is an island, and the same can be said for websites. In today’s hypercompetitive online world, one of the best ways to increase traffic to your website is to link it to other websites, particularly partner and customer websites. This is where a referral program comes in.

You can start implementing a referral program in a variety of different ways. Here are some examples:

• An affiliate referral program provides other websites with a special URL to post on their sites, which takes people back to your site.
• A networking referral program encourages website visitors to share your website link with their contacts.
• An employee or customer referral program invites website visitors to provide the contact information of prospective employees or customers.
• A referral marketing program involves running campaigns on social media and encouraging followers to like, share, and participate in online activities.

All of these referral programs can bring more traffic to a website. However, manually tracking a referral program can be challenging, as there’s a lot of opportunity for error.

That’s why WordPress referral plug-ins are so handy. These tools offer helpful features to manage a referral program, recruit partners, track potential leads, and more.

Which WordPress referral plug-ins should you use? This article rounds up the leading contenders. But first, let’s take a look at why referral plug-ins are useful for your website.

The benefits of WordPress referral plug-ins

To benefit from referrals — whether affiliate links, employee referrals, or customer referrals — you need to track their source, behavior, and performance. Depending on the referral program, you may need to pay a fee when the referral becomes a sale, so tracking the referral’s origin is essential.

Tracking referrals manually leaves room for human error. For example, it’s easy to forget to add a referral to a spreadsheet or mislabel a link, resulting in inaccurate records.

The beauty of a WordPress referral plug-in is that it can automate tracking. The plug-ins capture and organize information — whether affiliate links or contact information for potential leads — so you don’t need to do it manually. This way, you can save time and effort to devote to more valuable activities, such as nurturing leads through the sales cycle.

WordPress referral plug-ins that stand out

1. Jotform

Users who want to run customer or employee referral programs can easily create referral forms with Jotform and integrate those forms into their website with Jotform’s WordPress plug-in.

To collect referral data and track it efficiently, you can use one of Jotform’s many referral program template forms and referral request forms, which you can customize using the intuitive drag-and-drop Form Builder.

Plus, Jotform integrates with over 100 other apps, like Google Calendar and Slack, making it easy to incorporate referral forms into your workflow. Jotform also enables you to organize the incoming referral data through Jotform Tables and easily generate reports, so you don’t need to manually track referral details. 

The Jotform WordPress plug-in is available to use for free.

2. Affiliates Manager

Affiliates Manager is a WordPress referral plug-in that allows you to manage, track, and pay affiliate partners from one place. Recruit, register, and manage affiliates, and track referral clicks and sales in real time. It also enables automatic affiliate approval, so you don’t need to review and manually approve affiliates before they can begin promoting your website.

Affiliates Manager integrates with many e-commerce solutions, including WooCommerce, and offers a free plan as well as paid plans for $39 and $97.

3. Social Boost

Social Boost is a WordPress plug-in that can run referral marketing campaigns on social media, including giveaways, viral sharing contests, and promotions. Social Boost not only helps drive more traffic to your website, but it also can help you increase your social media following through incentives and prizes.

The plug-in comes with tons of templates for different types of campaigns so you don’t need to manually create them from scratch. You can use the Social Boost WordPress referral plug-in for free or opt for paid plans with advanced functionality.

4. Pretty Links

If you can’t stand the sight of long, clunky affiliate referral links, take a look at Pretty Links. It shortens those unsightly links into visually pleasing URLs that can incorporate your domain name.

You can use these links for any kind of referral program. Pretty Links tracks each link and its number of views or clicks, and you can generate customizable reports to analyze results.

It also includes automation features, which you can use to automatically add links to desired keywords. The plug-in integrates with Google Analytics and MonsterInsights. You can use Pretty Links for free or choose one of its paid plans, starting at $99.60 for your first year (pricing increases after the first year).

5. Easy Affiliate

Easy Affiliate was designed for websites that want to host their own affiliate program. The plug-in is intuitive and easy to use, making it ideal for beginners who’ve never managed an affiliate program before.

It allows users to track everything from their WordPress admin panel, and it comes with a simple dashboard that affiliates can use to track their performance and payments.

Easy Affiliate integrates with many services and plug-ins, including Pretty Links, PayPal, MemberPress, and more. Easy Affiliate offers three paid plans with different feature levels, starting at $99.60 for the first year (pricing increases after the first year).

6. MonsterInsights

MonsterInsights is a WordPress referral plug-in that makes tracking data simple and easy. It delivers in-depth reports, including on user behavior and marketing campaigns, so you can see which referral sources are profitable and which can be improved.

MonsterInsights lets you view your reports from your WordPress dashboard and integrates with many other services, including WooCommerce, Pretty Links, and Google Ads. The MonsterInsights WordPress referral plug-in has a free version as well as paid plans with advanced features starting at $99.60 for the first year (pricing increases after the first year).

7. AffiliateWP

AffiliateWP is a WordPress referral plug-in that lets you manage your referral program with one powerful tool. You can enable automatic affiliate registration, customize the dashboards affiliates use to track their progress, and analyze reports on partners’ performance, which partners can also review.

AffiliateWP also offers many add-ons and integrations that let you incentivize referral partners with perks like prizes and sign-on bonuses. The AffiliateWP WordPress referral plug-in is available in three paid tiers, starting at $149.60 for the first year (pricing increases after the first year).

Jotform: A leading WordPress referral plug-in

If you want to create a referral program for your website without having to build it from scratch, Jotform’s WordPress plug-in is a great choice. Jotform comes with tons of referral form templates for both customers and employees, all of which you can fully customize down to the text, structure, and visuals.

The Jotform plug-in also gives you access to Jotform Tables, a collaborative workspace that makes it easy to collect, organize, and manage all your referral data. Take advantage of Jotform’s referral table templates to easily build a database for tracking your referral submissions.

Ready to initiate your referral program and oversee all the data that comes with it? Download the Jotform WordPress plug-in and get started!

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko