Adding a Course Affiliate Program with LearnDash

By: Justin Ferriman March 28, 2019
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You know what is better than selling online courses? When other people sell them for you!

The premise is simple: someone refers a customer to you and in return you give them a percentage of the sale as a “thank you”. It is a business model that has been around since the beginning of commerce, but only in recent years of the internet has it come to be known as “affiliate marketing”. You benefit because you are reaching customers that you may have otherwise never met and your affiliate benefits by earning no-hassle income.

If you are selling courses using LearnDash then why not add an affiliate program? Your existing customers may be more inclined to share your course if there is something in it for them!

There are several ways that you configure an affiliate program. In the video we outline the most popular method using AffiliateWP in conjunction with a shopping cart (WooCommerce in this example).

AffiliateWP is a best-in-class WordPress affiliate solution and the best option if you want to configure an affiliate program with WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads. However, it’s not your only choice. In the tutorial we also demonstrate how you can configure an affiliate program for your LearnDash online courses using a free plugin from the WordPress repository.

The Tools

If you are just starting off with your courses then you will need the following to create an affiliate program:

  1. LearnDash
  2. Shopping cart (WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads)
  3. Affiliate plugin (AffiliateWP or Affiliates Plugin)
  4. LearnDash-WooCommerce integration (only if you are using AffiliateWP)

There is a good chance that you already have the first two configured so the only thing you really need to do at this point is to install the WordPress plugin you will use for the affiliate sale tracking.

Other Options

If you do not want to use WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads for selling your courses then LearnDash also integrates with SamCart and Thrivecart (beta). Both of these hosted shopping cart platforms have built-in affiliate tracking & management.

And that’s really it! You can now start recruiting affiliates to promote your course offerings!

But just because you have one in place doesn’t mean that people will sign-up for it. Stay tuned for a follow-up to this tutorial that will share various ways you can recruit affiliates for your program!

Justin Ferriman

Justin started LearnDash, the WordPress LMS trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major universities, training organizations, and entrepreneurs worldwide. He is currently founder & CEO of GapScout. Justin’s Homepage | GapScout | Twitter