Marketing and assignment

What partners promote with, and how customers find them.

Every partner promotes with their partner code: in the partner link (also called affiliate URL or affiliate link), in the short link, as a QR code and, if you like, with a partner voucher of their own that gives their customers a discount. Whoever comes to the shop this way belongs to the partner, and the code is kept as the affiliate code on customer and order. Click tracking shows where visitors come from and which clicks lead to an order.

Marketing → Affiliate program → side menu Marketing

Promoting in the partner area

What does a partner see under “Promote”?

The overview of the partner area has the card Promote. At the top are the partner code and the voucher code, below them the partner link and the short link, at the bottom the field for a link to a specific page. Every value has a Copy button. What the partner sees follows from the configuration cards Marketing · Partner link and Marketing · Partner voucher.

  • Partner code: this is how the shop recognises the partner’s customers. The code is part of every link; customers can also enter it in the cart if that is switched on.

  • Voucher code: the code of the partner voucher, in the example with a 10 percent discount. Whoever redeems it in the cart saves and is assigned to the partner, even without clicking a link. Without a partner voucher the box is not shown.

  • Partner link: the home page with the parameter ?partner=LENA. The parameter works on every page of the shop; its name is set in URL parameters for partner code. The assignment runs in the browser, so it also works on pages from the HTTP cache.

  • Short link: your-shop.com/partner/LENA leads to the home page as if the visitor had opened ?partner=LENA. It appears as soon as Short link path holds a path such as partner. Letters, digits and hyphens are allowed; the path must not match a page of the shop.

  • Link to a specific page: the partner pastes the address of a product, a category or a campaign and gets the same link with their code. More on this below.

  • The “i” next to “Promote” opens an explanation. It only names what applies in your shop, for example that a customer stays with their current partner while poaching is off.

QR code for the partner link as a PNG

For flyers, business cards, posters or the till in a store there is a QR code for every link. It is created in the partner’s browser, without a third-party service. The button appears when Offer QR codes for partner links is on; by default it is off.

  1. 1Next to Partner link, Short link or a created link the partner clicks QR code.

  2. 2The window shows the QR code large, with the address it leads to below.

  3. 3Download PNG saves the image for printing.

Partner link right on the product page

It is even quicker on the product page itself: a signed-in partner sees Your affiliate link to exactly this product above the add-to-cart button. Other customers see none of it. It is switched on with Show partner link on product detail page; it is off by default and needs partner links to be active.

  • The link is the address of the product page with the partner code, as the shop shows it under its SEO URL.

  • Copy puts the link on the clipboard, ready to share in a message or a post.

Partners choose their own code

A partner code such as partner-lena-hoffmann is unique, but it is not a name people remember. That is why partners may choose their partner code and the code of their partner voucher themselves with Change: at once, only after your review or not at all. By default you review every request.

  • The partner types the new code and clicks Save. At least 4 characters are needed, made of letters, digits, hyphen and underscore; a code already in use is rejected.

  • Partners are allowed to change their partner code and Partners are allowed to change their voucher code: “Yes, new code is changed directly”, “Yes, new code must be checked manually” (default) or “No”. With “No” the Change button is not shown.

  • With a review, the current code stays valid until approval, and the box says “Your request … is being reviewed.” Open requests are listed under Partners → Code requests. Approval also replaces the code on referred customers and orders.

The partner voucher

How is the partner voucher created?

For every partner the plugin creates a Shopware promotion with a code of its own, the partner voucher. It is created as soon as a customer registers or applies in the shop; partners you create in the administration get it the first time they open their partner area. On the partner, the Marketing tab can also assign an existing promotion. The values for new vouchers are in the card Marketing · Partner voucher.

  • Activate partner voucher: on by default. Off means new partners get no voucher, and the “voucher code” box is missing in the partner area.

  • Type of discount and Discount: a percentage or a fixed amount in euros, 10 percent by default.

  • Name and Code pattern: the name of the promotion, by default 10 % Partner-Gutschein - {{ affiliate.code }}, and the pattern of the code. %s stands for a letter, %d for a digit; {{ affiliate.code }}-%s%d%s%d%s%d%s%d becomes something like TIM-K4R7M2P9.

  • Total uses and Uses per customer: 999 each by default. Plus customer, cart and product rules from the Rule Builder and Discount - Scope for cart, shipping costs or set.

  • Not combinable with other promotions: on by default, so the partner voucher cannot be redeemed together with other vouchers.

  • Automatically add partner voucher: when a customer comes through the partner link, the voucher is in the cart without typing, at the latest with the first product. Off by default.

Customers save, partners earn: the voucher in the cart

The customer redeems the voucher code in the cart like any voucher. In doing so the plugin assigns them to the partner, just like a click on the partner link. This applies to vouchers of approved partners only; the discount is granted in any case as long as the promotion is valid.

  • The partner voucher is a line of its own in the cart, in the example 10 percent of €94.80, a discount of €9.48.

  • It is redeemed in Shopware’s normal Promo code field.

All partner vouchers in one list

Under Marketing → Partner vouchers you find the vouchers of all partners with their use. Every order with the code counts, cancelled ones included: the code advertised all the same. Amounts are net in the default currency.

  • Code opens the detail page of the voucher, Partner the partner.

  • Discount: percentage or amount of the promotion. If a promotion has several discounts, the first is shown with “+1” behind it.

  • Status tells whether the code works in the cart: Active, Planned (valid from lies in the future), Used up (max. uses in total reached), Expired (valid until has passed) or Inactive (promotion switched off).

  • Orders, Net revenue, Total discount and Last used show what the code brings and what it costs. The number of orders leads straight to the “Orders” tab of the voucher.

  • The column menu adds Commission, Max. uses, Promotion, Sales channel and an open Code request. On the right you filter by status, partner, use and sales channel.

The detail page of a partner voucher

The detail page only displays the voucher. It is edited in Shopware’s promotion; Edit promotion at the top right leads there.

  • Partner voucher: code, status, partner, promotion, discount with its scope, sales channel, valid from and until, and how many of the allowed uses are taken.

  • Overview: orders, customers, net revenue, total discount, the partner’s commission from these orders and the day of the last use.

  • Revenue 2026: the revenue with the code per month of the year.

  • The Orders tab lists every order with the code, latest first. Order belongs to names the partner of the order: if the customer already belonged to another partner, that partner gets the commission. “--” under commission means: still in the waiting period or for another partner.

  • If the code no longer works, a warning at the top shows the message customers get in the cart, with a link to the promotion. Otherwise the partner might keep promoting a code that brings nothing.

How a customer finds their partner

How does the shop know which partner a customer belongs to?

Commission is only paid for orders with a partner code. The code reaches the shop in four ways. First the shop keeps it for the visit; on login, registration or a guest order it writes it to the customer for good. From then on the customer belongs to the partner, and their orders carry the code without a new click. Upper and lower case do not matter for the code.

WayWhat happensHow long it lasts
Partner link, short link, QR codeOpening it stores the code in the session and in the partner cookie.Cookie 30 days by default, until the customer signs in or orders
Partner voucherRedeeming it in the cart assigns the customer to the voucher’s partner.For the visit, then on the customer account
Partner code in the cart or at checkoutThe customer enters the code, if entering it is switched on.For the visit, then on the customer account
Customer accountLogin, registration or a guest order write the code to the customer, with the referral date.For good, optionally limited by “Assignment lasts (months)”

Entering the partner code in the cart and at checkout

Referrals often happen by word of mouth: “Just say I sent you.” With Allow manual entry of the partner code during the ordering process the cart and the checkout get a field for the partner code. It is off by default. The field only appears while the customer has no partner yet or poaching is allowed; in the cart also for visitors who are not signed in.

  1. 1Below the product number field in the cart, the customer types the code into Enter affiliate code... and confirms with the tick.

  2. 2If the code belongs to an active partner, the shop confirms the assignment. For an unknown code it reports that no partner was found.

  3. 3At checkout the Affiliate card shows the current partner code or “No affiliate assigned”.

  4. 4Under Change affiliate the code can still be entered there.

  5. 5Once the partner is set and poaching is off, the checkout only shows the code, without an input field.

Which customers count and for how long: poaching, new customers only, duration

The card Marketing · Customer assignment decides which customers a partner gets, whether another partner may take them over and how long the assignment earns commission. By default a referred customer belongs to their first partner for good.

  • Assign new customers only: only customers who have never ordered in the shop are assigned, neither with their account nor with the same email address. Existing customers stay without a partner, even if they come through a partner link. Off by default.

  • Assigned customers may be poached from other partners: off (default) keeps the customer with their first partner, even if they later come through another partner’s link. On lets the new partner take the customer over.

  • Assignment lasts (months): for how many months from the referral date a customer earns commission; 0 means unlimited. Orders after the end get no commission. Example: with 24 months, a customer referred on 18 October 2026 earns commission until October 2028.

  • When the assignment ends: “The customer stays with its partner, without commission” (default) or “The customer is free for other partners again”. Customers without a stored referral date are never limited.

The “Referred customers” list

Under Marketing → Referred customers you find all customers assigned to a partner, including those who have not ordered yet. The filter on the right shows the customers of one partner only; search covers customer number, name, email address and partner code.

  • Customer opens the customer details, Partner the partner. “Unknown” is shown when the code no longer matches a partner.

  • Referral date: when the customer was assigned to the partner. The duration of the assignment counts from here. Customers assigned before this feature existed show “Unknown”; the plugin deliberately does not insert an estimated date.

  • Commissioned: “Yes” once at least one order of the customer has earned their partner a booked commission; cancelled ones do not count. Only these customers count for partner groups with the metric “Number of referred customers”.

Measuring clicks

What click tracking stores

By default the plugin counts every click on a partner link. It stores time, shortened IP address, user agent, device and browser, the landing page without parameters, the referring domain and the UTM values; for known customers also the customer and the first order from the click. If the same visitor opens the link again, no new click is recorded while the session or the cookie knows the partner; bots do not count.

  • Record clicks on partner links: on or off per sales channel. Off means no new clicks; commission continues unchanged.

  • Retention in days: 365 by default. A scheduled task deletes older clicks once a day; statistics only cover stored clicks.

  • Show click statistics in the partner area: shows partners their clicks and conversion rate, without IP addresses, user agents and customers. Off by default.

The “Clicks” list: where visitors come from

Under Marketing → Clicks you find every counted click, latest first. Search covers partner, landing page, referrer and campaign; on the right you filter by partner, sales channel, device, period, referrer and whether an order followed.

  • Time opens the detail page of the click, Partner the partner whose link was opened.

  • Referrer: the domain of the page the visitor came from, for example instagram.com. “--” means opened directly, for example through a QR code or a typed short link.

  • Order: the first order from this click. Further orders still earn the partner commission but do not count as new orders from a click.

  • Recognised via: how the order was matched to the click: Session in the same visit, Cookie days later or Customer through the customer account.

  • The column menu adds Landing page, UTM (source / campaign), Device, Browser, Shortened IP and User agent. Single clicks can be deleted in the row menu.

A click in detail: from the visit to the commission

The detail page shows everything stored for a click and what happened afterwards. It is read-only.

  • Click: partner, sales channel, time, landing page, referrer, customer, device, browser and all five UTM values below. “Customer belongs to another partner” shows when the customer already belonged to another partner and poaching is off.

  • Order: the first order from the click with total, status, recognition, time until the order and commission. Until the sync, “Booked commission” shows the earliest date.

  • History: click, order, preliminary and booked commission and the redemption in chronological order.

  • Without an order, Cookie valid until shows how long an order can still be matched to the click.

  • Technical details: shortened IP, whether the partner was active at the time of the click, click ID and user agent.

Click statistics for partners in the partner area

With Show click statistics in the partner area the partner sees, in the Statistics tab, their clicks and orders of the last 30 days and the top landing pages. Personal data is not shown to them. Figures for the whole shop are under Statistics in the “Click sources” tab, for one partner on their detail page in the “Statistics” tab.

  • Clicks · last 30 days: how often the partner’s links were opened; repeated visits of the same visitor usually count once.

  • Conversion rate: the share of clicks that led to an order. In the example 6 orders from 38 clicks, so 15.8 percent.

  • The chart shows per day the clicks on the day of the click and the orders on the day of the order.

  • Top landing pages: the ten pages where visitors arrived through the partner’s links, with the number of clicks.

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Common questions

How does a partner get their partner link?

It is in the partner area of the customer account under Overview, Promote, with a button to copy it. The link is the shop address with the parameter partner and the partner code, for example your-shop.com/?partner=LENA. The partner can add the parameter to any page of the shop.

How long does a click on the partner link count?

The partner cookie keeps the code for 30 days by default; you set this affiliate cookie duration under Marketing, Cookie. If the customer signs in, registers or orders within that time, the partner is tied to the customer account and also counts for later orders.

How does the partner cookie appear in the cookie banner (cookie consent)?

Shopware's cookie notice lists it as the entry “Affiliate Program”, in the group you choose under Marketing, Cookie: by default in “Technically required”, alternatively in “Comfort functions” or as “Own group”. It keeps the partner code for as long as the expiration (in days) says, 30 days by default. Without a cookie, the partner voucher and, if switched on, entering the partner code in the cart assign the customer, in the current visit, in the order and on the customer account. The legal assessment is something to clarify with your data protection advisor.

Does the customer have to click the link to be assigned to the partner?

No. They can also redeem the partner voucher in the cart or, if switched on, enter the partner code in the cart or at checkout. Every way assigns them to the partner.

Can another partner take over a customer?

Not by default: a referred customer stays with their first partner. With the poaching switch in the card Marketing, Customer assignment, the partner whose link or code the customer used last takes over.

Do partners also earn commission for existing customers?

By default yes, if an existing customer has no partner yet and comes through one. With “Assign new customers only” only customers who have never ordered in the shop count, neither with their account nor with the same email address.

Do I need an external tool for QR codes?

No. With “Offer QR codes for partner links” the partner area creates a QR code for every link in the browser, without a third-party service, and offers it as a PNG download.

Does the commission depend on click tracking?

No. Which partner gets an order is decided by the partner code on customer and order. Click tracking only counts where visitors come from and can be switched off per sales channel without any change to commission.

In detail in the manual

More chapters

Commission Which orders earn commission, how much per type, from when it is booked and what happens on cancellation. Read on → Commission rules Other rates for products, categories, dynamic product groups and customers, with priority, period and a rule from the rule builder. Read on → Partner groups Bronze, silver, gold: rates of their own for groups of partners, with priority and automatic promotion by turnover, orders or customers. Read on →