Recruiting new creators on Shopify Collabs
Shopify Collabs helps you recruit and collaborate with content creators to promote your products. You can use the Recruiting section of your Shopify Collabs app to discover creators that are relevant to your product areas, send direct email invites, and respond to applicants who apply to work with you through your Online Store page. You can also passively recruit by activating the Collabs open access program.
If you have an existing community of creators that you want to move to Shopify Collabs from another platform, then refer to Migrating your creators to Shopify Collabs.
On this page
Finding creators on Shopify Collabs
Shopify Collabs maintains a database of content creators and social media influencers. Use the Recruiting section in your Shopify Collabs app to search for the partnerships that are right for your business. When you search for a creator, you can specify what you're looking for by using the search bar, filters, and sorting options.
How to search for creators
You can use the following search methods, filters, and sorting options to find creators:
- Search with keywords - Use keywords in your search term to find content creators and social media influencers that use the terms in their username, bio, and posts.
- Filter search results by Location - Select locations from the drop-down filters to find content creators, freelancers, and social media influencers that provide their location in their profile.
- Filter search results by Social account - Use the drop-down options to filter creators by social media accounts such as Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Twitch, and Twitter.
- Filter search results by Audience - Audience is the creator's total combined followers and subscribers across the social platforms that are featured on their Collabs profile.
- Sort search results by Relevance or Audience Size - Find the most relevant creators for your search, or sort the audience size by Smallest first or Largest first.
Considerations for recruiting new creators on Shopify Collabs
Before you recruit new creators with Shopify Collabs, review the following considerations:
- Before you can invite creators to work with you on Shopify Collabs, you need to verify your email address in the Point of contact section on the Settings page of your Shopify Collabs app.
- Invitations that you send for creators to connect with you on Shopify Collabs expire after 30 days.
- You can invite up to 100 creators in any 7-day period. You can view a running total of the number of invitations that you've used in the Add creator emails section when you invite creators. If you reach the invitation limit at any time, then you can't invite any more creators until your invitation limit resets.
Sending direct invites to creators
You can send direct invites to creators that you want to join your Shopify Collabs community. Sending direct invites from the Shopify Collabs app lets you quickly onboard creators that you trust, bypassing the process of creators applying to join your community. You can find and invite a single creator or invite a group of creators.
Find and invite a single creator
In the Recruiting section of your Shopify Collabs app, you can click on a creator and send them an individual invite.
Steps:
1.
From your Shopify admin, go to Apps > Collabs.
Click Recruiting, and then browse or search for creators.
Click a creator that you want to invite.
Click Invite creator.
In the Create a welcome offer section, do either or both of the following:
- To choose one of your Collabs programs to add the creator to, click Select program, select the program that you want to add, and then click Add to offer.
- To select a gift option to offer to the creator, click Add gift, select the gift that you want to add, and then click Add to offer.
Optional: In the Add creator emails section, change the Creator code field to your preferred creator code that the creator's buyers can use on your store's checkout.
In the Add message section, use the default Email subject, Your message, and Display address fields, or enter your own text.
Optional: To keep your message as the default message for future email invites, select the Save message as default checkbox.
Optional: To use the display address at the bottom of all your email invites, select Save as default email footer.
Optional: To view a preview of how the invite displays, click Preview invite.
Click Send invite.
Invite creators
You can manually enter email addresses and creator codes for your invite, or use the CSV template to import the creator details. The CSV file must contain column headings only for Email and Creator Code.
Steps:
1.
From your Shopify admin, go to Apps > Collabs.
Click Recruiting.
Click Invite creators.
In the Create a welcome offer section, do either or both of the following:
- To choose one of your Collabs programs to add the creators to, click Select program, select the program that you want to add, and then click Add to offer.
- To select a gift option to offer to the creators, click Add gift, select the gift that you want to add, and then click Add to offer.
In the Add creator emails section, do one of the following:
- To manually add each creator's details individually:
- Add your first Email, and a Creator code that the creator's buyers can use on your store's checkout.
- Click Add email, and then add another Email and Creator code.
- Repeat the steps for the number of creators that you want to add.
- To import your creator details with a CSV file:
- Click Import CSV.
- Click Upload file, and then add your CSV file.
- Click Import.
- To manually add each creator's details individually:
Optional: If you need to remove a creator from the invite list, then click the
icon for the relevant creator.
In the Add message section, use the default Email subject, Your message, and Display address fields, or enter your own text.
Optional: To keep your message as the default message for future email invites, select the Save message as default checkbox.
Optional: To use the display address at the bottom of all your email invites, select Save as default email footer.
Optional: To view a preview of how the invite displays, click Preview invite.
Click Send invite.
Respond to your Shopify Collabs applicants
If someone applies through your Online Store page, then you can choose how to manage their application.
Steps:
1.
From your Shopify admin, go to Apps > Collabs.
On the Overview page, if you have applications to review, then click Review applications.
On the Applicants page, click the creator applicant that you want to view.
After you've reviewed the creator's application details, do one of the following:
- To accept the creator's application, click Make an offer:
- On the Create welcome offer page, preview the details of the email that you send.
- In the Add offer benefits section, add or create a Program and a Gift, or select None from the drop-down menus.
- Optional: Make any edits to the content in the Email body section.
- Click Send offer.
- To respond to the creator's application at another time, click Review later > Save for later.
- To decline the creator's application, click Decline:
- Optional: If you want to let the creator know why their application wasn't accepted, then select Email creator and enter a message.
- Click Decline applicant.
- To accept the creator's application, click Make an offer:
Understanding rejection emails
When you decline a creator's application, you can choose to email the creator about the rejection. You can customize the rejection email content when you decline an application, or you can edit the default rejection email in Settings > Email in your Shopify Collabs app.
Undo a rejected application
If you accidentally reject a creator, then you can undo the rejection.
Steps:
- From your Shopify Collabs app, click Recruiting.
- Click All applications reviewed.
- From the drop-down menu, select Declined.
- Click the creator that you want to undo the rejection for.
- Click Make an offer to approve the creator.
Creator reapplication after rejection
After you decline a creator's application, the creator can't reapply to your community using the same account. If a creator tries to reapply with the same account, then they can't view the application page. After clicking the Apply now link on your website, they're directed to their Collabs admin with no application visible.
Creating an open access program
An open access program lets you reward sales that eligible Collabs creators generate for you through affiliate links or codes.
When you activate an open access program, you set a commission rate, either on all products or on specific collections, and this determines which of your products creators can view in their discovery experience.
Creators can search for products, and automatically generate affiliate product links without the need for approval.
Offering gifts to your creators
Gifts can be sent only to your connections on Shopify Collabs.
You can offer three different gift types to your creator connections. You can choose to offer either a free product, a percentage discount code, or a fixed amount discount code.
After you create a gift, it's saved in your Shopify Collabs app so that you can send it again in the future.
Create a gift
1.
From your Shopify admin, go to Apps > Collabs.
Click Programs, and then click the Gifts tab.
Click Create gift.
In the Gift name field, enter a title for the gift that's displayed to creators.
In the Type section, do either of the following:
- To offer a free product as a gift to creators, click Product:
- In the Products section, click Browse, click the item that you want to add, and then click Select.
- In the Quantity field, select the quantity of the item that you want to add.
- Optional: To let creators add details to a customizable product, click Add custom input, and then enter the relevant details.
- Optional: If the item that you select has variants, then select the variant options that you want to use for the gift, or leave them as Allow creator to choose.
- To offer a discount code to creators, click Discount code:
- In the Discount value drop-down menu, select either Percentage or Fixed amount.
- Enter either the percentage discount saving or the fixed amount discount value.
- In the Applies to drop-down menu, select whether the discount applies to All products, Specific products, or Specific collections.
- To offer a free product as a gift to creators, click Product:
Click Save.
Send a gift
When you send a gift to a creator on Shopify Collabs, free shipping always applies.
After your creator connection claims their gift, an order displays in your Shopify admin for you to fulfill.
Steps:
1.
From your Shopify admin, go to Apps > Collabs.
Click Programs.
Click the Gifts tab.
Click
> Send gift for the gift that you want to send.
Select the members that you want to send the gift to, and then specify a Shipping method name and Billing address.
Click Send gifts.
View a gift's history
You can view how many times a gift has been sent and redeemed.
Steps:
1.
From your Shopify admin, go to Apps > Collabs.
Click Programs.
Click the Gifts tab.
Click
> View history for the gift that you want to view.
Delete a gift
1.
From your Shopify admin, go to Apps > Collabs.
Click Programs.
Click the Gifts tab.
Click
> Delete for the gift that you want to delete.
Click Delete gift.
Troubleshooting affiliate links
Troubleshoot affiliate links leading to 404 page not found errors
If affiliate links for your creators are leading to 404 page not found errors, then this is usually caused by an invalid tier destination link.
Affiliate links redirect customers to the destination link that's set in the tier settings. If the destination link doesn't exist or is invalid, then the affiliate link also leads to a 404 error.
Steps:
- From your Shopify Collabs app, click Programs > Tiers.
- Find the tier that's associated with the affiliate link that's showing the error, and then click View.
- Review the destination link. If the link is invalid or leads to a page that doesn't exist, then click Edit to update the tier.
- In the Link destination field, enter a valid URL for an active page on your storefront, such as a product page, collection page, or your home page.
- Click Save.
- Test the affiliate link to confirm it's working correctly.
If the affiliate link is still leading to a 404 error after updating the destination link, then try the following actions to fix the error:
- Clear your browser cache and cookies.
- Try accessing the affiliate link in a different browser or incognito mode.
- Ensure that the creator has been assigned to a tier and appears as Connected in the Connections section of your Shopify Collabs app. Affiliate links work only for creators who have been connected and assigned to a tier.