Shopify Collabs: How It Works, Cost, Eligibility, And More

Influencer marketing is at its peak today. That’s because people trust it when their favourite influencer endorses a brand, especially when they do unboxing videos or participate in challenges. Influencers have the unique ability to grab attention and inform their audience about brands. Many companies are recognizing this power, and Shopify has caught on, too, which is why they created Shopify Collabs. It’s a platform that makes it easy to collaborate with influencers. With its launch, both business owners and creators can benefit. Businesses can reach a wider audience, while influencers get the chance to earn from their content.

Let’s explore all the details that you need to know about this platform, such as how it works, how much it is going to cost around and more. Let’s get started!

What is Shopify Collabs?

Shopify Collabs is a platform designed to support both Shopify merchants and content creators. It simplifies the complex influencer marketing by bringing all the activities in one place. Whether you want to generate sales, run an affiliate program, or find the right influencers, you can do it all right from the Shopify Admin. 

Now let’s take a look at the key features of Shopify Collab:

1. It has a connection hub that allows you to find creators based on your brand’s niche and values. 
2. The partnership management lets you work with multiple influencers flawlessly. 
3. With its sales tracking, you can easily keep a check on how well your collaborators are doing. 
4. You can simply save on ad costs, as a platform allows you to showcase products with influencers.

How does Shopify Collabs work?

Here is how this simple add-on for your Shopify store helps brands and creators collaborate. 

For Brands

As a brand owner, this is how you can use Shopify Collab:

1. Install Shopify Collabs apps from the Shopify app store. 
2. Start creating your profile. This will include setting up your brand profile.
3. Now you can start using the platform’s advanced search functionality to find creators with a similar target audience and brand values. It lets you search influencers by niche, audience size, location, and more.
4. To attract the right collaborators, you can choose to customize your application page by adding your brand’s mission, collaboration terms, and what you’re looking for in a collaborator. 
5. Once you start finding potential collaborators, you can send them personalized invitations through the platform. You’re allowed to reach out to multiple creators at the same time. 
6. You can also set up a reward system. You can pay them a percentage of each sale, a fixed fee per post, or give their followers special discount codes.
7. Shopify Flow makes your life easier by automating tasks such as payments and administrative tasks. This way, you can spend less time on busywork and more time growing your brand.
8. Give each creator a unique code or link so you can track who’s bringing in sales and see which partnerships are actually working.

For Creators

If you are an influencer and thinking about using Shopify Collabs, then you don’t have to rely on guesswork. It’s a completely transparent and efficient system that lets creators and brands focus on what really matters to them. 

If you are looking to monetize your content by collaborating with big brands, here is how you can do it on Shopify Collab:

1. Find brands you like by browsing Shopify stores that match your style and audience.
2. Create custom links for the products you want to promote.
3. Share those links in your content on Instagram, YouTube, blogs, or anywhere else you post.
4. Track your results using the Shopify Collabs dashboard — see clicks, sales, and how much you’re earning.
5. Get paid automatically by turning on auto-payouts in your account settings.
6. Check if you’re eligible before signing up to make sure you meet the platform’s requirements.

Shopify Collabs eligibility and requirements

Before you start setting up your profile on Shopify Collab, you need to go through the eligibility criteria to ensure whether you qualify or not.

For Merchants 

For Creators

Shopify Collabs Pricing 

One of the best parts about Shopify Collabs? It’s pricing setup. Here’s how it works:

1. The installation cost for both creators and merchants is free. 
2. There are no subscription fees.
3. An automatic commission of 2.9% may apply to automatic payments made through the platform, and a foreign currency exchange fee may also be applicable. 

Shopify Collabs has kept things low-risk for everyone. For businesses, there is no hefty upfront cost, which makes it especially appealing for smaller brands just starting out with influencer marketing. You only pay when you get results.

For creators, there’s no fee to join. You can explore collaborations freely, earn based on the sales you generate, and only a small portion goes toward processing fees.

Because it’s performance-based, everyone’s on the same page. Brands pay for actual results, and creators are motivated to share content that converts. It’s a setup that encourages real value and long-term collaboration.

How to Get the Most Out of Shopify Collabs

Success with Shopify Collabs goes beyond matching with the right brands or creators. It’s about building genuine connections, using data to inform your decisions, and continually refining your strategy.

The tips below will help merchants and creators get the most out of every collab, so you’re not just making sales, but building partnerships that actually last and grow.

Openly Communicate 

In order to make sure every party is on the same page, you need to establish clear communication. It’s more vital than just sending the updates. You need to build trust, set expectations, and avoid surprises down the road. Make time for regular check-ins and be upfront from day one.

Shopify Collabs supports clear collaboration with its built-in messaging feature. There, you can keep a unified record of all your conversations or interactions.  

Set Goals That Seem Achievable 

Before starting influencer partnerships, it’s essential to have realistic expectations. Based on the size of your audience, engagement rate, you can start setting up the benchmarks. It’s ideal to start small with a smaller campaign and test your potential for how much is achievable for you and how you can scale.  

By setting your short-term and long-term goals, you can form a holistic approach to generate sales and build brand awareness. 

Leverage Analytics 

Shopify Collabs allow you to review the performance metric. Here are some key performance indicators you can track:

• Conversion Rates
• Overall sales generated 
• Click-through rates
• Engagement metrics such as likes, shares, and comments 

Using these insights, you can fine-tune your strategy and decide on your future collaborations. For example, if you spot some of your product or content types performing better than the rest, based on the insights, you can adjust your approach. You can run A/B testing and experiment with different strategies to optimize your campaigns from time to time.

The payment dashboard on Shopify Collabs lets you view the overall payment offering insights into profit generated. 

Personalize Your Campaigns 

When collaborating with influencers, you need to understand that every creator has a unique way of interacting with their audience. So, in order to partner with them effectively, you need to adapt your campaigns a little bit according to the audience they target. In simple words, if creators are suggesting you bring the same changes to your campaigns, you should be open to the communication and modifications for your own good. 

Make sure to discuss your brand’s values, missions, unique selling points, and target demographics. This will enable them to know your goals better and create content effectively. 

Always promote the genuine experience, as authenticity is more likely to be celebrated. It promises better engagement and conversion. For more personalization, you can consider exclusive offers or custom bundles, etc.

Focus on long-term collaborations

Although one-time collaborations are highly effective for achieving quicker brand visibility and a stronger bottom line, focusing on long-term partnerships can create more authentic content over time and yield sustained growth. So, focus on nurturing connections with creators who have a record for consistently delivering results. When you focus on these long-term partnerships, you can get genuine brand advocates who will pour hard work and creativity into creating more impactful content that translates into sales.

To form loyal brand advocates, you can consider exclusive offers or perks like:

• Allowing early access to your new product collection 
• High commission rates

Offer Lucrative Incentives

You can motivate creators by offering them compelling incentives like performance-based bonuses, feature spots on your social media/website. You can set up a tiered commission system where an influencer receives a reward as their performance rate increases. This will encourage creators to put more effort into promoting your products in genuine, authentic, and creative ways. You don’t always have to go for monetary perks; some non-monetary incentives, like access to limited edition items, exclusive discount codes, can be equally valuable.

Improve Your Product Listings

Your product listing plays a central role in converting traffic driven by influencers into sales. So, it’s very important to ensure your product pages are easily accessible through mobile screens and are easy to navigate. It should have HD images and detailed and benefit benefit-oriented product descriptions. 

You can consider creating specialized landing pages for your influencer promotions that align with their unique themes. This can really help increase sales. Also, ensure your website loads quickly; every second counts in keeping potential customers interested.

Diversify Your Creator Collaborations

Don’t put all your bets on one horse. Instead of investing in the same influencer every time, you can consider working with a mix of micro and macro-influencers. We are saying this because by doing so, you can increase the chances of reaching diverse audience segments. Also, use different content formats like unboxing challenges, live streaming events, how-to guides or lifestyle integration posts. 

Moreover, you can explore cross-platform promotions to reach an audience on various channels. 

Improving Your Shopify Collabs with Kinex Media

You can streamline your influencer marketing on Shopify by joining hands with Kinex Media. We simplify things for you so you can focus on growth. Our solutions help you connect with potential customers through email and SMS, using smart automations triggered by real-time actions.

Here is a list of things we can do for you:

1. Leverage customer data from a Shopify store that also includes insights from influencer-driven sales. This lets you create targeted email automation workflows, like you can set up a special sequence for customers who complete their first purchase through an influencer link.
2. Make custom segments based on which influencer referred a customer to customize your messages and offers to match the content they engaged with.
3. Re-engage with customers through Omnisend’s SMS marketing.
4. Check which influencer partner has nurtured long-term customer value, email subscriptions, or revenue, etc.
5. Launch multi-channel campaigns that support your influencer marketing. For example, you can create an email campaign showcasing products promoted by your best influencers.

FAQs

What does Shopify Collabs do?

It is a free app that helps Shopify merchants connect with creators to run affiliate marketing programs. It allows brands to recruit creators, send gifts, share commission offers, and track sales all within the Shopify admin. Creators can apply to partner with brands, promote products via affiliate links or discount codes, and earn commissions on sales they generate. ​

Is Shopify Collabs good?

Shopify Collabs is generally well-regarded for its ease of use and integration with Shopify. The app has a 3.4-star rating on the Shopify App Store, which signals mixed experiences.

Do you have to pay for Shopify collabs?

The app is free to install for merchants on Shopify, Advanced, or Shopify Plus plans. Creators can join without any cost. Merchants pay a 2.9% processing fee on automatic commission payments made through the platform.  As we discussed above in the blog post, foreign currency exchange fees may also apply.

Do brands pay for collaborations?

Brands typically compensate creators through affiliate commissions, which are paid when sales are generated via the creator’s unique links or discount codes. Some brands also send free products or samples to creators as part of the collaboration. These payments are processed automatically through the Shopify billing system. ​