Collective Voice is a fashion, beauty, and home decor affiliate program for content creators and bloggers formerly known as ShopStyle Collective.
The ShopStyle brand likely renamed its affiliate program to create a distinct brand identity for it – as the ShopStyle platform is a tool the general public can use to search for products and get cash back when they make a purchase. Since the names are similar, it’s likely ShopStyle wanted to prevent confusion.
Nevertheless, it’s a shame that the company went with “Collective Voice” which sounds more like a political activist group than an affiliate marketing platform! In fact, there is even a Collective Voice based in the UK which is a “national charity working to improve England’s drug and alcohol treatment and recovery system.” So that proves my point.
Despite the awful name, the Collective Voice affiliate program is still a great way to make money online if you are a content creator or blogger.
How Collective Voice Works
Collective Voice is an affiliate network that works on a performance-based model. This means that content creators are only paid for successfully completed sales they generate, not clicks.
Joining Collective Voice
The first step to making money with Collective Voice is to join the platform. You must show the Collective Voice management team that you make original content on a regular basis, have a focus on products that are sold by popular retailers, and have an engaged audience that regularly interacts with your content.
Creating Affiliate Links for your Content
Once you are approved on Collective Voice, you can begin creating affiliate links associated with your content to earn commissions. There are two main types of content Collective Voice influencers make:
Social Media Content
Collective Voice has a number of ways to monetize your social media posts on Instagram, Tiktok, or YouTube, for example. You can either link to a blog post from these platforms that feature Collective Voice widgets and tagged products, or you can utilize the TapTo.Shop website associated with Collective Voice.
TapTo.Shop gives you a personalized username and dedicated web page where your audience can go to shop the products you have featured in your social media posts. Lots of influencers choose to put this link in the bio of their Instagram page so that their audience can access featured products quickly.
Blog Content
The second way that you can earn commission with Collective Voice is by creating “shop the post” product widgets and lookbooks that can be embedded directly on your blog posts or website.
Collective Voice has a browser extension you can use to quickly add products from partner retailers into your account, group them into lists, and create embeddable widgets for your site.
Or, you can use Collective Voice’s own search feature on their backend, to find products in their database. I’ve personally found that this database isn’t as updated as the retailer’s website, so I prefer to google products I need and link to them or create widgets using the Collective Voice browser extension.
Generating Sales
At this point, you just need to wait for your audience to make a purchase after clicking through one of your Collective Voice affiliate links.
When a user clicks your link, an anonymous cookie is installed on their browser, which tracks their purchases over the course of the next 7 to 30 days – depending on the cookie length that retailer has agreed to. Some retailers only give you 7 days to make the sale, while others allow up to 30 days.
If the reader makes a purchase within the valid cookie window, you are entitled to a percentage of the sale as long as the customer doesn’t return the item they buy.
Commission
Collective Voice doesn’t publish the exact amount of commission it pays for sales. They only give you a range of the commission you’re eligible to receive.
Payout
Once your commission has moved from “Pending” to “Confirmed,” you’re eligible to be paid. As long as you have more than $100 in commissions, you’ll receive a payout. Collective Voice pays out once a month, on the 19th of each month. Commissions must have moved to the Confirmed status before the end of the previous month in order for payment to be processed on the 19th of the following month.
This means that all of the Confirmed commissions you receive during the month of May will be paid to you on June 19th.
Collective Voice uses PayPal to make payments to content creators. There is no direct deposit option available at this time.
Analysis
I generally like using Collective Voice and I think it’s a great platform. I find the tools very easy to use and creating widgets is always a breeze. In addition, Collective Voice gives detailed analytics so I can easily see what types of products, brands, and retailers are performing best for my blog.