I sat in with Matt Medeiros’ WP Minute+ Podcast, where we talked about Siren, and how you can use it to create an affiliate program for more-complex, and expensive service-based companies.
Something I frequently need in Siren is a flowchart to help explain how different affiliate programs work, so I'm putting together a flowchart block. Making good use of the LeaderLine library and core's group block, as well as an existing card block I already had laying around. Really loving how much less code I'm writing to do simple stuff like flex layouts with full site editing.
I'm still getting used to using a full site theme for WordPress. But WOW today was a win. I'm working on setting up the documentation portal for Siren, and literally just created a custom post type, and that was the extend of the code. I'm able to build all of the template layouts for the post type in the FSE context.
Putting together a better homepage for Siren. I need tons of fake data, so I guess it's finally time to start putting together a generator. I'm so, so grateful for the Faker library because it makes this WAY simpler.
I scrapped 2 months worth of work on a headless front end application for Siren, and went server-side with PHP. In doing so, I literally built the entire interface in 3 days.
Chris Badgett invited me on the Lifter LMS podcast to talk a little about how Siren is changing how WordPress sites can look at not only affiliate programs, but partnerships in-general.
I think it sucks that affiliate programs only pay out a commission to the last person who referred that person.
What if you could share the engagement among everyone who ever referred that person? What if you could pay the person who referred the individual the most? What if you could pay someone based on the percentage of times they referred that person?
Affiliate programs as you know them today are so limiting. Siren's gonna fix that.
I made some progress on the Siren's Add Program screen recently. This is a key difference of Siren - affiliate programs are just one of many types of programs that you can create. Programs are tracked based on any number of different events, and the way they're paid out can be based on different incentive structures. You can have as many programs as you need.
This also highlights a key touchpoint with integrations like LifterLMS! 🧜♀️🚀
The interface is coming along. There's still a lot I want to do to improve this screen (filters, search, etc), but as a starting point with CRUD operations, I'm pleased with the results.
A Nerdy Note - There's a lot going on under the hood, here. This app is platform agnostic, so it can be changed to run as a mobile app instead - with complete extensibility of the interface from the server. I'll get into how all of that works someday.
For many people (myself included), 40 hours a week is too much. I believe that we're long overdue to shake up this work model, and using knowledge from my nearly 20 years in the workforce, both as an employee, and a business owner, I have come up with what I believe is a better way to measure success.
I've been having some fun using AI to help me create a mascot for my affiliate program start guide. I'm really loving how much more fun it makes my landing page, compared to stock images of people. It's a great way to prototype a character.
I might make everyone into mermaids on this site 😅