How Do Shopify Apps Get Agencies to Recommend Them?

TL;DR

Agencies recommend an app that helps them keep their own clients. Start with one or two agencies you can actually talk to, ideally through someone you already know. Bring an offer: onboard their clients for free, do the setup yourself, and give them a named person to reach directly. Then keep earning the recommendation by building something that makes their client managers’ job easier: it helps them look good, serve their clients better, or save time or money. A small commission does not move them.

Who This Is For

Shopify app founders who already have merchants and now want agencies to install and recommend their app for clients.

The Core Problem

Founders know agencies are worth having, but agencies get pitched constantly and care about different things than merchants do, so a cold pitch and a commission rarely land.

The basics of why agencies matter are in why Shopify apps fail in the first year and how to market your first Shopify app. This post picks up after that: who to start with, what to bring to the first conversation, and what keeps an agency recommending you after the first client.

I was head of partnerships at ReConvert (Upsell.com), and I have built agency partnerships for other apps since.

Which Agency Should a Shopify App Start With?

Start with an agency you already know, or one you can reach through someone you know, and aim for one or two you can talk to more than once.

The reasoning is trust. Agencies tend not to work with a founder they don’t trust, and a stranger’s message sits next to every other pitch they get. Look through your own network first, and think about how you could help that person before you think about what you need.

The test for a good first partner is whether you can talk to them a second and third time. A one-off call teaches you little. A relationship teaches you how they use your app, what they like, which insights they care about and how they want the information sent.

What Do Agencies Want From a Shopify App?

Agencies want to keep their clients. Everything else on their wish list is a route to that.

Two things follow from that:

They want to look good in front of their clients. An app that gives them a result they can present is worth more to them than one that only performs well in the background.
They want to save time on client work. If a client manager can earn more while working less, they like you.

In practice that tends to come down to integration with the tools they already use, attribution they can show a client, or you simply doing part of the work for them.

What Should You Bring to the First Conversation With an Agency?

Bring an offer that costs you effort. Three things are worth having ready.

1. Free onboarding of their clients, done by you. The simplest offer I know is to onboard some of their clients at no charge and handle the setup yourself. What you ask for in return is feedback, a partnership and reviews. A few agencies on that deal can mean many users and many reviews from a small number of conversations. You can always change the pricing later.

2. A real person on your side. Larger, more serious agencies tend to like a dedicated contact at your company for their file, someone who onboards all their clients and can be reached directly. They get a number or an email instead of a support queue and a bot. I’ve set this up at a number of the app companies I’ve worked with.

If you have a customer success person, bring them to the call. If not, show up as yourself. Don’t try to look like a bigger company than you are, because people tend to sniff it out.

3. A question about how they like information sent. Ask what insights they care about and how they prefer to receive them. The answer shapes what you build for them, like the report example below, and that is what keeps them around.

Why Doesn’t an Agency Care About Your Commission?

Because the money is small next to what they could lose. A small affiliate commission means little to an agency, and when your monthly price is low it means even less.

What agencies care about is not losing their clients. A kickback does nothing for that.

If you are deciding where to spend effort, put it into saving their client managers time instead of raising the commission.

What Keeps an Agency Recommending Your App After the First Client?

Building something that makes the client manager’s job easier. It could help them look good, give their clients better service, or save them time or money.

Weekly client reporting is one example. The pain sits with the client managers. Most weeks they owe each client a report: ads, budgets, KPIs. It tends to take a couple of hours in spreadsheets, it eats attention, and a mistake costs them. That is one pain worth going after.

I saw this on an app I consulted for, when I started onboarding agencies for it and talked to their account reps. The reps owned a few clients each and gave them those weekly reports by hand. The play I would run today is simple: take one report format from an agency, build an AI agent around it, and enrich that report with your app’s own data. The rep then does no extra work for that slice of the report, and your app saves them hours every week.

When a competitor reaches out with a cheaper price or a higher commission, the agency has little reason to respond, because you are the one saving them the work. They tend not to replace an app that saves them hours.

A weekly automated report that the agency can white label, skim quickly and forward to the client gives them something to show for the month. That is a win they can present as their own, and a reason for the client to stay.

If the agency already sends a report, ask for one example and shape yours to match it.

How Do You Start Building Something for Agencies Without Guessing?

Work with one agency first, and build it for them.

Don’t build a template for imaginary agencies. Pick one partner and make the real thing, and you will know what belongs in it. With the report example, you also end up with a real screenshot, with a few numbers blurred, which is more convincing than a mock-up. If that agency becomes a champion, record everything about how it goes. Those become your stories for the next conversation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Start with one or two agencies you can build a real relationship with, and give them a reason: free onboarding of their clients, a direct contact, and something that makes their client managers’ job easier, such as a report that saves them time. Agencies recommend what helps them keep clients, so the reason has to be about their retention.

Do agencies want a commission for referring my Shopify app?

Agencies tend not to care about a small commission. They care about retention, meaning not losing clients, so spend your effort on making their client managers’ job easier.

Should I try to sign many agencies at once?

No. Start with one or two you can speak to more than once, learn how they use your app and what they like, then scale. Trying to get a hundred at the start means you don’t learn what any of them actually want.

How do I approach an agency that doesn’t know me?

Look in your own network first, because agencies tend not to work with people they don’t trust and get pitched constantly. Think about how you can help them before you ask for anything.

Key Takeaways

Agencies recommend apps that help them keep clients. Retention is the goal behind everything else they ask for.
Start with one or two agencies you can talk to repeatedly. Learning how one agency works beats collecting a long list.
Bring an offer that costs you effort. Free onboarding of their clients, done by you, is easier to say yes to than a commission.
Make their client managers’ job easier. Help them look good, serve their clients better, or save time or money. A weekly report in the agency’s own format is one example.
Build the first version with one real agency. Do the work with one partner, then scale.

If you are working out how to approach agencies for your app, or you have a few signed up and they have gone quiet, book a discovery call and we can look at what to bring to the next conversation.