Founded in 1999, Window Cleaning Resource will celebrate their 26th birthday this September 2025. The community aspect has always been the heart of the whole operation: they want to help connect window cleaning business owners and foster their businesses by being a partner, sharing, and learning.
Window Cleaning Resource hosted the buzziest online forum for professional window cleaners, accompanied by a YouTube channel that featured every product they put in their shop. For such a unique niche, they have carved a rather unique approach for their business that centers around expert recommendations by experienced window cleaning business owners.
Hence, affiliate marketing via professional referrals becomes natural for this cleaning supply business. The team’s predilection for affiliate marketing is apparent: it’s pay per sale, and it performs best with the already established community.
UpPromote’s affiliate software for E-commerce is proud to be the solution provider that Window Cleaning Resource trusts. The brand has reached 80% of their goal this year for affiliate sales in just 6 months. Here’s their story.
The Smooth Transition From Community Resource to Sales Business
WCR prides is placed on the most important word: resource. WCR has its own platform that works as a television network. They do everything: content, video, media team, podcast – all to become the prime resource for the whole window cleaning scene. Some of their remote sales reps even frequent the headquarters to film content.
As expected, it translated so well into the sales side. “Give people something for free and they’ll come to you when it’s time to buy” is the main motto.
And they stay true to their mission of providing resources for the community. You can find a plethora of free downloads for window cleaners to utilize throughout their professional careers, such as waivers, contracts, and guides to start and grow their businesses.
By helping others to thrive, WCR becomes the top runner within the field and saturates this niche industry with brand presence. There are million posts on the traditional forum regarding product usage as well as business discussion. WCR also quickly adapts to trendy outlets like Instagram and TikTok with mutual following and reposting videos made by WCR affiliates and enthusiasts.
Affiliate Recruitment Starts Inside Out
Window Cleaning Resource is a supply provider, which means their customers are window cleaning professionals and business owners who provide these services. Hence, it’s natural to scout for affiliates from within.
Hana informs us about this particular arrangement, as most of their affiliates are their employees and remote sales representatives. SteveO The Window Cleaner and Josh Cronin (Jersey) are the biggest affiliates. They constantly create content, videos, podcasts, magazines, and more to become a resource for window cleaning professionals alike. “They’re the closest thing to a celebrity that we have in window cleaning.” Hana cheerfully shared with us.
WCR lovely team
Moreover, a lot of other affiliates do work with Stevo and Jersey as their sales reps. Therefore, they already have the knowledge of why they should purchase the tool, how to utilize it, and then further, how to market it to their customers.
Window Cleaning Resource also opens the door for other window cleaning professionals to join under one condition: they have to make content actively.
We make sure that they’re window cleaners, first of all, because we want all of our affiliates to be able to discuss the tools and everything like that. We check out their social media. We don’t require any number of followers, just that they’re posting, because we’ve noticed that if you don’t post, nothing happens.
Hana Howell – Brand Manager at Window Cleaning Resource
Different Programs & Commissions for Different Affiliate Teams
The team at WCR knows the secret to successful affiliate marketing: segmentation.
As of late, they have three main groups of affiliates: the Pro team, the Basic affiliate team, and the International affiliate team.
While the International team is self-explanatory, the two other teams are separated by their performances. The Pro team consists of their sales representatives and best-performing affiliates. The latter are inspired window cleaning professionals.
The separation is necessary because of logistics, convenience, and fair compensation. WCR can quickly contact the mainland members for a drop-off freebie, as international shipping might be problematic. And for the Pro group that brings in 20,000 to 23,000 referrals, WCR makes sure to treat them right with a higher commission rate than the basic 8% of order value.
WCR’s benefits for starting affiliates
UpPromote helps WCR in this front with multiple affiliate programs. Once affiliates are sorted into the appropriate group, they will receive the corresponding benefits.
We also go a step further in helping WCR address their most active and top-performing affiliates with only one click. That way, WCR knows who to send more incentives to celebrate and encourage their good work. UpPromote’s live analytics provides the best visualizations and key metrics to capture affiliate performance.
Right now, when I’m looking at my dashboard, here are the affiliates. I can see registration time, full name, email, program, login count, and last login. And then there’s total referrals, the amount of clicks. OK, that’s super helpful.
Hana Howell – Brand Manager at Window Cleaning Resource.
Build Rapport with Affiliates from The Start
The one thing that sets Window Cleaning Resource apart from 90% of businesses is the dedication to building relationships with affiliates.
Instantly, once the affiliates are vetted and accepted into the program, they will receive a swag bag. This welcoming package is beyond generous, with WCR merch and some of their products. With UpPromote’s gift for affiliate feature, WCR can send out and keep track of their customized freebie swag bag easier than ever.
Windowcleaningresource professional wearing a WCR hat
While the merch is a special thank-you gift for taking the time to work with WCR, the gears are essential to showcase their supply in action. Together, the starter pack helps turn affiliates into “walking billboards” for WCR.
And they did not stop there. WCR constantly keeps in touch with their affiliates, even though only 20% of affiliates actively reach out to initiate the conversation. It gets to the point that Hana Howell, WCR brand manager, is on a first-name basis with the most active affiliate members.
So I deal with all of our affiliates directly. Whenever they need anything, they come to me. I work with them. I’m personally on a first-name basis with (top-affiliates), who consistently post, make sure that they’re asking questions, and they’re checking out the new promotions that we have going on.
Hana Howell – Brand Manager at Window Cleaning Resource
The win-win agreement keeps blossoming upon the genuine rapport between the two parties.
The Results
We had a lovely chat with Hana regarding WCR’s wonderful business and their progress with affiliate marketing. The outcomes have been astonishing to say the least:
- Their goal is $1M in a year; they reached $800k in 6 months.
- 250+ affiliates in 3 programs
- The top affiliate group made 20,000 – 23,000 referral sales.
And even by subtracting sales representatives, WCR is still close to passing their affiliate sales goal with flying colors this year.
During the discussion, our dedicated team also informed Hana about another angle to take WCR’s business further: customer referral with store credit as payment. This will increase WCR’s customer loyalty and lifetime value while keeping true to their sharing & winning business model.
Hana also has a wonderful recommendation for businesses new to affiliate marketing: make the initial goals clear and simple.
I would definitely recommend anybody starting this program to kind of lay out how they want it to run and then slowly add features, not everything all at once, just so that they can keep it better organized and they don’t get into the weeds.
Ellie Tran, a seasoned SEO content writer with three years of experience in the eCommerce world. Being a part of the UpPromote team, Ellie wants to assist Shopify merchants in achieving success through useful content & actionable insights. Ellie's commitment to learning never stops; she's always eager to gain more knowledge about SEO and content marketing to create valuable content for users. When she's not working on content, Ellie enjoys baking and exploring new places.
