Influencer campaigns are a powerful way to build your brand, showcase products, and reach new audiences. However, creating and managing these orders is so painful in Shopify if you're starting with a spreadsheet of recipients. With Send To Many, Shopify merchants can efficiently handle these orders—called Free Sends—by automating recipient uploads, shipping selections, and delivery tracking, all without needing a payment step. This guide walks you through how to create an Influencer Order using Send To Many.
Step 1: Create or Select a Draft Order as the Template for your Send
We use a single draft order as the template for your Send. In the draft, you define the key details that will be applied to all recipients. For an Influencer Order, you’ll want your draft order to include the product(s) being sent, any promotional tags (e.g., “Influencer Campaign”), and placeholder customer information. Once the draft is set up, select it in the Send To Many app.
Remember: You only need one draft order for the entire Send. The app customizes each order based on the uploaded recipient list.
Details for your draft order:
Product(s): Required. Select one or more products that your recipients will be sent. If different recipients will receive different products, you can include those products in your upload sheet (see Formatting your Upload for more details)
Customer: Required. For a Free Send, pick yourself or another internal user as the customer. Shipping addresses will be ignored when the app generates your orders
Note and/or tags: optionally add a note or tags to all orders in the send
Additional Details: if your shop uses "Additional Details" fields (called customAttributes in the Shopify API), you can add those in your upload file (see Formatting your Upload for more details)
Step 2: Prepare your Upload File
Prepare your recipient list in a CSV or Google Sheet format. Here are templates to format your data:
Excel template: add your data to either the Standard Upload or the With Products tab as needed. Be sure to preserve the column header names. Then save/export that tab as a CSV for upload in the app.
Google Sheet template: make a copy of this Sheet for your own use. Then share it with "anyone who has the link" as a viewer. Finally, copy and paste the full URL of the tab containing your data and use this URL in the app.
Each row in the file should represent one influencer and include columns for details like name, address, and any personalized notes.
Product column:
If all recipients are receiving the same product(s), you can leave this column blank. The app will use the products you set in your draft order.
If specific influencers are receiving unique items, include the product handle or SKU for each recipient.
Notes: Use this column to add personalized messages for each influencer, such as “Hope you enjoy our new summer collection!”
For additional details, see Formatting your Multi-Recipient Upload File.
Step 3: Set Up Your Campaign in Send To Many
To get started, log in to your Shopify admin and open the Send To Many app. From the dashboard, create a new send and select the Free Send option. Name your campaign (e.g., “Summer Influencer Boxes”) and add a description or store representative if needed. These details help you keep track of your campaigns in the app.
Step 4: Upload Recipient File
Upload your file to the app. Send To Many will flag any errors, such as incomplete addresses, allowing you to fix them directly in the app or exclude problematic entries.
Step 5: Assign Shipping Methods
The app calculates available shipping rates based on your Shopify store settings and the recipient’s address. Assign shipping rates (e.g., Standard or Expedited) for each recipient or apply custom options as needed. If you’re covering shipping costs, you can select “Free Shipping” for all orders.
Step 6: Final Options
Choose how you want to handle inventory for this order:
Take from inventory: the best option if you are shipping from stocked inventory or if you use a 3PL. Send To Many will alert you if there are inventory issues with any of the orders in your send
Take from inventory and ignore out of stock: a less commonly used option. Can be useful for build-to-order inventory (like flowers, food or custom products).
Don't take from inventory: if you already have inventory set aside for your Send and don't need to track it in Shopify or if you're sending pre-release product that's not yet stocked in your store
Choose how delivery notifications are handled:
Suppress all notifications: Ideal for influencer campaigns, ensuring recipients don’t receive automated Shopify emails.
Send notifications to recipients: Useful if you want influencers to receive shipment tracking updates.
Notify the sender: Keeps your team informed about the delivery progress without notifying recipients.
These options allow you to control how updates are communicated throughout the campaign.
Note: Send To Many always suppresses order notifications, so the main customer on the Send won't be flooded with order confirmations.
Step 7: Process the Orders
Once everything is set, click Process Orders to generate the individual Shopify orders for your recipients. These orders will appear in your Shopify admin, ready for fulfillment.
What's Next
The Send To Many dashboard provides a central place to monitor the status of all orders in your campaign. You can click through to each order. You can also view all your Send to Many orders by filtering the order list page by "App = Send To Many"
With Send To Many, managing Influencer Orders is simple and efficient. By automating repetitive tasks and centralizing campaign management, you can focus on building relationships with influencers and showcasing your brand. Whether you’re sending samples, promotional items or gifts, Free Sends in Send To Many make it easy to scale your influencer outreach efforts.