DADSBADHABITS.COM

A niche affiliate platform and merch store built around dads, gear, and everyday habits

Dads Bad Habits is a niche affiliate marketing and lifestyle review site focused on fathers and the gear they obsess over. From tools and gadgets to everyday carry and home setups, the site is designed to drive affiliate revenue while also supporting a branded merchandise store.

This project combines a custom WordPress theme, affiliate optimized content loops, WooCommerce plus Printful print on demand products, Stripe payments, and automated social publishing into one scalable, SEO oriented platform.

Project goals

• Maximize affiliate revenue with optimized review layouts
• Build a fast custom WordPress theme specifically for affiliate content
• Implement custom loops and fields for tracking affiliate links and metadata
• Add a WooCommerce plus Printful POD merchandise store
• Integrate Stripe for secure, low friction checkout
• Automate content ingestion and social syndication to reduce manual work

Custom WordPress theme and affiliate review framework

The theme is hand built for affiliate publishing, with a focus on performance, clear product presentation, and strong calls to action on monetized links.

Key engineering elements:

• Custom fields for affiliate URLs, captions, and summary copy
• Smart loops that pull product and affiliate data consistently
• Flexible WP_Query structures to support sorting and custom views
• Featured images that deep link directly to affiliate products
• Inline advertisement injection based on post index
• SEO aware metadata and structured markup for review content

Core affiliate loop snippet

<!-- Start of Post Wrap -->
<div class="post hentry">
    <h2 class="entry-title">
        <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a>
    </h2>

    <div class="entry-summary">
        <div class="featured-image">
            <a href="<?php print_custom_field('affiliate_link'); ?>" target="_new">
                <?php the_post_thumbnail([180, 9999]); ?>
            </a><br/>

            <a href="<?php print_custom_field('affiliate_link'); ?>" target="_new">
                <?php print_custom_field('summaryThumbCaption'); ?>
            </a>
        </div>

        <div class="excerpt-summary">
            <?php the_excerpt(); ?>
            <span class="readmore">
                <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">Read more</a>
            </span>
        </div>
    </div>
</div>
<!-- // End of Post Wrap -->

This structure ensures that product imagery and captions always route users to tracked affiliate URLs while still supporting on site summaries and deeper content.

Custom query logic with ad injection

To increase revenue per session without cluttering the layout, the archive and listing pages use a custom WP_Query loop that automatically injects ads after the fourth post.

<?php
$modArgs = [
    'post_type'      => 'post',
    'orderby'        => 'publish_date',
    'order'          => 'DESC',
    'posts_per_page' => 8,
    'paged'          => $paged
];
$the_modQuery = new WP_Query($modArgs);
?>

<?php $counter = 1; ?>
<?php if ($the_modQuery->have_posts()) :
    while ($the_modQuery->have_posts()) : $the_modQuery->the_post(); ?>

        <?php get_template_part('product', 'item'); ?>

        <?php if ($counter == 4) : ?>
            <div class="post hentry">
                <div class="inPageAd"><?php echo do_shortcode('[sam id=1]'); ?></div>
                <div class="inPageAd"><?php echo do_shortcode('[sam id=1]'); ?></div>
            </div>
        <?php endif; ?>

        <?php $counter++; ?>

    <?php endwhile;
else : ?>
    <p>Sorry, there are no posts to display</p>
<?php endif; ?>
<?php wp_reset_query(); ?>

<div class="clear"></div>
<a class="tabMore" href="/newest">View all posts newest to oldest</a>

This approach provides:

• Predictable ad placement without heavy ad management plugins
• Higher average revenue per visit through controlled ad spacing
• Minimal performance impact compared to third party ad stacks

WooCommerce and Printful print on demand store

In addition to affiliate content, Dads Bad Habits includes a branded merchandise store powered by WooCommerce and integrated with Printful.

Store capabilities:

• Branded tees, hats, mugs, hoodies, and dad centric merch
• Automatic product sync between WooCommerce and Printful
• Zero inventory dropshipping
• Stripe payments for smooth checkout
• Original artwork and brand assets
• Fulfillment plus tracking handled by Printful

Automated Instagram to WordPress and social republishing

To maintain a consistent content pipeline, the site runs a custom automation workflow:

• Detect new Instagram posts
• Upload media to WordPress
• Use captions as post content
• Convert hashtags into WordPress tags
• Auto generate post titles
• Save as pending
• Publish via hourly cron
• Republish posts to additional social channels

Benefits include:

• Fresh, ongoing content
• Stronger SEO signals
• Additional traffic from social backlinks
• Reduced manual work for content creation

Results and long term value

This system delivers a scalable affiliate and merch platform with long term growth in mind.

• Strong organic search performance
• Higher affiliate conversions
• Complementary revenue through merch
• Automated content workflows
• Maintainable, custom built theme
• Improved mobile experience and engagement

Dads Bad Habits demonstrates how thoughtful engineering, monetization strategy, and automation can come together to support a niche lifestyle brand.

Want an affiliate ready WordPress site with merch and automation?

If you want to build or modernize an affiliate review platform with integrated merchandise and automation, this project is a blueprint for that approach.

Let’s talk about your affiliate and merch strategy
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