Running an Affiliate Programme

Programme Structure Decisions

Network vs in-house — affiliate networks (Impact, CJ, ShareASale, Awin) provide access to existing publishers, fraud detection infrastructure, and payment processing. In-house programmes (using platforms like PartnerStack, Rewardful) give more control and lower ongoing costs. Networks suit companies that want reach quickly; in-house suits companies with an existing publisher community.

Commission structure — flat rate vs percentage of sale vs recurring vs tiered. SaaS companies favour recurring commissions (aligns incentives — affiliates want customers who stay). E-commerce favours percentage of sale. Lead generation favours flat rate per qualified lead.

Recruiting Quality Affiliates

The 80/20 principle applies strongly in affiliate marketing — a small number of affiliates drive the majority of revenue. Focus on recruiting these: established content sites with genuine audiences in your niche, existing customers who are also content creators, industry influencers, comparison and review sites that already cover your category.

Outreach to specific publishers is more effective than waiting for self-signups. Identify sites that already mention your competitors, write about relevant topics, or have audiences that match your customer profile. Personalised outreach with specific reasons why the partnership makes sense converts better than generic programme announcements.

Keeping Affiliates Engaged

Top affiliates work with dozens of programmes. What keeps them prioritising yours: competitive commission rates, reliable on-time payment, responsive affiliate manager, quality marketing materials, product updates and news they can write about, and performance bonuses for top performers.

Regular communication matters more than most advertisers realise. A monthly newsletter with new assets, performance data, upcoming promotions, and product news keeps your programme top of mind.

The Small Number of Partners That Matter

Every mature affiliate programme has the same shape: a handful of partners produce most of the revenue, a long tail produces almost none, and the management effort is usually distributed the wrong way round.

The useful discipline is to segment the programme and manage each tier differently. The top partners deserve direct relationships, bespoke commercial terms, advance notice of promotions and early access to product news. Treating them identically to a partner who has produced two sales is how you lose them to a competitor who does not.

The middle tier is where growth actually comes from, and it responds to attention: a conversation about what is converting, better creative, a tailored offer. The long tail should be automated entirely — self-service onboarding, standard terms, no manual effort — because the cost of managing it individually exceeds what it returns.

Review the tiers on a schedule. Partners move between them, and a tiering nobody has revisited in a year is describing last year's programme.

Policing It Without Poisoning It

Affiliate fraud is mostly not exotic. It is a small number of recognisable behaviours, and the programme terms are where you address them — before they happen, not after.

Brand bidding is the most common dispute. An affiliate bidding on your brand name in search intercepts traffic that was already yours and charges you a commission for it. Decide your position explicitly, write it into the terms, and monitor it, because a policy nobody checks is an invitation.

Cookie stuffing — dropping tracking cookies without a genuine click — shows up as an implausible click-to-conversion ratio. Coupon-site last-click capture is not fraud at all, but it does mean a partner is being paid for a conversion that was already going to happen; the answer is commission tiering by partner type rather than accusation.

And trademark misuse in ad copy is a legal exposure as much as a commercial one.

Enforce consistently. A programme that tolerates a rule for a large partner and enforces it against a small one has no rule, and the partners will work that out faster than you do.

Sources

What each claim on this page rests on. Entries are typed so you can see which are primary.