Affiliate Marketing
A distributed sales force paid on results.
Workflow
Step 1Affiliate Activated
ObjectiveGet affiliates live.
InputAffiliate agreements
OutputActive affiliates
Key activities
Onboard, set tracking, provide creative
Decision points
Are they set up?
Tools: PlatformRoles: Marketing
Success: Affiliates active
Quality gate: Go: live. Loop back: stuck.
Why it matters
- Affiliates expand reach on a pay-for-performance basis. It's the channel with the fewest fixed costs.
Best practices
- Recruit affiliates who reach your ICP.
- Give them creative and tracking that works.
- Pay reliably and on time — trust drives recruitment.
- Prune affiliates who don't convert.
Common mistakes
- Affiliates chasing commission on the wrong audience.
- Fragile tracking that breaks trust.
- Paying volume without measuring quality.
Key questions
- Who reaches our buyer and could sell for us?
- Is the program profitable at the margin?
Agents that drive this
AttributionCampaign Builder
Tools we use · alternates in [ ]
Metabase[ Looker Studio, Power BI, Grafana ]Google Analytics[ Plausible, Mixpanel ]HubSpot[ Salesforce, Pipedrive, Attio ]