Most brands start building their affiliate program backwards. They sign up for an affiliate app, maybe recruit a few creators, and then figure out their commission structure, payout rules, and recruitment strategy somewhere along the way.

That’s how you end up with a dormant program full of affiliates who signed up, never posted, and eventually forgot you exist.

The order matters more than most people think. Your commission structure should be locked in before you recruit anyone. Your recruitment strategy should be deliberate before you try to scale. And your tools should match where your program is headed – not just what’s easiest to set up today.

In this guide, we’ll walk through the full process step by step: from deciding what kind of program to build and setting your commission structure, all the way through to recruiting your first affiliates, onboarding them, tracking performance, and iterating as you scale.

What kind of affiliate program do you actually want to build?

Before you touch commission rates or recruitment, you need to decide how your program will run. There are three main approaches – and the right one depends on your budget, your team’s capacity, and how much control you want over your creator relationships.

Here’s a quick flowchart to help you decide which route to take:
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In-house program: recruiting and managing your own creators directly

An in-house program means you’re finding, recruiting, and managing affiliates yourself (or with your team) – without a middleman network. You own the relationships, you set the terms, and you control how your brand shows up.

While running an affiliate program can be a lot of work (and requires at least one dedicated employee to scale well), it’s also the approach that gives you the most control and the highest payoff in the long run. Ana Polino elaborates:

An in-house team is more aligned with the company’s long-term vision, which usually translates into better communication, faster decision-making, and stronger relationships with affiliates and partners. Internal teams can react quicker to market changes, launch promotions faster, and maintain full control over brand messaging and quality standards.

Ana Polino Influencer Marketing Manager

You also get flexibility in-house that networks can’t match. You can build tiered commission structures, transition high-performing affiliates into paid partnerships over time, involve creators in product launches, and repurpose affiliate content across other channels. Fiorella Picado notes:

Running your program in-house also gives you more flexibility to integrate affiliates into the wider marketing mix, use the program as a stable source of content for other channels, and run initiatives more spontaneously. Also, keeping things in-house will always give creators a much closer relationship and insights to your brand, something that external partners or networks can’t match in the same way.

Fiorella Picado Influencer Marketing Consultant

In-house works best when:

• you have an experienced affiliate or influencer marketing manager (or someone with the bandwidth to become one)
• you already have creator relationships you want to build on
• you want full control over how your brand is represented

Affiliate network: listing on a platform and letting creators come to you

Affiliate networks – platforms like Awin or CJ Affiliate – give you access to a large pool of affiliates and handle much of the infrastructure: tracking, payments, and reporting. You list your program, affiliates apply or find you, and the network manages the technical layer.

The primary appeal of networks is that they take a lot off your plate. You’re not building tracking infrastructure from scratch, managing payout logistics, or chasing down tax forms.

For brands that don’t have a dedicated affiliate manager – or don’t have the in-house experience to build a program from the ground up – networks remove a lot of the operational friction and let you get started faster.

In our survey, we also found that nearly half of the marketers are constantly looking for new affiliates.
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Affiliate networks can help a lot with that, especially if your product has a broad appeal. Think brands like fashion, beauty, wellness, FMCG, etc. selling into larger markets – networks can provide meaningful scale, especially for reaching traditional affiliate types like bloggers, review sites, and online magazines. Fiorella agrees:

Affiliate networks are a better fit for brands that want to scale faster, need access to a broader pool of affiliates, or require support with tracking, payments, and infrastructure.

Fiorella Picado Influencer Marketing Consultant

The tradeoff is control. Networks tend to attract coupon sites, cashback platforms, and publishers alongside creators – and not all of those will represent your brand the way you’d want.

Networks work best when:

• you don’t have a dedicated affiliate manager yet
• you want to test affiliate as a channel with minimal operational setup
• you sell broad-appeal products and want access to traditional affiliate types at scale

Hybrid: running your own roster while using a network for incremental reach

A hybrid approach combines in-house management for your core creator relationships with a network for broader reach through traditional affiliates.

This is the best option when you want some control over affiliate recruitment and relationships, but also want to scale your program using the reach a network can provide.

Another angle to taking a hybrid approach is working with an agency to build and set up your affiliate system initially, and let the internal team take over once the program is up and running. This can work for brands that have someone who can maintain the program long-term but lack the expertise to architect it from scratch.

Hybrid works best when:

• you want incremental reach through traditional affiliate channels without building out that infrastructure yourself
• when you need outside help setting up the program, but plan to bring management in-house over time
  

Whichever route you go with, the next step is figuring out the structure of your affiliate program – what you’re going to pay affiliates, what commission you’re going to offer, and how you plan to keep affiliates active.

How to Build an Affiliate Program in 10 Steps

Most brands jump straight to signing up for a tool or recruiting creators. But the programs that actually work tend to follow a specific sequence: nail your structure first, then recruit, then scale. Here are the 11 steps to get there.

Step 1: Define what success looks like in 90 days

Our survey on affiliate marketing has made one thing clear: many brands expect affiliate marketing to drive sales, but treat it like a passive program. That doesn’t work. If you want your affiliate program to be successful, you need to invest time, money, and resources in it.

The first step is setting concrete, specific goals about what success looks like for your affiliate program. Don’t think too far ahead – just decide what you want to accomplish in the first 90 days. It can be something like:

• Drive direct sales: you want affiliate marketing to be a revenue channel. You’ll optimize for conversion-oriented creators with engaged, purchase-ready audiences.
  
• Acquire new customers: you care less about total revenue and more about bringing in first-time buyers. This changes how you set commissions (you might offer higher rates for new customer orders) and who you recruit.
  
• Generate content at scale: You want a steady stream of creator content you can repurpose across paid ads, social, and your own channels. Revenue is a bonus, not the main metric.
  

Most programs will blend a couple of these, but pick one as your north star. Trying to optimize for everything at once is how you end up optimizing for nothing. After the first 90 days are over, reflect on what went well, what could improve, and calibrate your goals accordingly.

One thing to remember is to set KPIs that are actually realistic for a new program. If this is your first affiliate program, don’t benchmark against brands that have been running theirs for two years. Here’s what realistic looks like in the first 90 days:

• Number of active affiliates: aim for 10-20 affiliates who are posting at least once a month. “Active” is the keyword – our 2026 survey found that over a third of brands have less than 20% of their affiliates actually posting. A small, active roster beats a large, silent one.
  
• Revenue from affiliates: set a modest revenue target for the first quarter. What “modest” means depends on your AOV and product, but the point is to prove the channel works before you try to scale it.
  
• Activation rate: what percentage of the affiliates you onboard are actually posting? If you’re recruiting 30 people and only five are creating content, you likely need to rework your onboarding or incentives.
  

Even if you’re not new, it’s worth taking your resource limitations into account. If you have a one-person team running your entire affiliate program, it’s more realistic to expect them to manage 10 affiliates in the first 90 days rather than aim to onboard 50 and neglect a majority.

Give the program at least six months before deciding if it’s working. But set 90-day checkpoints so you can catch problems early and course-correct.

Step 2: Choose your commission structure

Your commission structure is one of the first things an affiliate evaluates when deciding whether your program is worth their time. Get it wrong and you’ll struggle to recruit good creators – or you’ll recruit them and watch them go inactive because the payout isn’t motivating enough.

There are three main models to choose from:

• Percentage-based commission: the affiliate earns a percentage of each sale they drive. This is the most common structure – a flat 10% commission is standard across a lot of programs. It works well when your product prices are relatively similar and your margins can support it. The upside is that it naturally motivates affiliates to push higher-value orders, since their earnings scale with the sale.
  
• Flat-dollar commission: the affiliate earns a fixed amount per sale regardless of order value – for example, $15 per order. This gives you more predictable costs and is simpler to communicate. It makes the most sense for brands with high-AOV products where a percentage commission would result in payouts that eat too far into your margins.
  
• Tiered commission: instead of one flat rate, you create multiple levels – say 10%, 14%, and 19% – that affiliates unlock as they hit performance thresholds. Our survey found that programs with three or more tiers had close to 50% active affiliates, compared to just 37% for single-tier programs. Tiers give affiliates something to work toward, which keeps them posting.
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How do you figure out what you can actually afford to pay? Fiorella suggests factoring in unit economics while looking at models that motivate affiliates:

Before locking in a commission structure, I usually model different scenarios based on expected AOV, contribution margin, and customer behaviour with a goal in mind: to find a structure that is attractive enough to bring in affiliates and motivate them to post consistently, while still allowing the brand to scale profitably and keep control over acquisition costs.

Fiorella Picado Influencer Marketing Consultant

Start by doing a simple exercise:

• Start with your gross margin per product. If you’re earning 20% gross revenue on your products, giving 10% away to affiliates (plus a discount code on top) might not leave you with much.
  
• Then, factor in your AOV. A 10% commission on a $30 product means your affiliate earns $3 per sale – which isn’t enough to keep them motivated. That same 10% on a $300 product is $30 per sale. The lower your AOV, the higher your commission rate generally needs to be to stay attractive.
  
• All the while, account for discount codes. If you’re offering a 15% discount plus a 10% commission on a $30 AOV, your revenue per sale drops to about $23. Make sure the math still works after stacking both.

In most cases, brands with larger product portfolios and lower COGS – like fashion, beauty, or FMCG – tend to benefit more from percentage-based commissions. Payouts align with revenue and affiliates are incentivized to push higher basket values.

But brands doing influencer marketing for expensive products should consider flat rate commissions. A percentage model on high-AOV products can lead to payouts that make CAC volatile and the program hard to scale profitably.

It’s also worth noting that both models incentivize different kinds of behavior from affiliates. Pick the model that’s closest to your goals set in step one. Fiorella explains:

Percentage commissions typically encourage affiliates to maximize order value, while flat fees tend to prioritize conversion volume. The right structure depends on whether your goal is to increase AOV, drive new customer acquisition efficiently, or scale volume in a controlled way.

Fiorella Picado Influencer Marketing Consultant

If you’re unsure between percentage and flat-tiered, start with a percentage. It’s easier to adjust later and it’s what most affiliates expect.

It’s critical to lean on a tiered model from the beginning, though – or else you’ll leave nothing for your affiliate partners to drive toward. This sounds obvious, but half of the marketers in our survey are still running a single-tier commission structure.

A tiered structure doesn't need to be complicated – three tiers is the sweet spot. Based on our survey data, average commission rates across three tiers land around 10%, 14%, and 19%, but you’ll need to customize based on your margins and AOV. Here’s a simple example of how you can set up a three-tier commission structure:

The key is making sure each tier is attractive and attainable. If your lowest tier isn’t attractive, affiliates will hesitate to sign up to your program. But an ultra-attractive top tier means nothing if it’s nearly impossible to reach – your affiliates will get demotivated and stop trying. Set thresholds that your affiliates can realistically hit with consistent effort.

For a deeper dive on commission math, benchmarks by industry, and how to structure your tiers, check out our A to Z guide to building an affiliate program.

Step 3: Set your payout rules

Payout structure is just as (if not more) important than your commission structure. If affiliates don’t know when they’re getting paid, how much they need to earn before a payout triggers, or what currency they’ll be paid in, you’ll lose trust fast – and trust is the whole foundation of an affiliate relationship.

There are a few decisions to make here:

• Payout cadence: how often do you pay affiliates? Monthly is the most common and what most creators expect. Some programs pay bi-weekly for top performers as an added perk. Whatever you choose, be consistent and communicate it clearly upfront.
  
• Minimum payout threshold: this is the minimum amount an affiliate needs to earn before a payout is triggered – for example, $50 or $100. It saves you from processing dozens of tiny payments, but set it too high and affiliates can feel frustrated with their income getting blocked. Keep it reasonable, especially at the entry tier.
  
• Hold period: the window between when a sale is attributed and when the commission is actually paid out. This exists to account for returns and refunds – if a customer buys through an affiliate link and returns the product a week later, you don’t want to have already paid commission on that sale. A 30-day hold period is standard for most ecommerce brands.
  
• Currency and payment method: If you’re working with affiliates across multiple countries, you need to think about how you’re actually getting money to them. Bank transfers, PayPal, and platform-native payouts are the most common options. This is one of those things that sounds simple until you’re managing 50+ affiliates across different countries, currencies, and tax requirements.
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Payout logistics – especially internationally – can be the biggest frustration for many influencer marketers (and their accounting teams). Handling payouts manually across a growing roster – tracking who’s owed what, processing invoices, managing currency conversions, dealing with tax forms – becomes an operational headache as soon as you have 15 active affiliates.

The right tool can make a massive difference here. Modash:

• integrates with your Shopify store
• automatically calculates what each affiliate is owed
• lets you automate affiliate payouts across 180+ countries from one place

All you have to do is connect your Shopify store, set the rules we talked about above,  and pay the one Modash invoice every month. That’s literally it. Your operational load will never balloon, no matter how fast your program scales.

Note: whatever payout rules you set, put them in writing and share them with every affiliate during onboarding. Confusion around money is the fastest way to damage a creator relationship. Be transparent about when they’ll get paid, how much they need to earn first, and what happens with returns.

Step 4: Choose your affiliate software

It doesn’t matter whether you’re taking the in-house or hybrid approach – you need a tool to manage everything. Trying to run an affiliate program through spreadsheets and manual tracking might work for your first three or four affiliates, but it falls apart fast once you start scaling. Fiorella backs this up:

If you decide to run the program in-house, this still needs to be via an affiliate tool (unless you are planning to keep the volume of affiliates very low). Without a tool, operations can become messy, over-complicated, and affiliates lose transparency on their performance.

Fiorella Picado Influencer Marketing Consultant

Spreadsheets and manual tracking might work for your first three or four affiliates, but they fall apart fast once you start scaling. The question isn’t whether you need software – it’s how much of your workflow you want to consolidate into one place versus piecing together separate tools.

If you want the full stack from day one: use an all-in-one platform

This is the most efficient route if you’re serious about building a program that scales. Instead of stitching together one tool for discovery, another for tracking, a spreadsheet for payouts, and your email client for outreach, you run everything from a single platform where context flows with each creator.

Here’s how Modash handles the full affiliate lifecycle:

• Discovery and vetting: search 380M+ creator profiles across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Filter by audience demographics, engagement rate, niche, location, and content style. Use AI search to find creators by vibe, not just checkboxes. Pull up full profiles – audience breakdown, fake follower check, recent posts, sponsored content history – to vet applicants in minutes.

• Outreach: email creators directly from Modash with their profile visible in the sidebar. Use templates and automated follow-up sequences so you’re not rewriting the same message or manually tracking who needs a nudge.
  
• Tracking: Modash has a Shopify-native integration for discount codes, affiliate links, and sales attribution. You can track clicks, conversions, and revenue per creator in one neat dashboard (and also collect affiliate content automatically).

• Product gifting: send products directly from a creator’s profile through your Shopify store. Choose eligible products, set budget caps, and let the creator place the order themselves.
  
• Creator dashboards: every affiliate gets their own dashboard to track performance, see earnings, monitor tier progress, and set up how they get paid.
  
• Tiered commissions: create unlimited tiers with flexible rules – percentage or fixed rates, different rates for new vs. returning customers, custom hold periods. Update tiers or invite new affiliates with bulk actions.

• Payouts: Modash automates commission calculations and payouts across 180+ countries (all bundled into a single invoice for your finance team). You set the hold periods and thresholds, the system handles the rest.
  
• Reporting: Modash calculates EMV, ROAS, CPM, and more per creator and campaign. One dashboard gives you full picture – who’s driving results, who’s gone quiet, and what needs attention.

The advantage of having all of this connected is you’re never cross-referencing a spreadsheet to figure out who’s been gifted what product, what their commission tier is, and when they last posted. Everything lives in one place.

If your program is small or your budget is tight: automate the messiest parts first

You don’t need to buy into the full stack on day one. If you’re running a smaller program –  say, under 10 affiliates – or you’re still testing whether affiliate is the right channel for you, start by automating the tasks that create the most operational pain.

For most brands, the most frustrating and necessary admin work is the payouts. It’s the single most tedious admin task in most programs, and the one that damages creator trust the fastest when it goes wrong. Tracking who’s owed what, processing invoices, handling currency conversions, chasing tax forms – it’s a mess at any scale (and a much bigger one when international creators are involved).

Modash offers payments as a standalone tool, too, so you can automate payouts across 180+ countries even if you’re not using the rest of the platform yet.

After payouts, look for automating tracking and attribution. Manually matching orders to creators, calculating their commissions, and figuring out what to pay each affiliate is a huge operation. Look for a tool that connects with your Shopify store, automatically generates discount codes, and handles attributing it back to the right creator. This will also make reporting a lot easier.

In the initial stage, if you can’t afford it, it’s okay to keep a discovery and outreach manual. If you’re only recruiting a handful of affiliates at a time, you can do this through your own network, social browsing, and personal emails. It’s slower, but it works on a small scale. Automate this when you need to recruit more than you can manage manually – which usually happens around the 20-affiliate mark.

What to avoid: the five-tool patchwork

Some brands piece together a discovery tool, a separate affiliate tracking platform, a Shopify app for codes, their email client for outreach, and a spreadsheet to tie it all together. This can create a lot of software fatigue and a giant mess as you scale and want to consolidate everything.

It’s better to automate payouts and tracking in the beginning and then eventually move to an all-in-one tool that can handle everything for you.

For a deeper look at what you can automate at each stage, check out our guide to affiliate marketing automation.

Step 5: Set up performance tracking so you know what’s actually working

Your tracking setup is what connects an affiliate’s content to actual sales. Get it wrong and you’ll either misattribute revenue, underpay creators, or have no idea whether your affiliate program is actually working.

There are two main tracking mechanisms:

• Discount codes: a discount code is a unique code per affiliate (like SARAHREADS) that gives the customer a discount and attributes the sale to that creator. Discount codes work well because they survive the messy customer journey – even if someone sees a creator’s post, closes the app, and Googles your brand later, they’ll still use the code at checkout.
  
• Tracking links: a unique URL per affiliate that tracks clicks and attributes sales through cookies. These are especially useful for platforms where you can add a direct link – like on Instagram Stories, YouTube descriptions, and link-in-bio pages. The catch is that cookie-based tracking breaks if a customer disables cookies or switches devices.
  

Using both gives you a safety net. The code catches the customer who saw the post but didn’t click the link. The link catches the customer who clicked through but forgot to enter the code at checkout.

A few things about tracking to get right from the start:

• Set your attribution window: this is how long after a click or code use a sale is still credited to the affiliate. A 30-day window is standard for most ecommerce brands, but think about your typical purchase cycle. If your product requires a longer consideration period, a longer window makes sense.
  
• Embed discount codes in tracking links: if your affiliate software supports it, set up your tracking links so the discount automatically applies at checkout when someone clicks through. It removes a step for the customer and increases the chance that the sale gets attributed correctly.
  
• Don’t make your affiliate’s code less valuable than a sale you’re running: if a creator’s code gives 15% off, but your site is running a 20% off sale, no one is going to use the affiliate code. Coordinate your promotions and affiliate discounts so creators aren’t undermined by your own sales calendar.
  
• Give long-term affiliates evergreen codes: instead of cycling through campaign-specific codes, consider giving your best and long-term affiliate partners a permanent code they can use across all their content. That way, their older posts – especially on long-shelf-life platforms like YouTube – keep earning commissions months after posting.
  Just make sure the code name doesn’t include the discount amount – SARAH10 stops making sense the moment you change the discount to 5% or 15%. Something like SHOPSARAH works across any discount level.

Where tracking gets messy (and how to fix it)

The reality of affiliate tracking is that it’s never perfectly clean. Customers switch devices, disable cookies, forget to use codes, or find your site through a completely different channel after seeing a creator’s post.

This is where a lot of programs start losing trust with their affiliates – because creators can see the engagement on their posts, but the sales aren’t showing up in their dashboard.

The most common pain points:

• Manual code creation: if you’re logging into Shopify separately to create discount codes, then copying them into a spreadsheet, then emailing them to creators – that process breaks down around affiliate number 10. Every extra step is a chance for something to go wrong: duplicate codes, typos, and codes that don’t get activated properly.
  
• No real-time visibility: if your affiliates can’t see their own clicks, conversions, and earnings in real time, they’re operating blind. They don’t know what content is converting, what messaging works, or whether the program is worth their time. And you’re fielding DMs asking, “How has my code been working?”
  
• Attribution gaps: a customer sees a creator’s Instagram Story, doesn’t click the link, searches your brand on Google three days later, and buys. That sale happened because of the affiliate, but your tracking doesn’t capture it. Layering codes on top of links helps, but you need both set up and working properly.
  
• Fragmented data: if your tracking lives in one tool, your discount codes live in Shopify, and your affiliate roster lives in a spreadsheet, you’re constantly cross-referencing to figure out basic things like “Which affiliates drove the most sales this month?”
  

This is one of the areas where Modash saves the most time. Because it integrates natively with Shopify, you can create and manage both discount codes and tracking links directly from a creator’s profile – you don’t need to switch between platforms or manually enter codes. You can see an affiliate’s entire relationship history in a jiffy.

When a sale happens, it shows up in the creator’s dashboard in real time, attributed to the right person, with clicks, conversions, and revenue all in one view.

You can also set configurable attribution windows per campaign, so you’re not stuck with a one-size-fits-all approach. And because everything – codes, links, sales data, creator profiles – lives in the same platform, you’re not reconciling data across three different tools to figure out what’s working.

What to do about code poaching

Code poaching – when an affiliate’s discount code ends up on a coupon aggregation site – is a headache nearly half of marketers in our survey deal with.
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It messes with attribution and can inflate an affiliate’s numbers with sales they didn’t actually drive.

There’s no perfect solution, but here are a few ways to manage it:

• Change codes periodically (though this means legacy content stops converting for the creator)
• Monitor for sudden spikes in code usage that don’t match up with recent posts
• Set minimum order values or usage limits on codes
• Use tracking links as a secondary attribution layer

About 20% of the marketers we surveyed do nothing about code poaching because they consider it inevitable. If it’s not massively impacting your attribution, that might be the right call – the operational headache of constantly rotating codes can outweigh the problem itself.

Step 6: Build your affiliate landing page and program terms

Affiliate landing pages help you with inbound recruitment. This page can also double as an “all info you need is here” page for affiliates you hire using outbound methods.

A lot of brands skip this step or throw up a generic form and call it done. That’s a missed opportunity. Your affiliate landing page is doing two jobs at once: it’s selling creators on why your program is worth their time, and it’s filtering out people who aren’t a good fit.

What to include on your landing page:

• A clear value proposition: what do affiliates get? Don’t just say “earn commission” or “get free products” – be specific. For example, Sand & Sky have a dedicated “benefits you’ll enjoy” section on their ambassador landing page detailing the exact commission rate, perks like free products, and other non-monetary incentives.

• How the program works: explain how the process works step-by-step so creators don’t have to guess. Aristro does this well – they list the three simple steps a creator needs to follow to become an affiliate.

• What you’re looking for: be upfront about the kind of affiliates you want. This saves you time filtering bad-fit applications. True Protein, for example, lists exactly the kind of creator (health influencers) they’re looking for for their affiliate program.

• Social proof: show existing affiliates or creator content on the page. If potential affiliates can see real people already working with your brand, it makes the program feel established and trustworthy. Snif has a great library at the end of their affiliate landing page with testimonials from existing partners.

• An application form: keep it short but gather the essentials: name, email, social handles, follower count, and why they want to work with your brand. You can always ask for more detail later – a long form upfront can kill your application rate.
  

The common thread across all of these: they lead with what the affiliate gets, they’re specific about who they’re looking for, and they make applying easy.

You can also use your landing page to share your program terms to cover the operational and legal side. This doesn’t need to be a 20-page contract, but it should include:

• Commission rates and tier structure
• Attribution window and how sales are tracked
• Payout cadence, thresholds, and hold periods
• What happens with code poaching and disputed sales
• Content expectations (posting frequency, platform requirements)
• Usage rights 
• Exclusivity terms (if any)
  

Pura Vida, for example, shares its contract details before affiliates spend time filling up the form to become an affiliate partner.

Put your terms in writing, share them during onboarding, and make sure both sides are clear before any content goes live.

Step 7: Find your first affiliates

Finding your first batch of affiliates is one of the most important and time-consuming parts of building a program – but it doesn’t have to be complicated. The key is knowing where to look and being deliberate about who you bring in. A small roster of well-matched creators will always outperform a large roster of random signups.

It’s likely that your best affiliates are already in your orbit. Our survey found that nearly half of marketers are constantly recruiting new affiliates, but barely tapping the partners they already have – half of respondents said less than a quarter of their influencer partners also double as affiliates. That’s a huge missed opportunity.
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Start with who you already know:

• Your existing influencer partners: if you’re already running paid or gifting collaborations, those creators already know your product and have a relationship with your team. Adding an affiliate layer on top – an evergreen code they can use between campaigns – is the lowest-friction way to build your initial roster. Over half of the marketers we polled said influencers are open to affiliate commission as an incentive.
  
• Your own customers: look through your customer base for people with engaged social followings. They already love your product, so their promotion will feel authentic.
  
• Creators who are already talking about you: search your brand mentions, tags, and hashtags. If someone is already posting about your product without being asked, they’re an ideal affiliate candidate.
  

Once you’ve tapped into resources you already have, begin expanding your affiliate hunt outward:

• Creators who are a brand fit: use a discovery tool to expand your database – Modash has over 380M+ creators across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. You can start applying filters (like niche, location, follower count, engagement rate, etc.) to find a list of brand fit affiliate partners.
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• Creators from adjacent niches: creators outside your niche (we call them storyfit influencers) can provide a breath of fresh air to your campaigns. A skincare brand might find great affiliates among wellness, routine, or lifestyle creators – people whose audiences overlap with yours but who aren’t already promoting five competing products.

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Modash’s AI search can come in handy here to help you find creators using plain language – something like “Outdoorsy mom creator with clean skincare content.” It’ll surface matching creator profiles and you can also layer in filters to make your search more specific.

• Lookalike search: once you’ve found a couple of affiliates who are performing well, use their profiles as a starting point. Modash’s lookalike feature finds creators with similar audiences, content styles, and engagement patterns – so you can replicate what’s working without starting from scratch each time.

• Your affiliate landing page: once it’s live, put it in your site footer, link it from your social bios, and mention it in your post-purchase emails. This creates a passive inbound channel for creators who discover your brand and want to partner. It won’t flood you with applications, but the ones you get will be self-selected and genuinely interested.
  

Remember: vetting creators thoroughly matters as much as finding the right ones. Not every creator who looks good on the surface will be a good affiliate. Before you accept anyone – whether they applied through your landing page or you found them proactively – check whether they’re truly a brand fit.

Modash shows you the full breakdown on a creator – demographics, locations, interests, sponsored content, high performing posts, etc. – so you can spot whether or not a creator is the right fit in seconds.

Step 8: Reach out to affiliates (and make saying yes a no-brainer)

Finding creators is only half the job. You still need to convince them to say yes – and a generic “we'd love to work with you” email isn't going to cut it, especially when creators are getting dozens of these a week.

The best outreach does three things: it shows you’ve actually looked at their content, it makes the offer clear and specific, and it makes saying yes easy.

What to include in your outreach:

• A specific reason you're reaching out to them: reference a recent post, a content style you liked, or something about their audience that makes them a fit. “I saw your recent video about morning routines and think your audience would love our product” is infinitely better than “we love your content.”
  
• The offer itself, upfront: don’t make them dig for the details. Include your commission rate (or range), whether you’re gifting product, what kind of content you’re expecting, and any perks beyond commission – early access, higher tiers, community access.
  
• A clear next step: “Reply to this email” and “I'll get you set up” works better than
  “Let us know if you're interested and we can schedule a call to discuss potential synergies.” Make it super easy to respond to you.
  

You can templatize the stuff about your affiliate program, but personalize the rest. Here’s an example of a good, partially-personalized outreach email:
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In Modash, you can handle outreach directly from the platform – with the creator’s full profile visible in the sidebar while you write. That means you can reference their engagement rate, recent content, audience demographics, and past brand collabs without switching tabs.

You can also use outreach templates for the basics and customize per creator, and set up automated follow-up sequences that trigger if you don’t hear back – so you’re not manually tracking who needs a nudge across a spreadsheet.

For outreach templates, personalization tips, and a full breakdown of how to activate new affiliates once they’ve signed on, check out our guide to recruiting and activating affiliates.

Step 9: Keep your affiliates active and engaged long-term

Recruitment gets someone to say yes. Onboarding determines whether they actually post.

After signing up, a lot of affiliate programs gradually fall apart. A creator agrees to join, receives a discount code in a one-line email, and then... nothing. They get no guidance on what to post, no product to work with, and no community to plug into. They go silent and you can’t blame them.

Our survey found that 60% of marketers say keeping affiliates active is their biggest challenge – but almost 30% describe their involvement as “hands-off.” The connection between those two numbers isn’t a coincidence.
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How to onboard and keep affiliates active

Include the following in your routine to ensure you onboard affiliates well and keep them active for the long haul:

• A welcome email that covers the essentials: share their unique discount code and tracking link, commission rate and tier structure, payout schedule and thresholds, content expectations (how often to post, which platforms), and where to go if they have questions. This doesn’t need to be a novel – keep it scannable and link to a more detailed FAQ or program terms doc if needed.
  
• Ship your product fast (and continue sending more periodically): ship your products for an affiliate to try before they get fully onboarded. And more importantly, continue actively checking in and refreshing products. Fiorella explains why:

Some affiliates simply stop posting because they don’t have enough product to create new content. If you are not actively checking in with them, this can easily be misinterpreted as low motivation or lack of interest, when in reality it is a logistical issue.

Fiorella Picado Influencer Marketing Consultant

Our survey backs this up – 93% of marketers gift new products to affiliates, but almost 30% don’t refresh those products when new launches happen.
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• Brand assets and creative direction: share product photos, lifestyle imagery, talking points, and examples of what good affiliate content looks like for your brand. You’re not writing their script – but giving them a starting point makes it much easier for creators to actually hit publish.
  
• A communication channel: this is where most programs default to a monthly email blast and call it a day. But a newsletter is not a community. Set up a two-way channel where affiliates can talk to you and to each other: a WhatsApp group, a Discord server, or an Instagram group DM. The format matters less than making it a space where people actually talk. Share selling tips, highlight top performers, ask for feedback, and let affiliates connect with each other. Only about 18-20% of marketers in our survey use community channels like WhatsApp or Discord – which means this is a genuine differentiator if you do it well.
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• Dashboard access: make sure your affiliates can see their own performance from day one – clicks, conversions, earnings, tier progress. If they’re posting content and have no idea whether it’s working, motivation dies fast. In Modash, every affiliate gets their own dashboard where they can track performance and manage their payout details.

The first 30 days of a program matter the most. If you’re not seeing any activity within the first 30 days, reach out – don’t just wait and hope. It could be a tracking issue, confusion about the program, or simply that they need a nudge to get started.

Set a reminder to check in with every new affiliate after their first week and again after 30 days. A quick “hey, how’s it going, need anything?” message can be the difference between an active affiliate and a ghost.

Step 10: Track what’s working (and decide which affiliates to invest more in)

Once your affiliates are posting, you need to know what’s actually working – and more importantly, who’s working.

Here’s what you should track:

• Revenue per affiliate: this is the obvious one. But don’t just look at total revenue – look at the trend. Is it growing, flat, or declining? A creator who drove $2,000 in month one and $500 in month three is telling you something different than one who drove $500 consistently across all three months.
  
• Activation rate: what percentage of your onboarded affiliates have actually posted at least once? If this number is low, the problem is onboarding, not recruitment. Stop recruiting more people and fix the onboarding first.
  
• New vs. returning customers: are your affiliates acquiring new customers or just giving existing ones a discount? This matters a lot for understanding the actual incrementality of your program. Fiorella flags this, too:

[There are] cases where conversions are mainly coming from existing customers, heavy discount usage, or code leakage. While revenue might look strong on paper, these affiliates can end up being unprofitable or adding little value to the program.

Fiorella Picado Influencer Marketing Consultant

• Content frequency and quality: is the content getting lazier over time? Low-effort posts like screenshots or static images rarely convert and can cheapen your brand. Modash collects all content your affiliates create for your brand automatically (including IG Stories!), so you can keep an eye on them and monitor patterns:
  

• Clicks vs. conversions: if a creator is driving a lot of clicks but few conversions, that’s useful information. It might mean their audience is interested, but the landing page isn't converting, the discount isn’t compelling enough, or the product-audience fit isn’t quite right. Don’t cut the creator – diagnose the problem first.
  

Modash tracks content automatically – even when creators forget to tag you – and calculates EMV, ROAS, and CPM per creator and per campaign. You can see at a glance who’s driving results, who’s gone quiet, and who needs attention, without pulling data from five different places.

But tracking performance isn’t just about reporting, it’s also about making roster decisions. After the first 90 days, you should have enough data to sort your affiliates into three buckets: invest more, maintain, or cut.

Fiorella evaluates affiliates across several dimensions – not just revenue – before deciding what to do with them:

Affiliate programs should be managed like a portfolio where each partner justifies their place either through revenue, potential, content value, or strategic importance.

Fiorella Picado Influencer Marketing Consultant

Here are some signs to look out for to understand when you should cut (or deprioritize) an affiliate and when you should invest more in them, according to Fiorella:
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The goal isn’t to ruthlessly cull your roster – it’s to redirect your time and budget toward the affiliates who are actually moving the needle, and give a clear off-ramp to the ones who aren’t.

Build an affiliate program that actually performs

Here’s a quick recap of what to do (and in what order):

• Start with structure, not recruitment: decide what kind of program you want to run (in-house, network, or hybrid), set your commission model and payout rules, and pick your tools before you reach out to a single creator.
  
• Recruit affiliates deliberately: tap your existing influencer partners and customers first – they already know your product. Then expand outward using discovery tools, AI search, and your affiliate landing page. Vet thoroughly before you accept anyone.
  
• Invest in onboarding and ongoing management: ship product fast, set up a real communication channel, give affiliates dashboard access from day one, and check in regularly. Hands-on programs see 7x more active affiliates than hands-off ones.
  
• Track and act: don’t just collect data – use it to make smart decisions. Invest more in affiliates who show potential, cut the ones who don’t, and review your full roster quarterly.

The biggest takeaway from everything we’ve covered is that affiliate programs reward effort. The brands that treat affiliate marketing like a real channel and invest time, budget, and attention into it are the ones seeing success.

That effort gets a lot easier when your tools aren’t working against you. Modash handles discovery, outreach, Shopify-native tracking, product gifting, tiered commissions, automated global payouts, and reporting in one platform – so you can spend your time on relationships and strategy instead of spreadsheets and manual payout calculations.

Start a 14-day free trial – no credit card required.

And if you want a data-backed look at what separates affiliate programs that perform from the ones that stall, read our Effort Gap report.

FAQs

How much does it cost to build an affiliate program?

The biggest costs are product seeding, commission payouts, and your affiliate software. You don’t need a huge upfront budget – commissions are performance-based, so you only pay when affiliates drive sales. Software costs vary depending on the platform and what features you need. The real investment is time: someone on your team needs to actively manage the program for it to work.

What's a good commission rate for an ecommerce affiliate program?

It depends on your margins, AOV, and product type. Our survey found average commission tiers of 10%, 14%, and 19% across a three-tier structure. Lower-AOV brands tend to need higher percentage rates to keep payouts attractive, while high-AOV brands may benefit from flat-dollar commissions to control costs. Run the math on your own unit economics before picking a number.

How many affiliates do you need to start seeing results?

Fewer than you think. 10-20 active affiliates who post consistently will outperform 100 who signed up and went silent. Focus on activation rate – what percentage of your affiliates are actually creating content – rather than total headcount.

What’s the difference between an affiliate program and an influencer program?

An influencer program typically involves paying creators upfront (flat fee or gifting) for content. An affiliate program pays creators based on performance – usually a commission on each sale they drive. Many brands run both, and some use hybrid models where creators receive a base fee plus commission. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, and your existing influencer partners are often your best affiliate candidates.

How do you prevent affiliate fraud and fake sales?

Set clear program terms that define what counts as fraud (code leakage, running unauthorized paid ads with affiliate codes, fake leads). Use hold periods on payouts so you can catch returns and suspicious activity before commissions are paid out. Monitor for sudden spikes in code usage that don’t match post engagement. And vet creators thoroughly before accepting them into your program – audience quality checks and sponsored content history go a long way.

Do you need an affiliate network, or can you run it in-house?

You can absolutely run it in-house – and for creator-led programs, it’s usually the better option because you get more control over relationships, brand representation, and program flexibility. But you do need an affiliate tool to manage operations, even in-house. Networks make more sense if you don’t have a dedicated manager yet, want to test the channel with minimal setup, or sell broad-appeal products and want access to traditional affiliate types at scale.