Recruiting affiliates with experience and a track record of success is one of the best ways to scale your affiliate marketing conversions and revenue. But with so many potential partners out there, how do you find the right ones and convince them to join your program?

In this post, we’ll share actionable strategies for recruiting affiliates who deliver value and align with your brand and business goals. We’ll also show how tools like TUNE’s affiliate marketing platform can make recruitment more efficient and effective, while offering additional ideas to build your pipeline and attract quality partners. By the end, you’ll have a roadmap for identifying, engaging, and onboarding affiliates who can help grow your business.

Why High-Performing Affiliates Matter

Not all affiliates are created equal. High-performing affiliates bring your business more than just traffic — they bring engaged audiences, stronger conversion rates, and long-term growth. These affiliates require deliberate recruitment strategies, not a “set it and forget it” approach. Instead, you need a proactive strategy and the right tools to find partners who are serious about success.

With dedicated resources, a clear strategy, and a platform like TUNE, you can streamline the recruitment and management process for your partners and your own team, empowering both sides to focus on what they do best.

Strategies for Recruiting High-Performing Affiliates

1. Provide Specific, Clear Details in Every Offer  

Transparency is one of the best ways to attract serious affiliates. When potential partners know exactly what you expect and what they’ll earn for meeting those expectations, they’re more likely to engage.

To make your program compelling and motivate affiliates out of the gate, every single offer you provide should include three pieces of information:

1. Payout structures and tiers: Clearly define commissions, bonuses, conversion windows, recurring payouts, and any other guidelines for conversions. For example, “Earn $40 per lead with a recurring 10% commission on subscription renewals in the first 12 months.”
2. Historical performance data: Share relevant data like typical conversion rates and average order value (AOV), or a list of your most popular offerings from the past 6 months, to demonstrate transparency and build trust.
3. Program benefits and perks: Let potential partners know how your program will make their job easier. Consider listing perks like professional creative assets, access to marketing tools or analytics dashboards, and a dedicated support team.

A clear, detailed offer signals professionalism, improves response rates, and helps affiliates quickly evaluate whether they can succeed with you.

2. Keep Your Recruitment Pipeline Active

Recruiting affiliates isn’t a one-and-done process. You can’t just post a sign-up link and expect top partners to flock to your program. The best programs maintain an ongoing pipeline, so they can adapt as trends, products, and audiences evolve. That means setting a strategy, executing on it regularly, and adjusting as needed.

Here are a few tips for how to keep your affiliate recruitment pipeline full:

• Regularly reach out through email, LinkedIn, and online communities
• Monitor emerging performance trends using analytics tools in TUNE to identify new opportunities and create content as needed
• Reach out to affiliates via their preferred platform, whether it’s TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Discord, Twitch, their personal blog, their online shop, or anywhere else
• Diversify your network by including non-traditional affiliates: influencers and creators, streamers, podcast hosts, niche specialists

A consistent, proactive approach will help you keep your program competitive.

3. Use Affiliate and Influencer Discovery Tools

You don’t have to find affiliates manually. Several tools can help you uncover new partners who already reach your target audience. Whether you’re looking for Instagram influencers, TikTok creators, or Twitch streamers, there are numerous apps and platforms created specifically to connect advertisers with affiliate marketers.

Beware any quick-fix solutions or AI-powered tools that promise the moon, however; no matter what they say, there is no one-stop shop to find every partner you need. Reputable solutions can help you find high-potential partners based on real engagement data rather than guesswork.

Based on your goals and industry, start by searching directly in the preferred platform of your ideal partner. Most social media companies now provide native tools for finding and collaborating with affiliates within the platform, such as Meta’s creator marketplace. Some other options:

• Influencer connection platforms like Upfluence, CreatorIQ, Find Your Influencer, and Aspire
• Social media and content analysis tools like SparkToro or BuzzSumo
• TUNE’s built-in partner marketplace and discovery tools

4. Work with Affiliate Marketing Agencies

For larger programs or those entering new markets, an affiliate marketing agency can accelerate the process. Agencies have established relationships with proven affiliates and can handle negotiations, onboarding, and scaling for you.

When researching agencies, look for a shop that has a proven track record of success in three areas: developing program strategy, operationalizing the program, and optimizing the program. The best agencies drive incremental value through tailored support in these phases. If your program is already established, search instead for an agency that specializes in recruitment and onboarding.

Benefits of working with an affiliate agency include:

1. Access to pre-qualified, high-performing affiliates
2. Faster, more efficient negotiations
3. Scalable support for regional or global programs

If you need to scale quickly without adding internal resources, an agency is worth considering.

Additional Ideas for Recruiting Affiliates

Beyond the strategies above, here are a few additional ways you can support your recruitment efforts and attract affiliates to your program.

• Host Webinars and Events: Offer educational webinars or networking events specifically for potential affiliates. Topics like “How to Maximize Affiliate Earnings” or “Trends in [Your Industry] Affiliate Programs” position you as a thought leader and attract motivated partners.
• Create a Referral Program for Current Affiliates: Your current affiliates likely know others in their space. Offer them an incentive to refer new partners, which can help you tap into trusted networks of quality affiliates.
• Build a Content Hub for Prospective Partners: Develop a dedicated page or microsite with resources for potential affiliates. Include case studies, earnings examples, FAQs, and program highlights to make it easy for them to see the value of joining.
• Engage in Industry Communities: Join forums, Slack groups, LinkedIn groups, and other industry communities where affiliates hang out. Participate in discussions, share insights, and build relationships over time to position your program as approachable and credible.

Key Takeaways and Next Steps

Recruiting affiliates who perform well takes more than luck. By combining platforms like TUNE with transparency, ongoing outreach, and creative engagement tactics, you can attract and onboard partners who are aligned with your goals. Remember, recruitment is an ongoing effort. The more you invest in building relationships and maintaining your pipeline, the more successful your program will become.

Ready to start recruiting high-performing affiliates? Request a demo of TUNE to see how the platform’s advanced tools and resources can simplify your workflows and help you build more profitable partnerships.

Not ready for a demo? Download our Influencer-Affiliate Blueprint for even more strategies to attract and retain top-performing partners.

Affiliate marketing can be one of the smartest ways to grow your business when it’s done right. The performance-based model keeps costs predictable and incentives aligned. But there’s a catch: because commissions are at stake, affiliate programs are also a popular target for fraud.

Fraud hurts more than just your budget. It damages relationships with real affiliates, distorts your campaign data, and can even hurt customer trust. In fact, global ad fraud is costing businesses more each year, and is estimated to increase from $84 billion to $172 billion by 2028. Unfortunately, affiliate programs are part of that number.

Fortunately, there are ways for advertisers and businesses to fight back. In this post, we’ll cover what affiliate fraud looks like and what you can do to prevent it.

What Does Affiliate Fraud Look Like?

Affiliate fraud happens when someone manipulates your tracking or payout system to earn commissions they didn’t really earn. These shady tactics take money away from your legitimate partners and waste your marketing spend.

Here are some of the most common types of affiliate fraud:

• Application fraud: Fake or stolen identities used to join your program.
• Click fraud: Bots or scripts generate fake clicks to inflate metrics.
• Conversion fraud: Fraudsters claim credit for sales or leads that never happened.
• Conversion stealing: Affiliates take credit for sales driven by another channel.
• Click spamming: Repeated irrelevant clicks in hopes of claiming organic sales.
• Cookie stuffing: Dropping cookies without consent to claim unearned credit.

Each of these can lower ROI, throw off your data, and even get you penalized if they violate network or platform rules.

How to Spot and Stop Affiliate Fraud

You don’t have to accept fraud as a cost of doing business. The best programs stay ahead of bad actors by combining good partner management with the right technology. Here are four ways you can do the same.

1. Use Advanced Fraud Prevention Tools

The TUNE Partner Marketing Platform gives you free, built-in tools and integrations designed to catch fraud before it costs you. Use these tools to:

• Screen affiliates before they join your program with our E-HAWK integration.
• Block invalid clicks in real time using Proactive Fraud Prevention.
• Set your own KPIs and performance automation rules to automatically flag unusual traffic patterns.
• Get full transparency with real-time reporting to spot anomalies fast.
• Use advanced tracking methods like postbacks to verify conversions accurately and securely.

2. Manage Affiliates Directly

Strong affiliate relationships go a long way. When you manage partners yourself instead of relying on third parties, it’s easier to enforce policies, verify credentials, and keep communication open. Check out our blog post for a few of the top tips for managing your own program.

3. Monitor the Data

Real-time data can tell you when something doesn’t add up — like a sudden spike in traffic with no conversions. With TUNE’s detailed performance data, including real-time data streaming via TUNE Firehose, you can act fast and minimize losses.

4. Train Your Team

Your team is your first line of defense. Make sure they know how to recognize red flags, use fraud tools effectively, and stay informed about emerging tactics.

Every fake click or false conversion wastes your ad spend and clouds your campaign data. That means worse ROI and poor decision-making. Investing in fraud prevention not only protects your budget, it helps build trust with honest affiliates who deserve to be paid for their real contributions.

Protect Your Program with TUNE

Affiliate fraud isn’t going away. But with the right approach, you can stay ahead of it. TUNE puts powerful, easy-to-use fraud prevention tools right at your fingertips, from advanced partner screening and real-time click blocking, to customizable automation rules that keep you in control 24/7.

Don’t wait until fraud drains your budget. Take control and keep your affiliate program secure today.

Ready to get started? Download our guide to performance automation, or reach out to partnermarketing@tune.com to learn more about fighting fraud on TUNE.

How to Recruit Affiliate Marketers

It’s time for Part 8 of the Affiliate Marketing for Your Business blog series. This is your comprehensive resource for everything related to affiliate programs. We began this journey with intro material and have worked our way to more advanced strategies and concepts. Today, we’re covering how to recruit affiliates.

In case you’re just joining, here’s a recap:

• Part 1: Basic concepts for your affiliate marketing program.
• Part 2: A brief introduction to affiliate offers.
• Part 3: Understanding affiliate marketers.
• Part 4: Setting up your affiliate offers.
• Part 5: Variables and parameters for your tracking URLs.
• Part 6: Affiliate planning, research, targeting and traffic.
• Part 7: What can my program offer to attract affiliates?
• Part 8: Ways to recruit affiliates.

As promised, now we’re going to review how to recruit affiliate marketers to grow your program. There are many ways to attract high quality affiliates, and we recommend testing all of these and determining which ones work best.

Before affiliates will consider joining your program, they’ll need basic information you can provide on your sign-up page or through other mediums. Information affiliates will want included: fees, offers, payouts, tracking software, and support, among other areas. See Part 7 for more details on what to feature about your affiliate program.

Let’s jump right in and start learning about the different ways to find affiliate marketers.

Affiliate Sign-Up Page

The most important (and easiest) way to recruit affiliates is on your website sign-up page. It should be easily accessible throughout your site and featured in the footer, and maybe even in the header. Your sign-up page should clearly and concisely describe your affiliate program, providing high level details and how to join. It should be customized to your branding and colors, creating a seamless user experience from website to sign up. Unless you are a major brand, affiliates won’t waste their time searching for information and steps to sign up. Present this information right away, and you’ll expedite the sign-up and approval process to allow affiliates to begin quickly.

Your tracking software should automatically deploy an email confirmation once an affiliate is approved for your program. Soon thereafter, be sure to send a welcome email and describe the benefits of your program, their affiliate manager’s contact information, how to reach support, featured offers, and any key information they should keep in mind.

Affiliate Referrals

To build a more successful affiliate program, it’s recommended to offer an affiliate referral program. Referral programs reward existing affiliates for recruiting new ones. Incentivizing your affiliates to do this requires a proper commission structure. Your affiliate tracking software should provide the option of compensating referrals as a single payout (CPA on the successful sign up) or as an ongoing percentage of revenue, generated by the referred affiliate (the referring affiliate gets x% of the revenue the referred affiliate receives for sales, over x period of time).

As you can imagine, this provides a great incentive for affiliates to help you recruit new affiliates with relevant traffic sources.

Affiliate Directories

Listing your program and offers on various directory sites is a great way for affiliates to get visibility into your program. Affiliate directories like OfferVault and oDigger connect affiliates with programs and offers. Affiliates search these sites for offers and sign up for programs to get access to their offers.

Recruiting or Industry Trade Shows

Attending affiliate-related trade shows is a great way to get intimate access to affiliates. Trade shows connect affiliates, advertisers, and publishers with affiliate programs and networks. These gatherings make it easy to display your program’s offers by setting up a booth and participating in lectures and events. Because many affiliate trade shows draw in such a large crowds, it’s very easy to meet new and existing affiliates to create or grow your partnerships.

Email Communication

Emailing your existing affiliates and notifying them of updates such as new offers or payouts can really get them excited about your program. Affiliates network together, post in forums and blogs, review programs, comment on offers, and share, share, share. Reminding them of your referral program can get them talking and promoting your program to their affiliate friends. Check out this post for more information on communicating with affiliates.

Study Your Competition

The ideal candidate is likely already an affiliate of your competitors. Researching and studying your competition is nothing new, and it can be extremely helpful in finding new, high-converting affiliates for your program.

Study what your competitors are doing to recruit and retain affiliates. Research forums, articles, and blog content for recruiting strategies. You might even consider commenting in your competitor’s threads and replying to posts to get the attention of their existing or potential affiliates, but be prepared for reciprocation. Sometimes even a simple Google search for your competitors’ names will reveal affiliate sites that promote the competition. Feel free to contact these sites directly and negotiate a payout.

Pay-Per-Click

Leverage search engines to advertise your affiliate program’s ads to trigger based on search queries. Finding inexpensive and targeted search terms to bid on is key when building your affiliate base. Great PPC sources for targeting affiliates include Google Ads, Bing Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, TikTok Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Amazon Ads, Bidvertiser, and more.

Target your audience and potential affiliate base using relevant keywords and demographic information. To start, this might take some research, or begin broad and narrow in until you find the best keywords and phrases.

Social Networks

As social networks take over communication and marketing efforts, use this popularity and momentum to promote your program. Share information and link to your affiliate sign-up page. Test different types of messaging and see which renders the highest engagement levels. Remember to encourage others to share your message to increase visibility.

Posting on social bookmarking and message board sites such as Reddit is another great way to recruit affiliates, so try to spread your message across platforms beyond Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. Look to podcasting networks, online communities, streaming services, messaging apps like Discord, and beyond.

Article Marketing

Online article marketing is one of the easiest ways to recruit affiliates. Begin by writing a content-rich article emphasizing the products or services your program offers. Remember to hyperlink key phrases and words back to your sign-up page, offers, or information pages. The advantage of this method is that you’re attracting only affiliates who are legitimately interested in your offers and program, and who happen to be searching for related offers.

Reviews and Forums

Reviews are a great way to attract affiliates by providing information and featuring your program’s strongest qualities. Contact existing customers, clients, partners, or affiliates and request (or incentivize) them to provide a review. Ask to focus on the benefits and advantages of your products, offers, or features. Lastly, have someone in your organization write a comparison article, comparing and contrasting your program to others. Reviews provide valuable information and have a strong influence on readers, and can help make a name for your program and its offers.

Creating a forum is a quick way to get readers to post comments and encourage the community to talk about your program. This can spur interest with potential affiliates and get them thinking about your program. Use these forums to post benefits, advantages and opinions about your program, and provide a link and/or clear call-to-action for interested affiliates to easily sign up.

Before you begin placing links, make sure they’re working and tracking properly. Your reputation will be tarnished if an affiliate clicks on your link and is sent to an error page.

Now that I know how to recruit affiliates for my program, what’s next?

Now that you know how to recruit the affiliates you want, we’re going to look into how you retain them and build those relationships to promote growth and retention. Stay tuned as you’ll learn how to help, engage, reward and communicate with your affiliates.

Ready to get started with your own affiliate program? Request a demo of TUNE, the platform of choice for marketers who require true flexibility and control of their data and affiliate program.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in 2012 and has been updated with new information and links.

Influencer marketing has been increasing in popularity for years, as more brands discover influencers to be some of their most effective marketing partners. But influencers can also be one of the most difficult partners to measure, since they work across multiple channels and platforms. Luckily for performance marketers, there’s a simple solution: clickless tracking via promo codes.

In this article, we’ll explain how clickless tracking works, where promo codes fit in, and why you should start using promo codes to measure your influencer campaigns. 

What Is Clickless Tracking?

Clickless tracking is a way to attribute conversions without requiring the customer to click on a tracking link. 

One of the most common examples of clickless tracking is the promo code. Promo codes, which are also known as vanity codes, discount codes, and referral codes, are perfect for measuring campaigns where tracking links are ineffective or impossible to use. 

For example, let’s say you want to promote your subscription meal delivery service on a podcast about cooking. Listeners who are interested in your service can’t click on an affiliate tracking link. Instead, the podcast host reads your ad, directs users to your website or app, and tells them to enter a special promo code at checkout. Whenever a listener uses that promo code to sign up for your service, the podcast partner gets credit for the conversion. 

With clickless tracking, the promo code acts like an affiliate tracking link, letting the advertiser know exactly which influencer drove which conversion. And because promo codes are not restricted to a specific link on a website or app, they offer advertisers valuable access to scale. 

Promo Code Basics

While popular with marketers for measuring influencer campaigns, promo codes can be used virtually anywhere that advertising exists (given you have the technology to implement them). This includes online platforms, offline media, and anything in between. That makes promo codes infinitely adaptable, and allows them to open up additional marketing channels for any advertiser or affiliate program. 

Examples of channels where promo codes can be used to track conversions: 

• Instagram
• TikTok
• YouTube
• Twitch
• podcasts
• brick-and-mortar stores
• billboards
• magazines
• radio
• TV

Influencers in particular are fans of promo codes because they are platform agnostic, making them perfect for cross-channel promotion. An influencer can use the same promo code in an Instagram feed, an email blast, and a YouTube video, and easily track conversions across each of those channels, despite the difference in how their fans consume each medium and message.

To make clickless tracking work across these channels, advertisers need to have a certain level of control over their shopping cart functionality and tracking capabilities. Specifically, you need to be able to add a promo code field to your website or app checkout page. You also need to be able to pass checkout data in a conversion link (i.e., identify what code is used at checkout and send that information back to a tracking platform like TUNE). You can learn more about how the TUNE platform handles promo codes in this help article.

All this sounds great, right? However, it is important to remember that promo codes are a niche solution, not a way of life. If you are an advertiser with an affiliate program, and you have the ability to use link-based tracking, use it — as long as you’re using postback tracking, not pixel tracking. Pixel tracking is an inherently risky attribution method to use, with browsers like Safari fully blocking the use of third-party cookies for marketing purposes and others like Chrome constantly changing their stance and technology for handling them. 

To future-proof your tracking, we suggest adopting server-to-server tracking methods like postback tracking as soon as possible. (Check out this help article to learn more.)

Final Thoughts

Promo codes are a great way for advertisers to diversify their partnerships beyond traditional web-based affiliate marketing. And because clickless tracking does not require cookies to work, promo codes will remain in use for the foreseeable future, even as other tracking methods become obsolete or fall out of favor.

If you’d like to learn more about how to track promo codes in a platform like TUNE, visit our Promo Codes help article. Still have questions? Email us at partnermarketing@tune.com. 

This article was originally published on PerformanceIn.com and has been updated with new data and insights.

Affiliate marketing can be an incredibly powerful channel for driving growth and revenue, but launching and managing a successful program requires the right tools. The affiliate marketing platform you choose will serve as the backbone of your entire program, making it essential to pick one that aligns with your goals, technical requirements, and future growth.  

This guide is designed for brands, affiliate managers, marketers, CMOs, and growth teams looking to start an affiliate program. By the end of this post, you’ll know exactly how to evaluate and purchase the best affiliate marketing platform for your business, as well as how to prepare your brand for success in the affiliate space. 

Why Choosing the Right Affiliate Marketing Platform Matters  

Affiliate marketing platforms are designed to streamline the management of partnerships, track campaign performance, prevent fraud, automate processes, and ensure payouts happen with ease. Choosing the right one can mean the difference between a high-performing channel and wasted resources.  

An ideal affiliate platform goes beyond surface-level needs to fit seamlessly into your workflows, connect with your partners, and grow alongside your program. Here’s the step-by-step process to ensure you’re making the smartest decision.  

Step 1: Clearly Define Your Affiliate Program Goals  

Before buying software, take a moment to assess your goals and strategy for the affiliate channel. Without a clear purpose, it’s easy to fall into the trap of overpaying for features you don’t need or underestimating the resources required for success.

Here are four important objectives to define upfront: 

1. What Offer Are You Promoting?
   • Are you focused on driving sales for a specific product, building email signups, or generating leads? Your program’s focus will determine the platform features you prioritize. 
2. Target Partner Types
   • Will you work with influencers, content publishers, coupon sites, or a combination of these? Each partner type has unique requirements. 
3. Recruitment Strategy
   • How will you onboard affiliates? Will you handle recruitment in-house using tools like the TUNE Marketplace, or will you enlist the help of an agency for scale and strategic guidance? 
4. Scalability Goals
   • Consider both your immediate needs and how your program might expand over time. Aim for a platform that can adapt as your business grows. 

Being clear on these objectives will help you evaluate platforms effectively and ensure you’re setting your program up for success.  

Step 2: Start a Discovery Call  

A discovery call with a potential platform isn’t just a sales pitch — it’s an opportunity to validate that the software is a good fit for your needs. Here are two strategies on how to approach it. 

First, ask targeted questions. Clarify whether the platform offers the tools and integrations required to meet your goals. Don’t be afraid to be specific. Example question: “Does the platform support pixel tracking, server-to-server postback tracking, or both?”

Second, focus on pain points. Discuss the challenges your team faces. The right platform should solve these challenges and not create more complexity. 

A discovery call enables you to quickly filter out platforms that won’t meet your needs, saving time in your selection process.  

Step 3: Request a Demo and Include the Right Stakeholders  

A product demo gives you a deep look at the platform’s interface, capabilities, and overall user experience. Ensure the right team members are present to assess its fit across departments: include your affiliate manager to review operational workflows; invite representatives from your tech team to evaluate backend integration requirements; and bring in your finance team, especially if automated payouts and invoicing are important for your program. 

During the demo: 

• Focus on tactical questions that address your pain points. 
• Look for examples of real-world use cases similar to your goals. 
• Ensure the platform provides features like fraud detection, customizable reports, and automation capabilities such as recurring payouts. 
• Ask how the platform will scale.
  • For instance, “What happens when we onboard 100 affiliates? Are there features to help streamline that growth while maintaining performance tracking?”  

Step 4: Prepare Your Tech Team for Integration  

One of the most important aspects of choosing a platform is ensuring it syncs smoothly with your existing technology stack. Every affiliate platform has unique integration requirements, so it’s essential to get your tech team involved at this stage.  

Key Considerations: 

1. Integration Compatibility
   • Does the platform integrate with your CRM, analytics tools, e-commerce platform, or payment providers? 
2. Scalability and Flexibility
   • Is the platform’s API robust enough to support customized workflows? 
3. Support
   • If issues arise with the integration, what support does the platform offer? Ensure they provide technical documentation and direct access to a support team. 

Review these points carefully to avoid roadblocks as you transition to affiliate automation.  

Step 5: Understand Pricing and Growth Costs  

Affiliate platforms often use tiered pricing based on factors like transaction volume or the number of active partnerships. Clarify the pricing structure during your evaluation process.  

• Ask About Hidden Costs
  • Some platforms charge extra for premium support, advanced reporting, or API access. 
• Project Growth Costs
  • If your affiliate program grows rapidly, how will costs change? Look for predictable pricing to avoid future surprises. 

Ensure the value of the platform aligns with your budget and delivers consistent ROI as your program scales.  

Step 6: Plan for Onboarding and Training  

Once you’ve selected a platform, onboarding and training are crucial to successfully getting your affiliate program off the ground. Here’s what to prepare: 

• Onboarding Proposal
  • Collaborate with the platform’s onboarding team to map out key milestones. 
• Training Resources
  • Look for documentation, video tutorials, or live training sessions to help your team get comfortable with the software. 
• Agency Assistance
  • If you’re new to affiliate marketing, consider partnering with an agency. Agencies bring decades of experience to help brands strategize, operationalize, and optimize their programs. 

With proper onboarding and guidance, your brand will be positioned to launch the channel smoothly and achieve results faster.  

Discover Affiliate Marketing Success  

Building a successful affiliate program starts with finding the right platform. By defining your goals, asking the right questions, and leveraging expert guidance, you can confidently choose a solution that not only fits your immediate needs but supports your long-term growth.

If you want a flexible, scalable, and customizable affiliate platform backed by an experienced team, explore what TUNE has to offer. From native postback tracking to automation and fraud prevention tools, we’re here to help you build the affiliate program your brand deserves. Learn more or request a demo here.

Already have your ideal platform in place? Then download our Ultimate Guide to Partner Marketing to learn everything else that goes into building and growing a profitable program.

The third-party cookie has been on quite the roller coaster over the last few years. In 2017, Apple introduced Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP), a WebKit feature designed to reduce cross-site tracking. A year later, ITP 2.0 killed the third-party cookie in Safari, leaving anyone who still relied on client-side tracking scrambling for a solution. And in 2020, Apple started to block all third-party cookies in Safari and iOS by default.

While all this was going on, Google, Mozilla, and other major browsers made their own promises and plans to phase out the third-party cookie. But in 2024, Google did what no other browser had done before: a u-turn on their third-party cookie plans. They announced that they were giving up on eliminating the third-party tracking cookie in Chrome, shocking the affiliate marketing industry and raising even more questions about the future of privacy and tracking.

The saga above is just one reason we’ve always said to “cut out the cookies” in resources like our tracking guide. Third-party cookies are bad for your health — your tracking health, that is. In the context affiliate marketing, what this means is third-party tracking cookies will compromise your campaigns. First-party tracking cookies aren’t great for them, either, but there are important differences between the two.

In this post, we’re crumbling the tracking cookie to show you what it’s really made of, addressing the differences between first- and third-party cookies, and reviewing why relying only on cookie-based tracking will only hurt you in the end. 

Browser Cookies: A Bite-Sized History

While the internet has been around in some form since the 1960s, it didn’t evolve into the World Wide Web we know today until 1991. The first websites were basic, clunky, and far from user friendly, but their commercial potential was obvious. 

However, unlike brick and mortar businesses, websites had no way of knowing who was walking in the door, so to speak. Every user was anonymous, so websites offered every user the same experience — a poor one.

That all changed in 1994, when Lou Montulli invented the HTTP cookie.

An employee of Netscape, Montulli had been tasked to find a way to store incomplete transaction information in a user’s computer, rather than a business’s servers. His solution was a browser-based “cookie,” or a piece of data that could be stored by a web browser on a user’s computer. (He borrowed the term from “magic cookie,” a data file used in programming.) 

Suddenly, cookies made it relatively easy for a website to collect, store, and monetize visitor data. So, naturally, every website started using them. 

Different Types of Cookies

Cookies improve user experience. They make it possible for websites to remember user preferences, store items in shopping carts, and do a thousand other useful things. Cookies also perform essential functions on the web, such as authentication. Some of these jobs are more sensitive than others, or require specialized functionality, so different “types” of cookies exist to handle different tasks. 

(We say “types” in quotation marks because, technically, every cookie is the same type of file. They can contain the same information and functionality. What’s different is how they are created and used.)

Some types of cookies include:

• Session cookies
• Persistent cookies
• Secure cookies
• HTTP-only cookies
• SameSite cookies (of Google Chrome 80 fame)
• First-party cookies
• Third-party cookies

If you’re a digital marketer, you’ll recognize the persistent cookie, just maybe not by name. 

A persistent cookie is simply a cookie that expires after a specific date or time frame. Until it expires, a persistent cookie will share its information every time the user interacts with the domain it belongs to. This interaction can be on the website where the cookie was created, or via a resource belonging to the original website that is hosted by a different publisher, like a banner ad. 

For this reason, persistent cookies are also called tracking cookies. 

Tracking Cookies: First-Party vs Third-Party

Tracking cookies come in two flavors: first-party and third-party. The “party” in both terms refers to the website that sets the cookie. 

First-Party Cookies

First-party cookies are set directly by the website you’re on, either by the publisher’s web server or JavaScript loaded on the website, and only the same domain can access them. The domain of a first-party cookie will be the same as the domain in your browser’s address bar.

As first-party cookies come from a trusted source — the website you’re actively visiting — browsers allow them by default. That’s generally a good thing, because these cookies enable much of the functionality you’re used to when browsing the web. 

If first-party cookies were blocked, you would have to log in to your favorite website every time you visited. You wouldn’t be able to purchase multiple items while shopping online, because your cart would reset with every item you add to it. And so on.

You can still choose to disable first-party cookies in any browser, or delete them at will — just don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Third-Party Cookies

Third-party cookies are not set by the website you’re on. Instead, they are set by an external server (e.g., a tracking platform) via a piece of code loaded on the website you are visiting. These cookies can then be accessed on any website that loads the code from the same third-party server. Since they share information across websites, third-party cookies are also known as cross-site cookies.

Third-party cookies are used in online advertising because they make it easy for marketers to collect data about consumers and use it to serve relevant ads across the internet. Unfortunately, many websites use third-party cookies to collect this data without the consumer’s knowledge, mine unnecessary personal and behavioral information, and track users wherever they go online. These practices have led to increased global scrutiny and mistrust of the digital advertising industry and driven new legislation to protect consumer privacy and data security.

Browser support for third-party tracking cookies is rapidly declining. Many major browsers now block them by default, and others have announced plans to phase them out entirely:

• In Safari and iOS, Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) blocks all third-party tracking cookies by default. (Remember ITP 2.0? It started the shift towards cookie blocking in late 2018.)
• In Firefox, Mozilla’s Enhanced Tracking Protection blocks all third-party tracking cookies by default.
• Google announced in January 2020 plans to phase out support for third-party cookies in Chrome within two years, while Chrome’s Incognito mode now blocks all third-party cookies by default.

Should You Use Cookies in Performance Marketing?

We admit it — not all cookies are bad. The internet as we know it couldn’t work without first-party cookies. Tracking cookies, however, are a different story.

When we tell you to cut out the cookies in our white paper, we mean tracking cookies in general, and third-party tracking cookies in particular. But even first-party cookies, when used for digital tracking purposes, have limitations and drawbacks. 

Third-Party Cookies and Pixel Tracking

Third-party cookies and web browsers power pixel tracking, also called client-side tracking or cookie-based tracking. Cookies are simple, and web browsers do all the work of storing and sending information in pixel tracking, so it’s easy to implement and use. Unfortunately, cookies are also easy for browsers to block, users to delete, and bad actors to leverage, leaving marketers and their campaigns at risk. Not to mention, pixel tracking works only on desktop web.

Pros: Easy to set up and share data. 

Cons: Inaccurate, unreliable, prone to fraud, doesn’t work on mobile, doesn’t work in browsers where third-party tracking cookies are blocked (i.e. Apple’s Safari, Mozilla’s Firefox, and soon Google’s Chrome).

First-Party Cookies and JavaScript SDK Tracking

First-party cookies can be used as third-party tracking cookies in certain situations. This can bypass some browser restrictions, but it’s not a panacea for pixel tracking.

TUNE’s version of this tracking method is called JavaScript SDK tracking. It uses a JavaScript code snippet and first-party cookies, and still makes the browser do all the work. Therefore, it’s still susceptible to some of the same risks and limitations as pixel tracking. For example, Safari deletes all first-party cookies (and other script-writable storage) after 7 days without user interaction. If you use this tracking method, then your conversion windows on any Apple device are capped at one week. We go into more detail on the effects of Apple’s anti-tracking measures here.

Pros: Works on desktop web and mobile web, more reliable than pixel tracking, less sensitive to browser restrictions.

Cons: Implementation is more complex than pixel tracking, browser and cookie restrictions still apply, cannot track cross-channel, difficult to troubleshoot.

Conclusion: Cut Out the Cookies, Pivot to Postbacks

We stand by our point: All tracking cookies, whether first-party or third-party, will hurt your tracking health in the end. When superior solutions like postbacks are available, there’s no need to risk your campaign health with either one. 

Postback tracking, unlike pixel and JavaScript SDK tracking, does not rely on web browsers to work. Also called server-side tracking or server-to-server tracking, postback tracking uses direct server communication instead. This frees marketers from cookie-based browser restrictions and provides complete control over campaign tracking. Even better? It works cross-channel on desktop web, mobile web, and mobile apps. 

For the short list of pros and cons, plus how postbacks compare to cookie-based tracking, read “Pixels vs. Postbacks: Which Tracking Method Should You Be Using?”

For a more in-depth look at all of these tracking methods, download our white paper: How to Become a Track Star: Your Guide to Tracking for Performance Marketing Campaigns. 

Performance marketers who continue to rely on the dying third-party cookie do so at their own risk. Whether the same fate awaits first-party tracking cookies is unknown, but we don’t suggest waiting around to find out.

In the vibrant and diverse landscape of Europe, building a successful affiliate program can be a potent strategy for expanding your brand’s presence and driving revenue growth. Tailoring your approach to the unique characteristics and regulations of the European market is essential for laying the foundation of a thriving affiliate ecosystem. In this guide, we’ll explore the essential steps to establish a successful affiliate program specifically tailored for European brands. 

How to Understand the European Market 

Before diving into the intricacies of building an affiliate program, it’s crucial to have a solid understanding of the European market landscape. Europe comprises diverse cultures, languages, and consumer behaviors across its various regions. Take the time to research and identify key market segments, trends, and preferences relevant to your industry and target audience. 

Navigating Regulatory Compliance 

Compliance with European regulations, particularly the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), is paramount for any brand operating in the region. Ensure that your affiliate program is fully compliant with GDPR requirements, including obtaining explicit consent from users for data processing and providing mechanisms for data access and deletion. Implement robust data protection measures to safeguard sensitive information and build trust with your audience. 

Localizing Your Offerings 

Cultural sensitivity and localization are essential considerations when developing your affiliate program for the European market. Tailor your products, messaging, and promotional materials to resonate with the cultural nuances and preferences of each target market. Consider factors such as language, currency, and local regulations to ensure a seamless and relevant user experience for European consumers. 

Building Strategic Partnerships 

Selecting the right affiliates is key to the success of your program in Europe. Look for influencers, bloggers, and content creators who have a strong presence and credibility within their respective markets. Prioritize affiliates who align with your brand values and resonate with your target audience. Consider collaborating with local influencers and micro-influencers to leverage their authenticity and reach within specific regions or communities. 

Offering Competitive Incentives 

Incentivize affiliates with competitive commission structures and incentives tailored to the European market. Consider factors such as average order value, conversion rates, and seasonal trends when determining commission rates. Offer bonuses, exclusive discounts, or performance-based rewards to motivate affiliates and encourage active promotion of your products. 

Providing Comprehensive Support 

Offer comprehensive support and resources to empower your affiliates to succeed. Provide access to high-quality marketing materials, product information, and promotional assets in multiple languages. Offer training sessions, webinars, and tutorials to help affiliates optimize their campaigns and maximize their earning potential. Foster open communication channels to address questions, provide assistance, and gather feedback from affiliates. 

Leveraging Cross-Border Opportunities 

Exploit cross-border opportunities to expand your reach and tap into new markets within Europe. Collaborate with affiliates who have a pan-European presence or target audiences spanning multiple countries. Customize your promotions and messaging to appeal to diverse cultural backgrounds and linguistic preferences across different European regions. 

Tracking and Analyzing Performance 

Implement robust tracking and analytics tools to monitor affiliate performance and measure the effectiveness of your campaigns. Track key metrics such as clicks, conversions, and revenue generated across different markets and channels. Analyze this data to identify trends, optimize your strategy, and allocate resources effectively to maximize ROI. 

Cultivating Long-Term Relationships 

Invest in building long-term relationships with your affiliates to foster loyalty and mutual success. Recognize and reward top-performing affiliates for their contributions and achievements. Regularly engage with affiliates through newsletters, updates, and exclusive events to keep them informed and motivated. Solicit feedback and collaborate with affiliates to continuously improve your program and adapt to evolving market dynamics. 

Potential Difficulties to Prepare For When Creating an Affiliate Program in Europe

Navigating Taxation Challenges 

One of the primary challenges European brands face in managing affiliate commissions is navigating the complex landscape of taxation regulations across different countries. Each European country may have its own tax laws and requirements regarding income earned through affiliate programs. It’s essential for brands to stay informed about VAT (Value Added Tax) regulations, withholding taxes, and other relevant tax obligations applicable to affiliate commissions in each jurisdiction where affiliates operate. Seeking professional tax advice, can help ensure compliance with local tax laws and mitigate the risk of potential liabilities. 

Overcoming Currency Conversion Hurdles 

Currency conversion presents another significant challenge when paying out affiliate commissions in the European market. With affiliates operating across various countries and using different currencies, brands must navigate fluctuating exchange rates and associated conversion fees. These currency conversion challenges can impact the accuracy and timeliness of affiliate payouts, potentially leading to discrepancies or delays in payments. To address this issue, brands can consider utilizing payment platforms or services that offer multi-currency support, allowing affiliates to receive payments in their preferred currency with minimal conversion fees. Additionally, establishing clear policies and procedures for currency conversion, including transparent exchange rates and payment schedules, can help mitigate confusion and ensure fair compensation for affiliates operating in different regions. 

By proactively addressing taxation challenges and currency conversion issues, European brands can streamline their affiliate program operations, enhance trust and transparency with affiliates, and facilitate seamless cross-border transactions within the European market. 

Get Started with an Affiliate Program in the EU

Building a successful affiliate program for your European brand requires careful planning, strategic execution, and a deep understanding of the region’s unique characteristics and regulations. By prioritizing compliance, localization, strategic partnerships, and comprehensive support, you can create a thriving ecosystem that drives sales and fosters brand loyalty across diverse European markets. With a commitment to transparency, integrity, and continuous improvement, your affiliate program can become a powerful driver of growth and success. 

Through these strategies, your brand can forge meaningful partnerships, expand its reach, and establish itself as a trusted authority in the region. 

For more advice on how to work with partners like influencers and content creators to expand your affiliate program, download our free e-book, The Influencer-Affiliate Blueprint: Building High-ROI Creator Communities.

In the world of affiliate marketing, there are two main ways to work with your partners: through an affiliate network, and in a one-to-one relationship in your affiliate program. Affiliate networks and direct partners both play important roles and bring value to a program. However, they differ greatly in terms of how you collaborate with them and the dynamics of your relationship.

Over the years at TUNE, we’ve noticed that individuals who are new to affiliate marketing have the most difficulty understanding the direct partner side of the equation, whereas most people — marketers or otherwise — are familiar with the concept of an affiliate network. We believe both types of partners are beneficial, and working with a combination of the two is something we see across the most successful partner programs. To help more marketers leverage the best of both worlds, we’re explaining what it means to work directly with a partner in your affiliate program versus working with a partner in an affiliate network.

Affiliate Networks vs. Direct Partners

In some ways, direct partners are the opposite of affiliate networks. Understanding how you work with partners in a network makes it easier to understand how working with direct partners is different. So let’s set the groundwork by looking at the top characteristics of working with affiliate network partners.

Affiliate Network Partners

1. Intermediary Platform

Affiliate networks are intermediaries that connect you (the advertiser or brand) with their network of partners. These networks serve as a platform where businesses can find and recruit affiliates, and affiliates can find multiple products or services to promote.

2. Broader Reach and Scale

Affiliate networks provide you with a pre-existing pool of affiliates from various niches and industries, including a range of publishers, content creators, and marketers. This is beneficial if you want to reach a wider audience quickly. However, it may mean you have less control over who eventually promotes your products.

3. Standardized Agreements and Features

Affiliate networks often have standardized terms and conditions, commission structures, and reporting systems. While this can make it easier for you to get started, it doesn’t provide much flexibility and limits your ability to negotiate custom agreements.

4. Less Personalization

In affiliate networks, the relationships with affiliates tend to be less personal. You may have less control over how affiliates promote your business and might need to rely on the network’s policies to enforce brand guidelines. And because communication with affiliates in a network often occurs through the network’s messaging system, it often lacks a personal touch and a guarantee of privacy.

5. Network Fees

Along with tracking conversions and distributing commissions on your behalf, affiliate networks handle payment processing as well. Networks charge an additional service fee for payment processing, usually as a percentage of your revenue or your partners’ commissions. These fees vary and are set at the network’s discretion. While affiliate networks may be convenient, the fees associated with them can impact the profitability of your entire program and should be carefully considered.

Now that we have a baseline, let’s examine how working with direct partners in a strategic affiliate program differs.

Direct Partners

1. One-to-One Relationships

When you work with a direct affiliate partner, you establish a one-to-one relationship with an individual or entity (such as a blogger, content creator, influencer, or website owner) who promotes your products or services. You establish a business relationship with them independently, without the involvement of an intermediary or affiliate network.

2. Direct Communication

Communication with direct partners typically happens, well, directly — through email, phone calls, messaging apps, or other personal means. By keeping your communication private and confidential, you can better protect the strategic partnerships you discover and nurture, instead of sharing them with an affiliate network (and anyone who joins it).

3. Customized Agreements

With direct partnerships, you negotiate and agree on the terms and conditions of your partnership directly with the individual you’re working with. This allows for more flexibility in crafting affiliate agreements, commission structures, promotional methods, and more. Going direct lets you tailor every aspect of the partnership to suit the unique needs and capabilities of your partner and the specific goals of your business.

4. More Management and Support

Directly managing and supporting your affiliates may require more resources than you would need to manage and support them through an affiliate network. For example, you’ll need to supply the program infrastructure, tracking tools, and support documentation to ensure they can effectively promote your products or services.

5. Greater Control and Oversight

Working one-on-one with your partners gives you greater control and oversight over your entire affiliate program. This can help ensure that a partner’s promotional activities (like the kind of ads they run or the websites they run them on) align with your brand’s values and quality standards.

6. Higher Commissions

In some cases, direct affiliates can expect higher commission rates compared to those in affiliate networks. One reason for this is that partners outside of a network bear the responsibility of generating their own traffic and sales. Another reason is that brands can see a significant cost savings when high network fees and processing charges are taken out of the equation. By translating these savings into higher commissions, you can spend less overall than you would with a network and attract more affiliates to your program by standing out from the lower paying competition.

7. Payment Processing

When you run a direct affiliate program, you are responsible for managing and processing partner payments. This means you need to track the affiliate’s performance, calculate commissions, and pay them directly, usually on a predetermined schedule.

The Best of Both Worlds

In summary, direct affiliate partnerships offer more personalized, customized, and closely managed relationships with individual affiliates. In contrast, affiliate networks provide a broader reach and more convenience, but usually involve less personalization and control.

The choice between the two depends on your marketing goals, resources, budget, and the level of control you want over your affiliate program. Many businesses use a combination of direct partners and networks to achieve a balance between customization and scale in their affiliate marketing efforts.

At TUNE, we’ve seen the most successful programs run a mix of both direct partnerships and affiliate network relationships. That’s why our platform enables you to run a strategic partner program with direct partners and have access to top affiliate partners through the TUNE Marketplace. You choose to use one or the other, or combine them in the way that makes the most sense for your business. In other words: It’s the best of both worlds.

If you’d like to find out more about running a program of direct partners and top network affiliates on TUNE, download our Ultimate Guide to Partner Marketing.

Photo by maria pagan on Unsplash

You’ve built an awesome new product.  You’ve already set up your online store. You’ve put up a few advertisements. And now you wait for the millions of people to come to your site and buy, buy, and buy! Unfortunately, that doesn’t always work because there are so many new products, and shoppers are continuously bombarded by competing ads everywhere they click. Perhaps you might want to try an affiliate marketing program.

Affiliate marketing is simplified as paying someone (usually a company that runs affiliate programs, or a popular website, or even an individual) to send qualified visitors to buy your product. When a product is purchased, then that someone receives a commission from the sale of the product.

Affiliate marketing programs are popular for both small companies trying to find their first new customers to multi-billion dollar companies, such as Dell and Amazon, who use affiliate programs to grow their revenues at the expense of margin.

If you want to build an affiliate marketing program, you have to be good at affiliate marketing management. Here are a few things that you should focus on from the beginning:

1) Get the Best Affiliate Tracking You Can Buy or Build

Because you have to pay either a set dollar amount per sale or a percentage of total sales, it’s essential to confirm the source of every sale. Many companies that facilitate affiliate deals have their own cookie systems to ensure that customers are tracked from the time they see an advertisement for your product on a vendor web site, through the time when that customer enters your e-commerce site, and then through the time when your product is purchased by that customer. If you are managing your affiliate marketing program in-house, then you will need to buy or build a transparent system that can handle all tracking.

For more tips on how to get your tracking right, download our guide: How to Become a Track Star.

Either way, you still want to make sure that you have your own affiliate marketing tracking system where you match up each one of those incoming customers to a real purchase on your e-commerce site. Having good tracking data means that you can protect yourself from any discussions that might arise if your company’s sales numbers do not match your affiliate vendors’ numbers. Some basic data may come from e-commerce tracking through Google Analytics, but you also want to ask your backend developer or database administrator if you can get that data directly from your sales management system.

2) Know How Much You Can Spend Per Lead

You need to understand how much revenue and margin that you think you’re going to make per each customer lead before you can start negotiations on how much you will pay in affiliate commissions. That way, you can manage affiliate expectations as well as your own.

If you are selling a physical product, then use the cost of the product and retail price to find gross margin. That margin is what you will sacrifice with affiliate fees in order to gain total unit sales and an increase in revenue. If you know your own margin, and your expected return rate, early planning will keep you margin positive even at high sales velocity.

If you are selling a subscription product, then you should understand how long the average subscriber will stay subscribed and how much that subscriber will pay per month. That understanding can provide a higher maximum amount that you can spend per customer while maintaining profitability. The risk is that if what you paid per customer is more than a single month’s subscription, it could take a few months to earn back what you had spent on that user.

If you are selling a free-to-play mobile game that has a zero download cost but in-game virtual goods, you need to be very good with your data. You can determine how many days an average player will keep playing your game and how much and when that player pays for in-game items. Keeping acquisition costs below the revenue per player is the first step, but you will also need to understand how many days it takes for every affiliate channel to pay back that cost. It could take many months for certain channels to be profitable against just the marketing spend, making proper affiliate marketing management a must.

3) Know Where Your Affiliates Are Advertising

You might already be invested in paid search marketing or you might have direct marketing deals for some sites. Advertising networks with affiliates who are not managed closely might start competing with you for your own keywords, copyrights and trademarks. Depending on how they promote you, they might be able to get their search engine rank higher than your company marketing site. This means that for organic search, you might end up paying for a sale that should have been free. It’s good to set some simple affiliate management rules for what each partner can do and where they can advertise — otherwise it’s like paying a company to compete with yourself, and that means you will be always paying for the most expensive option than the cheapest.

A good thing to do is always ask each new affiliate for screenshots of your placement. Understand what types of placement you are getting on their networks and understand what tools they are using. You should also ask for what demographic audience they are targeting for your product so you can manage how they use your marketing materials more effectively.

4) Always Measure Results Daily

Even with a solid affiliate marketing partner, I believe that there can be problems at times with their data, and comparing their data with your tracking data becomes very important. Not all partner sites are as transparent or well-managed as they should be, and it’s important to see if there are good or bad trends in the sales data by affiliate program partner.

If one of your affiliates goes from 10 sales per day to 1,000 sales on a random Wednesday, you should first check if everything looks correct or whether there are data errors. If it’s a real improvement, see if those new customers are behaving like the long-term 10 sales per day. If it looks profitable, then open your budget and see if you can again replicate that success by getting 10,000 sales from them.

If those new thousand-odd sales look like customers who aren’t the same quality as the typical 10 daily, then it might be in your best interest to shut it down rather than deal with 3,000 unprofitable customers by Friday and 5,000 by Monday. Do not forget, you are paying for them, so spend your money on good customers (and good affiliate marketing management). Here are some extra tips on how to get affiliate marketing results.

5) Build Good Affiliate Relationships

There are many elements about trust in affiliate marketing. As a buyer of these services, make sure that you can pay in a timely manner. Work with your management partners in finance (or whomever is running finance) to understand how much you can spend. Set up payment terms that are reasonable, like net 30 versus all pre-paid, and make sure that the affiliates you work with can agree with that schedule.

Spend time cultivating the best program partners and cut non-profitable dead weight affiliates. It’s very easy for an affiliate to promise a performance or lead number, but it’s far more difficult for them to deliver those customers in volume, and again that’s why you want to be the buyer that they want to work with long-term. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Affiliate Marketing Management for the Win

At long last, if you have done your affiliate marketing management correctly, you will have found new channels to reach those millions of customers who are perfect for your product.

Get more tips and tricks for managing affiliates and programs in our newest e-book, “10 Mistakes to Avoid When Starting an Affiliate Program.”

Introduction

For banks, insurance companies, loan providers, personal finance publishers, and other financial services brands, affiliate marketing has proven to be a valuable channel for generating leads and acquiring new customers. However, the cost of working through traditional affiliate networks can be a significant burden, as high network fees and hidden service charges eat into profit margins. Fortunately, by eliminating the middleman and managing affiliate partnerships directly, financial brands can both reduce costs and improve ROI.

In this post, we’ll explore strategies for cutting out unnecessary costs in financial affiliate programs. We’ll cover the advantages of taking a direct approach and actionable tips for managing partnerships, plus look at a few case studies from financial brands that have used these strategies to succeed.

Why Traditional Affiliate Networks are Costly for Financial Brands

High Network Fees and Service Charges

Traditional affiliate marketing networks serve as intermediaries between companies and their affiliates, facilitating relationships and managing payments. While these platforms simplify the process of running an affiliate program, they come at a high cost. Financial services companies like banks often find themselves paying hefty commission fees, typically ranging between 20% to 40%, on top of monthly service charges.

For industries with tight margins, such as personal finance or loan providers, these fees can significantly impact profitability. When you add in one-time setup costs and potential overage charges, the true cost of traditional affiliate networks becomes clear.

Lack of Control and Customization

Another downside to working through affiliate networks is the limited control over how your brand is represented. Since networks usually offer generic promotional templates and materials, it’s difficult for financial brands to create personalized, high-impact campaigns. The network interface itself is also restricted to the design and user experience set by the network, making it hard to stand out in a sea of competitors. This can lead to missed opportunities for matching with the right partners and optimizing messaging to capture the attention of a more targeted audience.

By managing affiliate partnerships directly, financial services brands gain greater control over every aspect of their affiliate marketing strategy — from the selection of affiliates, to the terms and conditions of contracts, to the creation of custom marketing materials tailored to specific customer segments.

The Benefits of Eliminating Middlemen in Financial Affiliate Programs

Increased ROI through Direct Affiliate Relationships

Cutting out middlemen offers immediate cost savings, but that’s just the start. Financial brands that manage their own affiliate programs can negotiate commission rates directly with affiliates, leading to more favorable terms. Without the network’s cut, companies have more flexibility to reward affiliates based on performance, which fosters better long-term relationships and incentivizes high-quality lead generation.

Additionally, direct relationships enable financial brands to monitor performance metrics more closely and optimize in real-time. This level of transparency can help businesses make smarter marketing decisions, improve conversion rates, and ultimately drive higher ROI.

Greater Flexibility in Commission Structures

When working with a traditional affiliate network, financial brands are often locked into a standard commission structure. By managing affiliate programs internally, you gain the flexibility to tailor commission rates to specific products or customer segments. For example, a bank could offer higher commissions for affiliates who successfully refer new credit card customers, while offering a different rate for mortgage leads.

This flexibility allows you to align your affiliate compensation with your broader business goals, ensuring that you’re maximizing the return on every dollar spent.

Customization of Campaigns and Messaging

Direct partnerships with affiliates also give financial brands the opportunity to develop custom campaigns that resonate with their target audiences. Instead of relying on the standard, cookie-cutter templates provided by networks, you can create tailored marketing materials that speak directly to potential customers. This is particularly valuable in industries like personal finance, insurance, and banking apps, where trust and credibility are critical to conversion.

Banks, for instance, might develop content specifically designed to highlight their commitment to security and data protection, while insurance companies could emphasize cost savings and personalized coverage options.

How to Reduce Costs in Financial Affiliate Programs

Eliminating middlemen and managing affiliate programs in-house might seem like a daunting task, but with the right approach, it can be both cost-effective and efficient. Below are some practical steps to get started.

1. Invest in Affiliate Tracking Software

Financial brands can leverage affiliate tracking platforms like TUNE, which provide the tools needed to track affiliate performance, manage payments, and automate workflows. These platforms are more affordable in the long run when compared to the total cost associated with large affiliate networks, and they give you the control you need to run a successful program.

2. Vet Affiliates Carefully

Take the time to identify partners who are truly aligned with your brand’s values and target audience. Focus on affiliates with established authority in the finance space, such as personal finance bloggers, financial influencers, or comparison websites for loans and insurance.

Look for affiliates who have a proven track record of generating high-quality leads, rather than relying on volume-driven, low-conversion tactics.

3. Offer Performance-Based Incentives

Rather than sticking to a flat commission model, consider offering tiered rewards based on performance. For example, offer higher commissions for affiliates who consistently bring in high-converting leads or premium customers. This approach encourages affiliates to focus on quality rather than just quantity.

4. Prioritize Transparent Reporting

Ensure that your affiliate partners have access to transparent, real-time reporting on their performance. By providing regular feedback and insights, you can build a stronger relationship with your affiliates and encourage ongoing optimization of their promotional efforts.

5. Create Custom Marketing Materials

Collaborate with your affiliates to create custom marketing materials tailored to your audience. Whether it’s exclusive financial guides, loan calculators, or email templates, offering unique content helps affiliates promote your services more effectively. In turn, this leads to higher conversion rates and lower customer acquisition costs.

Financial Services Case Studies

Financial services companies of all sizes and specialties have found success with affiliate marketing and TUNE. Here are just a few examples of how different companies achieved their goals using the strategies outlined above:

• How Topstep Scaled Affiliate Revenue by 66%
• How Credit Sesame Boosted Program ROI via Optimization
• How Gabi’s Affiliate Program Took Off After Switching Platforms

Conclusion

Insurance companies, banks, loan providers, personal finance apps, and other brands can significantly reduce the costs of financial affiliate programs by managing partnerships directly and eliminating unnecessary middlemen. Not only does this lead to lower fees, but it also provides greater control over campaigns, the flexibility to customize commission structures, and the ability to foster long-term relationships with top-performing affiliates.

To learn more about performance-based advertising, download TUNE’s Ultimate Guide to Partner Marketing, over 50 pages of everything you need to know to run a successful program. Don’t forget to download the supplement made specifically for financial services companies, which walks through common affiliate marketing pain points and their solutions here.

When you’re ready to get started with the best platform for financial services affiliate marketing, request a demo of TUNE.

Welcome back to the Influencer-Affiliate Blueprint series! In the first two parts of our journey, we explored the foundations of building high-ROI creator communities and understanding the nuances of influencer affiliate programs. Now, it’s time to delve into the art of recruiting social media influencers and content creators to supercharge your affiliate program. Keep reading to learn how to recruit influencers and creators like a boss!

Understanding the Landscape

Before diving into tactics, let’s grasp the diverse landscape of influencers and creators:

1. Macro vs. Micro-Influencers: Macro-influencers boast large follower counts, while micro-influencers have smaller, more engaged audiences. Both have their advantages, depending on your campaign goals.
2. Niche Experts: These influencers focus on specific topics or industries, often commanding deep trust and authority within their communities.
3. Content Creators: These individuals excel in crafting compelling content across various formats, including blogs, videos, podcasts, and social media posts.

Platforms of Influence

The digital sphere offers numerous platforms for influencers and creators to showcase their talents. Here are some of the most popular:

1. Instagram: Ideal for visually-driven content, Instagram is a hotspot for fashion, beauty, lifestyle, and food influencers.
2. YouTube: The go-to platform for video content, YouTube hosts a wide array of creators covering topics ranging from tutorials and reviews to vlogs and entertainment.
3. TikTok: With its explosive growth, TikTok has become a powerhouse for short-form video content, appealing to younger demographics and fostering viral trends.
4. Twitter: Known for real-time conversations, Twitter is favored by influencers for its ability to spark discussions and share quick updates.
5. Blogs: Despite the rise of visual platforms, blogs remain relevant for long-form content and niche expertise, attracting dedicated audiences.

How to Recruit Influencers and Creators

There are a few different ways to tap influencers. Let’s break it down into the following:

• Curated (Outbound)
• Paid (Outbound)
• Earned (Inbound)
• Tech-Enabled (Inbound)
• Tools and Partners

We’ll go into details for each of these below.

Outbound Recruitment Methods

How to Recruit Influencers via Curation

Curation is the good old-fashioned approach to list-building. This organic approach is really important when you’re in an alpha or beta version of your program’s build-out. 

Even though this approach requires manual effort, we recommend keeping this in the mix early on. It’s essential for program efficiency and speed to profitability. It’s also important to test a lot of different influencer segments and channels. See what segments work and what segments don’t, then worry about scale and how to execute that scale with your winning segments. This way, you’re not blowing your program budget on paid recruitment tactics, PR, or additional technology only to power up a bunch of influencer segments that don’t work. 

Key Benchmark: Your reply and opt-in rates on cold outbound recruitment are a great indicator of program interest in your pitch. Strong programs clock opt-in rates ranging from 25% to 40%. 

There are plenty of ways to aggregate these cold outbound lists once you’re armed with your segment criteria. Most of the social media channels have started building their own directories of verified creators (TikTok Creator Marketplace, Pinterest for Creators, Facebook for Creators). Additionally, if you have the budget, you can tap any of the creator marketplaces and influencer management tools that are out there. Depending on the platform, you’ll be able to utilize its creator index, social listening tools, and/or done-for-you list-building products. 

Important Note: We recommend carefully considering your cold outbound strategy. As with any outbound campaign, sending mass amounts of email from a single address can create issues for your account, and potentially flag the domain. We recommend a dedicated domain (e.g., www.mybrandcreators.com) with various send-from email addresses that can be warmed up over the first few test cycles as your messaging is dialed in.

How to Do Paid Influencer Recruitment

In addition to native curation tools, many platforms will also offer CPL/CPA-based recruitment support. Pricing varies widely, but it’s a good thing to keep in mind as you’re signing a software contract. You may be able to negotiate that recruitment rate depending on the length and size of the contract. Third-party recruitment support can be super helpful if you’re working with a small program management team.

In addition to your software partners, you can also use paid strategies to purchase verified lists and tap segment-specific networks. Or, you can put some budget towards building your own program marketing ad creative. This is one of our favorite tactics once you have some momentum behind the program and a handful of successful influencer affiliates that are open to providing testimonial content that can fuel ads for the program itself. Social proof is a tremendously powerful recruitment technique, and we love to use it right at the top of the funnel.

Inbound Recruitment Methods

How to Recruit Influencers with Earned Interest

Earned interest can result from both organic and paid effort. Once a program has been dialed in, we see a lot of success with a coordinated PR effort. The creator economy continues to be a hot topic, and major brands have launched these influencer affiliate communities with abundant fanfare. 

We caution that this approach can generate a huge spike in inbound interest. If your team isn’t prepared, these are wasted dollars. Once influencers churn, they’re exponentially more difficult and expensive to win back.

With that said, once an influencer affiliate program is humming, managers can expect an uptick in inbound interest. Influencer communities are very collaborative, and word spreads quickly around well-managed programs — and around poorly managed programs. When creators see their category’s top influencers and their peers utilizing a brand toolkit, they’re apt to hop on board!

How to Go the Tech-Enabled Recruiting Route

This recruitment strategy involves investing in additional technology and a willingness to hook these influencer affiliate programs into your brand’s central customer journeys. We’re starting to see e-commerce brands of all sizes include a program sign-up offer in their post-purchase flow with tremendous success. 

How does this work?

• The brand includes a simple pop-up that introduces the affiliate program and invites customers to submit their social media information in exchange for a discount. These pop-ups can be introduced after a first purchase, upon return to the site, or at the point of sale.
• The integration generates a list of potential influencers who are also, most importantly, your customers first. 
• On the back end, program managers build a segmentation strategy or leverage technology like Gatsby.ai to filter these inbound social media handles by follower count, verification status, location, channel, etc. 
• Once everything is in order, you can create a system of rules and onboarding flows that automatically funnel your customers into the program with tiered logic. Customers with verification marks or massive social media followings follow one path with personalized communications and generous offers; meanwhile, other customers can follow another set of paths that are tailored to their degree of influence. You can also create a flow that gracefully exits customers who aren’t a fit for your brand at this time.

The beauty of this strategy is that it automatically scales as sales grow. As more and more influencer affiliates are onboarded, more sales are generated, and an entirely new crop of potential affiliates hit the system. 

Tools and Partners to Help Recruit Influencers

Finally, tools like Publisher Discovery and partners like those available in the TUNE Marketplace can help brands of all sizes find the right influencer affiliates for their programs. Some helpful partners and tools:

• Publisher Discovery
• MagicLinks
• Aspire IQ
• Find Your Influence
• SARAL
• Gatsby: Growth From Community
• CreatorIQ

Note: Check out our on-demand webinar to hear more strategies around using tools and partners for recruiting affiliates.

How to Engage Influencers After You Recruit Them

No matter how good of a communicator you think you are, it’s smart to spend time testing recruitment and messaging strategies. The key paths to consider during recruitment are program qualification, program onboarding, and program decline. 

Affiliate Program Qualification

With program qualification, you’re going to be focused on dialing in your pitch and tailoring it to your influencer segments. We recommend taking small segments and A/B testing subject lines, core copy, and follow-up sequences. Optimize these communications over the course of your first few months and then go wider with the winning segments and their winning communications. 

Other tactics during program qualification may include invite-only webinar events, one-to-one discovery calls, and a content drip that includes social proof, case studies, and program success narratives. 

Affiliate Program Onboarding

The same test and learn strategy goes for your program onboarding flow. You’ll want to hit new sign-ups with a very simple welcome that includes an easy to digest onboarding checklist. We also recommend building a video-driven welcome series that helps orient new influencers. In both cases, approach your creative with an MVP (minimum viable product) mindset, and then expand and refine it as you start fielding real-time questions. 

A variety of issues you didn’t anticipate will arise during your alpha and beta launch phases. As you go, make sure you leave yourself some time and flexibility to figure out the resources and processes needed to address these issues. Until your influencer affiliate program is a well-oiled machine, the approach should remain agile.

Finally, don’t forget to take time to understand the why behind the “no.” When an influencer declines program participation, it’s important to try to understand why. A couple ways to do this are with a simple, personally directed follow-up question, or an incentivized exit survey that thanks them for their time. Gathering data on why someone decided not to join can help guide your outreach to future partners. 

Get Started with Influencers and Creators

Recruiting influencers and content creators for your affiliate program is a strategic endeavor that requires careful planning and execution. As you think about recruitment, you’ll want to build A/B testing strategies for your communications that address cold outbound recruitment and qualification stages, the onboarding stage, and an exit stage. Start small. Test over two-week sprints. Optimize. And expand! 

To learn more strategies for recruiting today’s top content creators and influencers, download the e-book: Influencer-Affiliate Blueprint: Building High-ROI Creator Communities.

Need a tool to measure your influencer-affiliate programs? The TUNE platform is your go-to solution for flexible, affordable partner management and tracking tools. With in-platform payments, creative asset management, campaign automation, direct linking, and much more, it’s your one-stop shop for performance-based influencer marketing. Request a demo today.

Congratulations on your shiny new affiliate program!

After months of studying the needs and buying habits of consumers, you developed a new product, created an offer, and opened a store. You identified your ideal customer, but also the biggest competitors in your targeted niche. After digging through tons of data and crunching the numbers, you’ve mapped out a solid go-to-market strategy to ensure long-term success. Everything looks good and you’re ready to launch, or so you think.

Just like a traditional brick-and-mortar shop, you want to get customers in the door as quickly as possible, but where do you look for them? More importantly, how do you let them know you’re open for business? How do you get them to start spending money with your brand? TUNE offers some quick tips to help small businesses discover the benefits of an affiliate program.

Why It Pays to Put in the Work

Whatever media channel or traffic source you choose to reach your desired audience, you’ll need to enlist reliable media partners to help get the word out as quickly as possible. Recruitment is often the biggest challenge when it comes to launching programs, so it’s important for brands to understand that a successful partnership program on any platform requires affiliate identification, outreach, negotiation, and ongoing relationship management.

Brands should always maintain full ownership of their recruitment initiatives and devote considerable time and effort upfront to build (and maintain) their desired partner pipelines. Adopting a “set it and forget it” strategy will always deliver poor results; investing in this effort early on will pay dividends in the success of your program. Try to think of it like this: An affiliate program is like a gym membership. If you join a gym, regardless of the amenities, but never take the time to actually go in and work out, you won’t see any results. And you cannot blame the gym — in other words, your platform — for that.

In the old days of affiliate marketing, publishers were relentless in the pursuit of brands. Advertisers called the shots when it came to deciding where to spend their ad dollars, and only publishers with pristine content, astronomical volume, and high traffic-ranking scores were considered for program opportunities. Requests For Proposal (RFPs) were a requirement, as brands expected a full accounting of where their ad dollars were being spent.

The roles have been reversed, and now it is publishers who are in the driver’s seat. Brands are now finding themselves in the pitching position. Publishers are more selective, and thanks to the success of social media platforms, they are more than willing to pass on opportunities that don’t make sense for their audiences or content strategy. For them, payout is secondary to offers that resonate with their base and foster long-term engagement.  

How to Recruit Affiliates and Other Marketing Partners

To help our customers with their recruitment efforts, TUNE’s Partnerships Team has put together this quick list of internal and external resources:

1. TUNE Marketplace

TUNE’s Marketplace is a curated list of carefully vetted media, agency, and technology partners open to direct relationships with TUNE clients. From their private dashboard accounts, brands managing programs on TUNE have the ability to sort and preview partner profiles, including verticals, regions, and accepted payout models, after which, they can request a connection directly with the selected partner at the click of a button. After a partner has been selected, an automated introduction email will be sent to both parties directly from the platform. To improve the chances for a quick and reasonable response, it is highly recommended for the customer to follow up immediately with specific offer payouts, conversion metrics, audience targets, and acceptable traffic sources.

2. Publisher Discovery

Publisher Discovery is a third-party recruitment tool that can be used in conjunction with TUNE Connect. Think of it as Google, but for affiliates. For a discounted fee, it is a great add-on option that offers customers a wider range of affiliates for their programs, including granular competitor reports, payout details, and direct publisher contact information. Download our one-sheet to learn more.

3. Agency Services

We understand some brands experience limitations due to inadequate platform training, staffing shortages, or time constraints. Agencies can help grow programs at an average of 30% or more. TUNE has 40+ outstanding full-service agency partners who are available and willing to assist with program strategy, management, and partner recruitment. Pricing may vary, but we do our best to match our brands with the best and most reasonable options.

Maximize Your Partner Recruitment with TUNE

As an important rule of thumb, it’s good to remember that the devil is in the details, so follow-up is a must. We recommend reaching out to the direct contact in the email introduction within a period of 24 hours or less. Brands should have a clear and viable understanding of their program goals and be ready to present them if the publisher expresses an interest in continuing the conversation. We strongly recommend avoiding the use of broad terms and vague language. This will improve the chances of receiving a response. Some publishers may also request a one-sheet or overview deck.

Even if you do everything right, publisher responses are not guaranteed once an introduction has been facilitated by TUNE. That’s why our Partnerships Team is here to help identify potential blockers and assist with helping you connect with your new and most valuable affiliates.

If you have questions about partner recruitment or would like more information about our resources, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at partnerships@tune.com.