Building an affiliate program for a high average contract value (ACV) product is kind of like being a marathon organizer. You’ve got to keep morale up over a long sales cycle with checkpoints at regular intervals to ensure your participants stay engaged.
For some real-world insights on how to make your program go the distance, we spoke to Nick Walker, Affiliate Partner Manager at Deel, for his tips on how to build an affiliate program for a high ACV product.
By the end of this article, you’ll know how to keep your affiliates motivated, happy and eager to stay in the game.
Why high ACV products need a specialized affiliate strategy
An affiliate marketer for lower priced consumer goods can post a video for their audience of a million subscribers and know that a decent percentage of people will click on the link and buy the product they recommend.
An affiliate marketer for higher value products, on the other hand, has to put in more effort over the long term if they want to get their audience to the finish line and themselves to a commission.
“The length of the sales cycle is longer,” explains Walker. “It takes a lot more nurturing. It takes a lot more relationship building.”
Similarly, the affiliates’ customers have a long way to go, mentally and emotionally, before they’ll be convinced to commit to a year-long contract or pay for a high-ticket item. They need to be routinely reminded of how this expensive purchase will help them meet their goals.
Keeping all three participants happy with an affiliate partner program — your company/leadership team, the affiliate and the end customer — requires dedicated planning and execution.
You might also like: B2B affiliate marketing: The best ways to use affiliate links for business.
How to set up your high ticket affiliate program
Create a competitive commission structure
Setting up the infrastructure of your program takes careful consideration from the start. This includes incentivizing affiliates to join your program, knowing that closed deals can be more time consuming and involve multiple touchpoints.
“One of the biggest things is making sure that the commission model makes sense for everyone,” explains Walker. “This could mean thinking about higher fixed-rate commissions. This could mean considering recurring versus one-time commissions or tiered commissions where higher performing affiliates get additional or increased commissions.”
There are a number of different partner commission structures for an affiliate program. The three most common are:
- Revenue shares
- Fixed commissions
- Hybrid models
Revenue shares
Revenue shares are a performance-based commission structure where a partner earns a percentage of the revenue generated from the sale or subscription.
Suppose you own a web content management system like Webflow and you want to build an affiliate marketing program to promote its usage. Your affiliates might be web developers while your end customers are people who want to build a website for their business. You might offer a revenue sharing agreement where developers promote your tool and in return, everyone who comes to your website through their personalized affiliate link earns 15 per cent of the cost of their subscription.
Flat commissions
Meanwhile, a flat commission is a set amount of money that an affiliate is paid for each sale. For instance, the developer might get $100 for every person who signed up for a yearly subscription with the web content management system provider. This is different from a percentage-based commission in which the customer might be paid 10 per cent of the yearly subscription fee.
Flat commissions can also be offered on other actions, like leads or free trial sign-ups, particularly for high ACV products.Commissioning affiliates at multiple stages of the sales funnel is helpful to engage and motivate them throughout a longer sales cycle.
Hybrid models
Then, there are hybrid models that blend compensation structures. These combine the different systems and can vary based on factors like the success of a particular affiliate. For instance, your affiliate might be a B2B influencer who will receive a flat commission for creating content that promotes your product to their audience. Then, you further incentivize them by offering a commission for performance as well, for example through a cost per lead commission.
Read more: B2B influencer marketing for SaaS in 2025.
Build an affiliate resource center
Content marketing plays a vital role in your affiliate marketing efforts. The obvious elements that you need are tracking links for your affiliates to share with their audience and landing pages for where they can arrive once they click. But another important element of an affiliate marketing program, especially one that is focused on high ACV products, is educational marketing materials.
Walker stresses the importance of creating and sharing educational content with your audience. This works best when your affiliates are creating new content about how to best use your solutions. At Deel, the team holds content round-ups and content challenges where the team encourages its affiliates to create content that features Deel. They reward affiliates with commissions for content that makes an impact.
Assign a dedicated affiliate manager
It’s also important to assign a dedicated affiliate manager. The higher the product or contract’s value, the more touchpoints your affiliates will need. At Deel, Walker explains that a key to their success has been the level of support they give their affiliates.
“The communication process has been almost everything in terms of really elevating the program,” explains Walker, adding that they focus on establishing relationships with affiliates that are most engaged and are participating actively in the program.
He says their affiliates can always get in touch with them or a member of their sales team if they have questions about the program or about a lead that they passed to Deel.
See more: Top affiliate marketing tools to streamline your affiliate management.
Recruiting high-quality affiliates for a high ACV product
Find the right affiliate partners
In order to build a successful affiliate program for a high ACV product, it’s important to attract high-quality affiliates. You can assess quality using a number of factors such as the size, engagement and fit of an affiliate’s audience and more.
One tip Walker offers is making your program an invite-only or application-based program.
“Higher ACV products typically require more knowledgeable affiliates, so that’s another reason why it’s important to vet applicants for quality. I think the application for your program should have direct questions that really help to clarify who the affiliate is, what their business is, to whom they’re going to be promoting your brand — and really just trying to vet them out as well as you can.”
Partner marketing strategies for a high ticket affiliate program
It’s also important to invest in partner marketing initiatives that are targeted specifically for a high ACV product. Think about:
- Content marketing with social posts and email
- SEO-optimized affiliate content like blog posts, listicles and guides
- Co-branded webinars and in-person events
Complex products require more education and affiliates can be effective at showing how your product can fit into your customers’ workflows and solve business problems.
Review and optimize your program on a regular basis
Identifying your top performing affiliates or the affiliates with a big audience in a market you really want to participate in is important.
This allows you to invest money in co-branded campaigns that will return the best ROI for your program. It’s important to set up regular check-ins for your affiliate program. Review who the top performers are, conduct interviews with them and see what they’re doing well. That way you can either amplify their efforts or incorporate it into your day-to-day program activities.
Relationships and mutual support are the key to a successful high ACV affiliate program
As the old proverb goes, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Understanding the different players in your network and what they need can help you build a successful, high-ticket affiliate program.
You might also like: 10 partner opportunities for B2B SaaS in 2025.
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