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Affiliate programs are essential to driving growth and brand awareness in 2025 and are projected to increase significantly over the next five years. We know the value of these programs, yet getting them off the ground can be challenging. That’s where tapping into your sales or customer service background can come in handy.
In this article, we caught up with Todd Burleson, Partnerships Manager at Atom.com, to explore:
- Strategies for launching a successful affiliate program
- The benefits of starting an affiliate program
- How to manage and scale affiliate programs effectively
Why build an affiliate program?
Implementing an affiliate program is a way to leverage the people who are already fans of your business and want to share what you do with others. It’s an effective channel to increase brand exposure through cost-effective marketing while generating passive revenue.
“It’s like having a sales team out in the world that you don’t manage and you don’t necessarily have on your payroll,” says Burleson.
The role of an affiliate program in business growth
Using affiliates and their established customer bases is a quick and cost-effective way to reach a wide range of potential customers, particularly in specific niches. When affiliates promote your product or services it increases visibility and credibility without traditional marketing costs.
Once you’ve set up an affiliate program, you can generate ongoing leads and sales with less management and continue to scale as your network grows.
Getting started: Laying the foundation for your affiliate program
Building an effective affiliate program begins from the ground up. Without a solid foundation, your house can fall apart. That’s why it’s important to research and take your time before launching, says Burleson.
“The creation, the planning, the onboarding — it’s not going to happen overnight,” he says. “I’m a huge fan of having everything well-oiled before announcing something at large.”
At the same time, building an affiliate is largely about building relationships, which requires skills you’ve probably obtained from sales or CS.
“So much relationship management goes into maintaining a healthy partner program,” Burleson continues. “When you're a salesperson or an account manager, it just translates naturally right into partnerships, because this world is so much a direct middle ground between both sales and account management. It's the perfect spot for anyone who's not quite a salesperson and not quite an account manager but is really good at both.”
See more: 6 marketing metrics to track for your partnerships programs.
Define your goals and objectives
Before you create an affiliate program, establish the aim of the program and precisely what you want to get out of it. Like a sales role, affiliate management involves establishing KPIs, knowing how much you can pay out and your basic framework.
“You can do that to scale, but you have to know what your goals and expectations are,” says Burleson.
Identify your target audience
One of the first steps to onboarding affiliates is knowing what types of partners you want to work with. Create an ideal partner profile that begins with those who love your work, but then takes it further. Consider who that person or business is, why they recommend you and who their audience is. It’s also a good idea to explore who might not know you yet (but should) before cold-calling prospects.
“When you've got that background in sales, you have the acumen to be able to identify who your ideal partner is going to be based on their persona, their role,” Burleson says. “All of these factors that go into making someone really good at sales make you really good at being an affiliate manager.”
You might also like: Why you need to understand your customer journey to run an affiliate program.
Competitor analysis: What are other affiliate programs doing?
Researching competitors to understand what works and what doesn’t in the affiliate program space is just as important. Know their target affiliates because there will probably be overlap and Google articles to see who’s writing about them and read up on reviews.
“Start with their affiliate page,” says Burleson. “You can tell a lot by a page and who they’re marketing to, who their target is and reading some of the language they use.”
Choosing the right affiliate model for your business
When you create an affiliate program, you must decide which partner commission structure you will use: cost per sale, cost per lead, cost per click or a subscription-based model with recurring commissions. “It's really important to understand how much you can pay out,” says Burleson. “It's truly a sales role, in basic terms. Partnerships are sales.”
Cost per sale
Affiliates earn a commission for each successful sale they generate. That commission is either a percentage or a fixed amount and you can tier it to increase or decrease depending on the number of conversions an affiliate partner brings in. The advantage of this model is that it’s structured so that you only pay out when you make money and it’s easy to track through links or codes.
Cost per lead
Affiliates are paid for each qualified lead they provide rather than an actual sale. These leads are paid out based on the clearly defined quality of the lead and the potential value of the customer. They’re typically used by businesses with longer or more complex sales cycles. They also require more hands-on affiliate tracking as they require monitoring to avoid low-quality leads or potential fraud.
Cost per click
Affiliates are paid for each click they generate on a link. This is a less common model because you’re not paying for quality leads or completed sales but it can be lucrative if you target a specific market with little direct competition
Subscription-based models for recurring commissions
Affiliates earn a commission for the lifetime of the customer. This model is especially popular in the SaaS world as it attracts quality customers that can align with long-term goals. The result can be improved retention and passive income but creating the right commission structure to remain sustainable is essential.
Building the structure: Key elements of a successful affiliate program
Once you’ve established a foundation for your affiliate network, it’s time to work on the details. Create affiliate programs with a solid structure for optimal success by drawing from that sales or account management background.
Set your commission rates
In researching your competitors, you should have a general idea of commission rates in your space. When recruiting affiliates, you want to offer a competitive model that still aligns with your goals and is sustainable.
Burleson is a fan of tiered commission structures that attract quality, long-term customers and incentivizes potential affiliates.
“Affiliates won’t care about churn within that first year if they’re still getting paid out pretty well. They’ll just find another person to refer,” he says.
Instead, he recommends looking at a lower commission for affiliates within the first year and slowly increasing the percentage afterward to create a win for both sides. He’s seen some successful models that go in the opposite direction (starting high and then going low) but says, in his experience, it’s better to go upward.
“It incentivizes usage of the product and incentivizes affiliates to know how to talk about, sell and train people on the product,” he adds.
You could also consider a tiered structure, in which the commission percentage is based on the overall number of referrals or sales an affiliate brings in. For example, a first-tier affiliate would receive a 10 per cent commission. They bump up to a second tier, 15 per cent commission once they refer 10 or 100 customers.
“Gamify the way your affiliate programs work,” Burleson says. “It makes it more fun for everyone.”
Create an affiliate agreement
Just as you would never close a sales deal without a formal agreement, a solid affiliate agreement is another cornerstone to success. It should include terms, conditions, payment details and more detailed items such as social media or engagement rules.
“The basic principles or the dos and don'ts are things you've probably learned throughout the years of seeing people succeed,” Burleson says of agreement parameters. “Know what these partners need to be held accountable to do in this role and build that into the agreement.”
Choose an affiliate management tool
Finding the right tools and affiliate software to help automate your affiliate marketing efforts can save time and energy. Explore options that work for your program and staff and will allow you to focus more on growth versus management.
“PartnerStack is a robust way for someone who does not know how to start an affiliate program to get started,” Burleson says. “There are even things like sample agreements you can use, plus a marketplace to prospect, as well as sales and communications tools. It’s just so well built for that.” Learn more about the benefits of running your affiliate program on PartnerStack.
Define your affiliate marketing strategy
Once you’re ready to launch your affiliate program, you need to attract affiliates. If you need some easy wins fast, Burleson recommends putting together simple email messaging with NPS and satisfaction scores that you can blast to people you believe will convert at a higher rate.
Think about some traditional marketing techniques. You may also want to implement promotional offers or coupon codes, particularly when working with B2B influencers.
Cold outbound prospecting is another strategy if you have an affiliate manager or a decent monthly revenue. In both cases, sales are key, as is knowing your target audience and communication strategy.
“It's a sales motion of sequence writing,” Burleson says. “It's some marketing, but it's also a lot of sales. Your sequence has to be right and depending on your payout and how much you're paying out to these affiliates, you might have someone cold-calling people.”
Identify potential affiliates in your niche
When you start an affiliate program, it can be a lot of trial and error, which means poking around and trying to see where you’re getting traction. The first step is to know your ideal partner profile and go from there. Constant communication with customers will help determine where they’re coming from and who you want to target. Analyze who the competition is using. Cast a wide net to start and to gain a solid base of affiliates.
Use affiliate networks to expand reach
Once you have some affiliates under your belt, identify what’s working and target even further.
“It’s kind of the 80/20 rule,” Burleson says. “The majority of affiliates aren’t going to perform at all. But 20 per cent of them will bring in the majority of your revenue. When you start segmenting out and looking at the top 20, home in on the top one per cent after that.”
Create a compelling affiliate onboarding process
Onboarding is critical. Burleson recommends doing so in a fun and engaging way, like with a video. “Put a face to the name from the emails,” he says. “An affiliate partner might see me being like, ‘Hey, today I want you to try placing your link in three separate places. Do it on your social, in your email signature and send it to five people,’” he says.
Creating marketing materials for your affiliates
The best way to ensure affiliate program success is to provide affiliates with everything they could possibly need to promote your product. That means developing high-quality content, training them, providing ongoing support and setting up an easy-to-access hub with FAQs and all available materials. Think of it as leading a sales team and providing them with all of the necessary resources to execute your message and bring in new customers.
“It should be such an integral part of your affiliate program setup,” Burleson says. “Hand them what you would hand someone walking onto your sales floor on the first day. If you don't provide your new salespeople with anything, then I don't know what to tell you.”
Develop high-quality content
Provide banners, email templates and social media posts for affiliates that encourage them to share your messaging and product quickly. “Hand them the virtual packet and let them do what they do best with it,” Burleson says. “Point affiliates to those resources as part of the onboarding process.”
Provide training and support
To ensure affiliates and their customers to have the best possible user experience provide ongoing training and support. Create webinars for content you can repurpose with each onboarding, record training calls and assemble a resource hub.
Managing your affiliate program effectively
Once your affiliate programs are underway, foster them with performance tracking, regular communications and updated strategies.
“Once I've gotten their attention, the rest of the process continues just like a sales or CS process,” Burleson says. “It's like you're closing the deal essentially the same way and from there what I've learned is once you have obtained an affiliate, you have to know how to keep them.”
Burleson also a large part of that is communication. It’s essential to stay up-to-date on emails and respond daily in case anyone has a problem. Create a plan that allows you to regularly engage with affiliates and solicit feedback so that you can dig into what’s working and expand the program from there.
“No matter how many people you have, it’s important to continue monitoring the health of the program,” Burleson says. “if you want a healthy well-oiled machine, you have to have all of those elements. You wouldn't let your sales team sit around, right? You would constantly engage with your sales team. You have to do the same thing for your affiliates.”
Scaling your affiliate program for long-term success
As you settle into your affiliate program and see what’s working and what’s not, keep scaling the program and incentivizing your partners. Simple ways to do so include rewarding the top-performing affiliates, expanding into new markets and leveraging your feedback to expand on what’s working.
“When people think of incentivizing, they think monetarily — and that’s where I will push back all day long,” Burleson adds. “People love swag, so why not send a t-shirt to a top performer from the previous month? It’s so easy and inexpensive for you to do.”
He stresses that anything fun and different than getting a check can be a great motivator. Consider a dinner for two, a weekend at the movies, or some other experience that will excite people.
Constant engagement is the other piece to success, which is where a strong background in customer service and how to communicate with customers can come into play.
“You want your affiliates to have a nice experience because they’re going to expect the same experience as when they were a customer of yours,” Burleson says. “Train your customer service team on how to talk to your affiliates. They’re your front-line people who can help easily and quickly. If they have a terrible affiliate experience, they're going to expect that their customers will have a terrible experience.”
You might also like: 10 top AI affiliate programs to join in 2025 to maximize revenue.
Common mistakes to avoid when building an affiliate program
Some common mistakes to avoid when building an affiliate program include low commission rates or failing to provide the proper communication and support to your affiliates.
When setting commission rates, consider what your competitors are doing, but also look at what your sales team earns. Affiliates shouldn’t make more, but you may want to pay them a quarter or half of those commissions to attract quality leads.
“There’s never a bad mistake if you’re able to learn from it,” Burleson adds. “If you are constantly looking at your program and your program’s health and you understand why a decision didn’t go well but you’re iterating on it, then it wasn’t a bad decision at all — you were just learning.”
Above all, he says to stick with it and be patient. Affiliate programs can be tough and a lot of work at the beginning but by sticking with it and creating a solid foundation you will eventually see high residuals and success. When in doubt, ask the community for help.
“The partnership community is really on board to help and answer questions,” he says. “I’ve seen people take their careers from zero to very important partnerships with people in the industry because they asked questions.”
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