Affiliate Marketing
Most affiliate programmes pay commission on sales they did not cause.
Partner programmes rebuilt around incremental sales rather than last-click credit.
62%
Share of affiliate-attributed revenue confirmed incremental under test
The problem
The affiliate channel reports beautifully because it is measured at the point of purchase. Voucher, cashback and loyalty partners sit at the bottom of the funnel by design, and last-click attribution hands them the sale regardless of who did the work of creating the demand. The result is a channel that appears to be your most efficient and is partly a rebate scheme you are paying an agency to administer. Meanwhile content partners and genuine publishers who introduce new customers get under-rewarded and go elsewhere.
Process
How we approach it
Find out what the channel is actually doing
Before touching commission rates, we segment the partner base by function: content and review sites, cashback, voucher and discount codes, loyalty, sub-networks, brand-bidding partners, and technology partners such as on-site coupon injectors. Then we measure new-customer rate and basket composition by partner type. The picture is usually not the one the network dashboard shows.
Test incrementality rather than argue about it
Incrementality in affiliate is testable. Pausing a partner segment in matched regions, suppressing on-site code injection, or running holdouts on cashback exposure gives a defensible read on what disappears when a partner stops. We run these tests deliberately and accept the result, including when it favours the partner.
Pay for the behaviour you want
Flat commission across every partner type rewards proximity to checkout. We move programmes to tiered and conditional commercial terms — higher rates for new customers, lower or zero for code-led repeat purchases, rate cards by product margin band, and negotiated tenancy or hybrid deals for content partners whose value is not last-click.
Police the programme properly
Programme hygiene is unglamorous and it is where money and brand risk both sit: brand-bidding breaches, unauthorised sub-affiliates, expired or fabricated voucher codes, trademark misuse, and cookie-stuffing. We monitor for it as standing work and enforce the terms, rather than logging the breach and reporting it to you as diligence.
Deliverables
What you get
Partner base segmentation by function, with new-customer rate and average order value reported per segment
Commercial terms review: tiered commission by new versus returning customer, and by product margin band
Incrementality testing on defined partner segments, scheduled in advance with the method and the read agreed before the test runs
Compliance sweeps on an agreed cadence for brand bidding, trademark misuse, unauthorised sub-affiliates and out-of-date voucher codes
Publisher recruitment focused on content and review partners in your category and your markets, with outreach volume and response reported
Network or platform management on Awin, Impact, Partnerize, CJ, Rakuten or Webgains, including deduplication rules against paid search and paid social
Programme review covering partner concentration risk — what happens commercially if your largest partner leaves
Industries
Where we run this
Ecommerce
Paid acquisition managed against contribution margin and breakeven efficiency, not platform-reported return.
Finance
Acquisition for regulated firms, where the advertisement is itself a regulated document.
iGaming
Affiliate-led player acquisition for licensed operators, where a compliance failure costs more than any efficiency gain.
Frequently asked
Our affiliate channel already shows a strong return. Why change anything?
Because the reported return and the incremental return are different numbers, and only one of them is money. A programme dominated by cashback and voucher partners will show an excellent last-click ROI while contributing much less new revenue than it appears to. The test costs a few weeks and settles it either way.
Will cutting voucher and cashback partners reduce sales?
Some, usually. The question is how much, and whether the retained margin is worth it. We rarely recommend cutting them entirely — they have a real role in conversion and in customer reactivation. We recommend paying them a rate that reflects what they contribute rather than where they sit in the click path.
Do you work with our existing network or move us?
We work with your existing network by default. Migration is disruptive, costs partner relationships, and is only worth it for a specific reason — usually tracking limitations, deduplication that cannot be configured, or commercial terms that cannot be varied by partner type.
Who owns the partner relationships?
You do. Partners are contracted to your programme, on your terms, in your account. We manage the relationships on your behalf and document them so the programme is handoverable.
Start with the audit.
It has a defined scope and a defined deliverable, and it is deliberately separable from anything that follows. If the audit says your current setup is fine, that is a legitimate outcome and we will say so.