How to Start an Affiliate Program
A complete walkthrough for brands launching their first affiliate program — from network selection and commission structure through publisher recruitment, asset creation, and 90-day performance tracking.
Most brands underinvest in affiliate at launch and overpay to fix it later. This guide gives you the setup decisions that drive program performance for years, not just the first 90 days.
Choose Your Affiliate Network
The network is your program infrastructure. It tracks clicks, manages payouts, and gives publishers a place to find and join your program.
Four networks dominate the mid-market and enterprise affiliate space, each with a distinct positioning.
Impact is the best default for most brands. Zero setup fee lowers launch risk. The platform's attribution tools are the most sophisticated of the four — you can run multi-touch models, set custom commission rules by publisher type, and A/B test landing pages within the platform. Impact's publisher directory skews toward content and media partners, which is where most incremental GMV lives. Choose Impact if you're doing $200K–$5M GMV and want strong technology with a manageable cost structure.
CJ Affiliate is the choice when publisher relationships matter more than technology. CJ's network has depth — major media groups, comparison sites, and loyalty publishers have long-established programs there. The $3,000 setup fee is significant but reflects genuine access to T1 publishers who won't join your program on Impact. If your product belongs in major media roundups and comparison sites, CJ's publisher relationships justify the premium.
Awin is the clear choice for any brand targeting European markets. The UK and EU affiliate ecosystem is more concentrated on Awin than any other US-origin network. No monthly minimum makes it viable as a secondary network alongside Impact for brands running parallel US and EU programs.
ShareASale is the low-friction starting point for early-stage programs. The $500 setup fee and $35 monthly minimum make it accessible for brands testing affiliate before committing to full infrastructure. The publisher base is strong for consumer goods and physical products. If you're under $100K annual GMV target, start here.
Set Your Commission Structure
Commission structure is your primary competitive lever. Set it wrong at launch and you'll spend months trying to fix publisher perception.
Cost-per-sale (CPS) is the standard model for physical goods affiliate programs. You pay a percentage of each order value when a publisher drives a verified sale. CPS aligns incentives perfectly — publishers maximize content quality, you pay only for results. Start here unless you have a specific reason not to.
Cost-per-lead (CPL) makes sense for high-consideration purchases with long sales cycles — software, financial products, some home services. You pay for a verified lead (email opt-in, free trial signup, quote request) rather than a completed purchase. CPL rates typically run $5–$50 per lead depending on lead quality and sales cycle length.
Setting your base rate: start at the competitive tier for your category, not the standard tier. Our benchmarks show 4–8% as standard for physical goods and 5–10% for home goods. Starting at the competitive rate (10%+ for physical goods, 12%+ for home goods) positions your program as worth a publisher's attention from day one. It costs you marginally more per sale but dramatically improves recruitment.
Performance tiers reward publishers who drive volume. A typical structure: base rate 8%, 500+ monthly sales → 10%, 1,000+ monthly sales → 12%. Tiers create retention incentives and give top publishers a reason to prioritize your program over competitors.
Cookie window: 30 days is standard. 60 days is competitive for high-consideration purchases. 7 days is a signal to publishers that you don't trust them — avoid it. A longer cookie window means more sales are attributed to affiliate, but it's a real cost worth paying for the recruitment lift.
Recruit Your First Publishers
Publishers don't come to you. You have to find them, vet them, and give them a reason to promote your product over the 50 other brands asking for the same thing.
Where to find publishers:
*Affiliate directories*: Start with your network's publisher directory. Impact, CJ, and Awin all have searchable databases. Filter by vertical relevance and minimum traffic. Look for content publishers and review sites — not coupon/deal sites, which should be less than 40% of your publisher mix.
*Competitor program analysis*: Use tools like SimilarWeb or SEMrush to identify sites linking to your top competitors. These publishers have already demonstrated interest in your category — they're the highest-conversion outreach targets.
*Content media and review sites*: Search Google for "[your product category] best picks" and "[your product category] review." The sites ranking for these queries are your target publishers. Most have an "affiliate program" or "work with us" page.
Outreach template that works:
Subject: [Publisher Name] + [Your Brand] — affiliate program invitation
Hi [First Name],
I found your review of [competing product] on [site name] — exactly the kind of content our customers use when researching [your category].
We're launching our affiliate program on [network] and would like to invite [site name] as a priority partner. We're offering [X]% commission (above category standard), 60-day cookie window, and [specific asset/offer relevant to their content].
If you're open to it, I'd love to share our media kit and discuss a custom arrangement.
[Your name], [title]
What to do in your first 90 outreach days: target 20 publishers per week. Expect a 10–15% positive response rate. Of those, expect 30–40% to make a first sale within 60 days of joining. These numbers compound — by month 3, a disciplined outreach program produces a meaningful active publisher base.
Create Your Affiliate Asset Library
Publishers promote products when promotion is easy. Asset quality is the difference between a publisher who joins your program and a publisher who actually drives sales.
Banner ads: Create standard IAB sizes — 728×90 (leaderboard), 300×250 (medium rectangle), 160×600 (wide skyscraper), 320×50 (mobile banner). Use product-focused creative, not brand-only creative. Include the commission rate or offer in the banner where possible. Refresh creative quarterly or for seasonal campaigns.
Text links: Simple deep links to key product pages, category pages, and promotional landing pages. Publishers prefer text links for in-content use. Provide pre-written anchor text options for different context types (comparison, review, recommendation).
Product data feeds: An XML or CSV feed of your product catalog with SKU, name, price, availability, and image URL. This unlocks your program for comparison sites, deal aggregators, and cashback platforms — publisher types that require machine-readable data. Impact and CJ have native feed managers.
Brand guidelines: A one-page PDF covering logo usage, brand colors, key messaging, and what publishers are and are not allowed to do with your brand assets. This prevents brand dilution and gives publishers confidence they're promoting you correctly.
Product images: High-resolution white background images for every major SKU plus lifestyle images. White background images are required by most comparison and retail sites. Lifestyle images perform better in social and editorial contexts.
Promotional offers: Publishers convert better when they have something to offer readers — a discount code, free shipping, bundle deal, or exclusive bonus. Even a 5% promo code increases publisher conversion rates by 15–25% in our experience. Coordinate these with your promotions calendar.
Launch and Track: Your First 90 Days
The first 90 days establish your program's trajectory. The KPIs you watch determine whether you're building a sustainable channel or a vanity metric.
The five KPIs that matter in the first 90 days:
*Active publisher ratio*: Target 30% of approved publishers making at least one sale by day 90. Below 15% indicates a recruitment-without-activation problem — you're adding publishers to a leaky bucket.
*EPC*: Track weekly. Your EPC should trend up as you optimize landing pages and commission structure. A flat or declining EPC in months 2–3 indicates CVR problems. Investigate the click-to-sale path, not the publisher mix.
*Click-to-sale CVR*: Benchmark is 1.5–3.5% for physical goods. Below 1% means your landing page or product page is losing sales that publishers are driving. Fix the destination before recruiting more publishers.
*Average order value (AOV)*: Compare affiliate AOV to your site-wide AOV. If affiliate AOV is 20%+ below average, you may be attracting discount-driven traffic that skews lower-value. Reassess your publisher mix toward content and review publishers.
*GMV ramp*: Month-over-month GMV growth should be positive from month 2 forward. If month 3 GMV is below month 2, something is wrong — either publisher churn, a commission cut, or a conversion issue. Diagnose immediately.
90-day milestone checkpoints:
- Day 30: First 10 publishers active, first sales recorded, tracking verified
- Day 60: Active publisher ratio >20%, EPC established, first performance data for outreach optimization
- Day 90: >30 active publishers, stable EPC, month-3 GMV target hit, recruitment pipeline producing 5–8 new active publishers/month
Optimize: What Comes After Launch
Most programs plateau at 90 days because they stop treating affiliate as a managed channel. Continuous optimization separates programs that scale from programs that stagnate.
The 90-day launch phase produces data that should inform a systematic optimization cycle. Run this review process monthly.
Commission optimization: Review EPC by publisher segment. If T1 publishers are generating 3× the EPC of T3 publishers, that's signal to offer T1-specific rate increases and invest more in T1 recruitment. If coupon publishers are generating low EPC but high volume, evaluate whether they're driving incremental sales or cannibalizing organic traffic.
Publisher pruning: Publishers who haven't made a sale in 90 days after joining rarely activate. Send a reactivation email at day 60. If no response by day 90, move them to a lower communication tier and focus outreach on new recruitment.
Seasonal rate adjustments: Affiliate programs that don't adjust for Q4 leave GMV on the table. Raise commission rates 2–3% in October for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday window. Publishers are looking for programs to prioritize in Q4 — be the one that rewards them for it.
Content partnerships: Beyond standard affiliate, the highest-GMV publishers are often willing to do deeper content integrations — dedicated product reviews, category roundups, email features. These require negotiation and often a content fee or guaranteed minimum commission, but they drive 5–10× the GMV of standard affiliate links in the same publisher's site.
Attribution model review: After 90 days, evaluate whether last-click attribution is accurately reflecting publisher contribution. If you have long research cycles (30+ days from first click to purchase), consider moving to a first-click or multi-touch model. This changes which publishers get credit and can dramatically shift your optimization decisions.
Common Questions
Starting an affiliate program costs $500–$3,000 in network setup fees plus a transaction fee of 1.9–3% on commissions paid. At minimum monthly spend, a program on ShareASale runs $35/month. Impact and CJ require $500/month minimums. Budget separately for publisher commissions (typically 4–12% of sales) and management time or agency fees.
Most affiliate programs take 60–90 days to generate meaningful revenue. The first 30 days are setup and initial recruitment. Days 30–60 see first publisher activations. Days 60–90 produce the first reliable GMV signal. Programs that invest in proactive publisher outreach (vs. passive directory listings) typically see first sales within 3–4 weeks.
Start at the competitive rate for your category, not the standard rate. For physical goods, that means 8–10% rather than 4–6%. Starting low and raising rates later is harder than starting competitive — publishers who pass on your program at 4% rarely return when you raise to 8%. For electronics start at 5–6%, beauty at 12–15%, home goods at 10–12%.
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