Launch an affiliate program

An affiliate program at the right scale adds 5-15% to revenue. At the wrong scale it pays for fraud. Here's the right scale.

Settings → Affiliates → Enable

Pick a default commission structure:

• % of sale. Typical for SaaS and high-margin goods. 10-30%
• Flat per-sale. Typical for low-AOV products. €5/order
• Tiered. Base rate, with bonuses for affiliates who drive >X sales/month

You can override per-affiliate or per-product. New affiliates get the default; high-performers negotiate up.

Recruit

Three patterns: 1. Customers. Settings → Affiliates → Auto-enroll customers. Every customer gets a referral link in their account. Easiest to scale, lowest commission rates work 2. Influencers. Handpick. Reach out, agree on terms, send their unique link. Higher commissions, fewer affiliates, often better fit 3. Affiliate networks (CJ, ShareASale, Impact). Connect via integration. They bring affiliates, you pay them a markup. Best for established brands

Tracking

Affiliate links: yourstore.com/?ref=AFFILIATEID. We attach a 30-day attribution cookie. Any order in 30 days from the same browser credits the affiliate.

Cross-device tracking (someone clicks on phone, buys on laptop) works if the customer logs in on both. Without login, attribution is per-device.

The attribution window is configurable: Settings → Affiliates → Attribution window. Most stores: 30 days. Long sales cycles (B2B, big-ticket): 60-90.

Payouts

Affiliates earn at the moment the order is placed, but commissions don't release until the order is delivered AND past your refund window (typical: 30 days post-purchase). This protects you from paying commissions on orders that get refunded.

Settings → Affiliates → Payouts. Choose:

• Manual. You click pay each cycle. Best for low volume
• Automatic. Every 1st of month, all approved commissions paid out via Stripe Connect, PayPal, or bank transfer

Affiliates see their pending balance, releasable balance, and full history in their portal at yourstore.com/affiliate/dashboard.

Fraud detection

Common patterns:

• Self-referral. Affiliate creates a customer account and refers themselves. We block same-IP signups within 24h of click
• Cookie stuffing. Affiliate forces a cookie on every visitor of an unrelated site. Blocked: we require an explicit click to credit
• Click farms. Fake clicks from data centres. Blocked: we filter datacentre IPs and bots
• Fake orders. Affiliate places real orders with stolen cards to claim commission, then chargebacks the order. Caught at the chargeback stage; commission is reversed
• Coupon shopping. Affiliate posts your discount code on RetailMeNot, claiming credit for organic shoppers. Mitigation: don't let affiliates have stackable codes; use last-touch attribution from a click

Audit and disputes

If an affiliate complains they didn't get credited, Settings → Affiliates → Audit log shows the click, the IP, the order, the attribution decision, and why. Most disputes are misunderstandings about the attribution window. Have a clear policy and stick to it.

Scaling

After ~100 affiliates, the manual approve / pay flow becomes a job. At that point either upgrade to a full affiliate platform (Impact, Refersion) or hire someone to run the program. The math: every 100 affiliates above the bar adds roughly 5% to revenue, and managing them is roughly 5 hours/week.