Affiliate marketing for brands: programme setup

Most guides to affiliate marketing are written for publishers who want to earn commissions. This one is for the other side: the brand that pays them. Launching an affiliate programme is easy; most networks will have you live in a week. Running one that adds customers you would not otherwise have won, without paying twice for the same sale or creating legal and search risk, takes more design. This guide walks through the setup decisions in the order they matter.

What is affiliate marketing, from the brand's side?

Affiliate marketing is a performance arrangement: independent partners promote your product and you pay them a commission when a defined action happens, usually a sale or a qualified lead. Partners can be content sites, comparison and review publishers, coupon and cashback sites, newsletters, creators, or other businesses with an overlapping audience. You pay for outcomes rather than impressions, which is why the model appeals to finance teams. The catch is that "outcome" is only as good as your definition of it and your tracking.

Decide what you are paying for

Before choosing a network, write down the commercial model:

• The action. A first purchase, any purchase, a qualified lead, a trial that converts to paid. Paying on a lead you later reject is a common source of conflict.
• The commission logic. A flat fee or a percentage of order value, with any differences by product category, new versus returning customers, or partner type. Margins vary by product, so a single rate across the catalogue rarely makes sense.
• The attribution window and rules. How long after a click a sale still counts, what happens when two affiliates touch the same order, and whether a paid search or email touch later in the journey overrides the affiliate.
• The validation period. How long you hold commissions before approval so that returns, cancellations and fraud can be removed.

Write these terms into the programme agreement. Changing them later damages trust with the partners who matter most.

Tracking and data you need on day one

Affiliate tracking is where many programmes leak money. At minimum:

• A tracking method that survives modern browsers. Server-to-server or first-party tracking is more reliable than third-party cookies alone; ask your network or platform which methods they support.
• De-duplication against your other channels. If your analytics shows the same order claimed by paid search, email and an affiliate, decide in advance which one is paid.
• Order-level reporting. You should be able to see each commissioned order, its value, whether the customer was new, and whether it was later refunded.
• A clean view in your own analytics, using consistent campaign parameters, so affiliate revenue can be compared with other channels on the same basis.

Our analytics and data work usually starts here, because a programme without trustworthy numbers cannot be optimised.

Recruit and vet partners deliberately

The partners that sign up first are not always the ones you want. A useful filter:

• Content and review partners that publish original testing, comparisons or tutorials tend to introduce new customers.
• Coupon and cashback partners often capture customers who were already at checkout. They can still be useful, but many brands pay them a lower rate or exclude them from new-customer commissions.
• Brand-bidding rules. Decide whether affiliates may bid on your brand name in search ads. Most brands prohibit it, because it competes with their own paid media campaigns for clicks they would have won anyway.
• Prohibited methods. List what is not allowed: misleading claims, unapproved discounts, spam, toolbar injection and cookie stuffing.

Disclosure and compliance

Regulators treat affiliate links as advertising. The US Federal Trade Commission's guidance says an affiliate should disclose the relationship clearly and conspicuously, close to the recommendation, so readers can decide how much weight to give it. A short phrase such as "I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post" works; vaguer terms do not. The same guidance makes clear that the brand is responsible for having a reasonable programme to train, monitor and act on its affiliates, and that outsourcing the programme to a network does not remove that responsibility.

Other markets have their own rules on commercial disclosure, so check the requirements wherever your partners publish, and give affiliates approved claims and wording rather than leaving them to improvise.

Keep affiliate links SEO-safe

Google treats links that are paid for as advertising. Its documentation asks site owners to mark affiliate and other paid links with rel="sponsored" (rel="nofollow" is still acceptable), and its spam policies describe thin affiliate pages, which copy merchant descriptions without adding original value, as a problem. Two practical consequences for brands:

• Do not count affiliate links as an SEO tactic. Their value is referral traffic and sales, not ranking signals.
• Prefer partners who add real value: original reviews, testing and comparisons. They convert better, carry less policy risk and reflect better on your brand.

A launch and review rhythm

Start with a small set of vetted partners, a clear commission table and working tracking. Review weekly for the first months: approved versus rejected orders, share of new customers, refund rates by partner, and overlap with other channels. Expand the programme only when you can show that affiliate-sourced customers are incremental and profitable. We do not promise a fixed return from any channel; we make sure the programme is measured honestly enough to decide.

Sources

• FTC's Endorsement Guides: What People Are Asking — Federal Trade Commission
• Qualify your outbound links to Google — Google Search Central
• Spam policies for Google web search — Google Search Central