An affiliate promotes you to a large audience through a tracked link and earns on what converts, never touching the deal. They want self-serve links, a live earnings view, ready-to-use creative, and payouts that just happen. You want attribution you can trust and fraud protection at volume, because at scale fraud comes straight out of margin. This track sets up exactly that and nothing more.
Time to first value: a working link-and-payout program in about half a day. Owned by: Partner Marketing and Partner Operations, with Finance for payouts. No engineering required.
What an affiliate actually needs
Affiliates run hands-off at scale, so the program is designed to need almost no per-partner management. Their priorities, in order: get a link instantly, see what they have earned, grab creative without an approval cycle, and get paid without invoicing. Everything you configure should serve those four things. You deliberately skip intake forms, deal registration, channel conflict, shared pipeline, training, and tiering, because an affiliate touches none of them. Setting up less is the win.Set up the foundation
1
Connect your CRM
Why it matters. Affiliate conversions become contacts and deals in your CRM. Connecting first means every signup and sale an affiliate drives is reconciled against the same source of truth your direct funnel uses, so earnings can never drift from reality.Connect HubSpot or Salesforce and let Introw read and write as the system of record.Time: 20 to 30 min · Who: CRM Administrator, Partner Operations
2
Bring affiliates in
Why it matters. A program that scales cannot onboard partners by hand. Letting affiliates self-serve their way in keeps your cost per partner near zero, which is the whole economic case for the affiliate motion.Import an initial list or let affiliates sign themselves up, and their contact records come with them so payouts have a payee.Time: 30 min · Who: Partner Operations
Launch the link-and-earn motion
1
Create a campaign and issue tracked links
Why it matters. The tracked link is the entire product for an affiliate. Self-serve, per-campaign links mean a creator is promoting you within minutes of joining, with zero work from your team.Create a campaign, set its commission, and generate the tracked links; affiliates then copy their link from the portal and can create their own vanity aliases.Time: 30 to 45 min · Who: Partner Marketing
2
Install conversion tracking
Why it matters. Attribution is the affiliate program’s source of truth. Signed, automatic click-to-conversion tracking removes manual crediting and the disputes that come with it, which is what keeps affiliates trusting (and promoting) the program.Install the tracking script and capture conversions from your site, your CRM forms, or the API.Time: 30 to 60 min · Who: Partner Operations, with a Developer if you track via the API
3
Turn on fraud protection
Why it matters. At volume, self-referrals, disposable-email signups, and double-counted conversions drain margin directly. Screening conversions before they earn is what makes pay-per-outcome economics actually safe to scale.Block self-referrals and disposable emails, deduplicate, and gate new-customer conversions.Time: 20 to 30 min · Who: Partner Operations, Finance
4
Set the commission and a minimal earnings hub
Why it matters. Affiliates promote harder when they can see pending earnings live. A lightweight earnings hub is all the portal an affiliate needs, so build that and resist adding more.Set the campaign commission, then publish a simple earnings experience showing clicks, conversions, and pending payout.Time: 1 to 2 hours · Who: Partner Marketing, Partner Operations
5
Pay out automatically
Why it matters. Frictionless payouts are the affiliate’s whole reason to trust you. Automating the run, reconciled to the CRM conversions, removes invoicing back-and-forth and keeps Finance out of spreadsheets.Batch approved earnings into payouts and generate statements, all tied back to the tracked conversions.Time: 30 to 60 min · Who: Finance, Partner Operations
Go deeper once you are live
These are optional refinements for an affiliate program, not setup blockers. Add them once the basics are running.You are live
You have a self-serve, fraud-protected, pay-per-outcome affiliate program that reconciles to your CRM and pays out without manual work. Your team manages the program, not each partner, which is exactly how the affiliate motion is meant to run.Run a different motion?
Pick another partner-type track.
Commissions and SPIFFs
Go deeper on incentive calculation and payouts.