21 Affiliate Marketing Best Practices for Running a Successful Program (2024 Updated)

Let’s face the truth: with the lucrative nature of affiliate marketing, more and more brands think the same as you. Over 80% of vendors worldwide use this scheme to boost their revenue (Rakuten). So, how do you compete with others and thrive in such a competitive space?

Finding a practical approach is the key to staying ahead in this game. In this article, we’ll show you 21 affiliate marketing best practices to make your program a success.

Consider our 21 best practices for affiliate marketing to set your business up for success:

1. Set clear goals for your affiliate program
2. Pick good products for affiliates to promote
3. Perform market research on competitors’ affiliate programs
4. Offer competitive commission structures
5. Choose the right affiliate marketing software
6. Diversify your affiliate partners
7. Create distinct affiliate programs for different affiliate types
8. Make your affiliate signup process straightforward
9. Use multiple channels to promote your program
10. Craft clear affiliate terms and conditions
11. Carefully screen affiliate marketers
12. Set favorable payment methods and schedule
13. Turn your existing customers into affiliates
14. Invest time in onboarding and training affiliates
15. Give affiliates access to your creative assets
16. Maintain open communication with affiliates
17. Reward top affiliates with extra bonuses
18. Provide special deals with affiliate partners
19. Track and optimize affiliate performance with data
20. Focus on preventing fraudulent activities
21. Ensure legal and regulatory compliance

Read on to learn more!

21 Affiliate Marketing Best Practices for Your Business

1. Set Measurable Goals for Your Affiliate Program

Affiliate marketing works best when you start with clear goals in mind. After defining what they are, you can start to establish KPIs that will assist you in regularly measuring and tracking your progress.

Before you start an affiliate program, you need to know what you want to achieve with it. Start with some big goals, such as:

• Boost overall sales of your store
• Drive more visitors to your website
• Increase revenue for a specific product collection
• Encourage more repeat purchases from customers

Answering these questions will help you determine what to do next. And if you feel it is a little bit hard, think about applying the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) model.

Take the following ideas as examples:

• Achieve X in total sales within 3 months by partnering with Y affiliates.
• Attract X new visitors next month by collaborating with Y bloggers
• Raise sales of Product B by X% next quarter by providing an exclusive discount with Y influencers.
• Improve customer retention by X% in 2 months. Provide current customers with a store credit for referring friends to your store.

After that, don’t forget to set KPIs to help you easily evaluate how well you’re meeting your goals. They could include:

• Clicks and traffic
• Sales and revenue
• Conversion rate
• Average order value (AOV)
• Return on investment (ROI)
• Customer lifetime value (CLV)

With accessible goals and realistic KPIs in place, your affiliate campaign can effectively support your business objectives.

2. Pick Suitable Products for Affiliates to Promote

​​Before launching an affiliate campaign, selecting products to promote is one of the key aspects an affiliate manager must consider. Wise choices enable your affiliate partners to use better promotional tactics and generate good revenue for your business.

It’s all right to start with one or two products. Focus on those that are both profitable and in demand among your customers.

When deciding which items to include in your affiliate program, you can consider the following:

• Best-selling products, along with positive feedback, make it easier for affiliates to share with their audience.
• High-priced items because they give affiliates better chances for earning more commissions. Getting 10% on a $150 product is more rewarding than on a $100 one, right?
• Your new product or collection needs publishers to generate buzz and increase visibility in the market.
• Trending products like seasonal or holiday-related items let affiliates tap into current demands and draw customer attention.

If you own a fashion brand, take inspiration from Boohoo.

When autumn and winter arrived, Boho took the two seasons as an opportunity to introduce a new collection. They collaborated with several fashionistas and influencers to spread the word about it.

As a result, the brand drew the attention of thousands of fashion lovers, making purchases in a short time.

3. Do Market Research on Competitors’ Affiliate Programs

Nothing is better than conducting competitor analysis to see how other brands are running their affiliate or referral programs. Try to figure out:

• How much do they pay affiliates?
• Do their selected affiliates have any traits in common?
• What kind of methods do they use to attract and retain affiliates?

Based on your research, try to learn from their strengths, avoid their mistakes, and then differentiate your own affiliate marketing strategies.

You can visit your rivals’ websites to explore their affiliate program landing pages in detail (if they’re available). Or you can join affiliate networks, like ShareASale, Impact, or UpPromote’s Marketplace, to gather information about their affiliate campaigns.

4. Offer Competitive Commission Structures

After researching competitors’ affiliate campaigns, it’s time to set your program’s commissions.

At the end of the day, money talks. So, if you want high-quality affiliates to partner with you instead of other brands, offering attractive and competitive rates is key.

Review how much your rivals are willing to pay their publishers. Then, make sure that your commission rates are more appealing than theirs. And don’t forget to explore the average rates in your niche before finalizing your decision. For example:

To make your affiliate program stand out from competitors, consider implementing a tiered commission structure.

This strategy is similar to what Tréskin has done to maintain its edge among beauty & cosmetics brands in the US. Using UpPromote, Tréskin set up a 4-level commission structure like this:

Affiliates who generate more sales can earn higher commissions, ranging from 15% to 35%.

With such an attractive commission structure, Tréskin has drawn in many high-quality bloggers and influencers in the beauty niche to sign up for its affiliate campaign.

5. Choose the Right Affiliate Marketing Software

Whether you run an affiliate program for a small business or a large company, affiliate marketing software is very useful for giving you full control over its setup and management.

To select the right solution for your brand, some key points to take into account include:

• Ease of use and user-friendly interface
• Automated tracking and commission calculation
• Pricing and scalability
• Customer support and training
• Language and currency options

Want to look for a powerful software that combines all these criteria? It is worth giving UpPromote a try.

The app is designed to support businesses of all sizes in developing with affiliate marketing, trusted by experts and over 115,000 users worldwide.

What UpPromote brings to the table includes:

• Affordable and flexible pricing options, starting with a free plan, so you don’t need to worry about upfront costs.
• A simple interface with built-in tooltips for easy and straightforward navigation.
• Quick and easy setup to get your affiliate program running in no time.
• Dedicated customer support is available 24/7 to ensure smooth setup and hassle-free management.

6. Diversify Your Affiliate Partners

Don’t think all affiliates are the same.

The thing is, there are different kinds of affiliate partners you can collaborate with. They could be bloggers, social media influencers, review sites, coupon & deal sites, podcasters, and so on.

Instead of relying on a single affiliate type, working with multiple ones can help you better scale your brand’s reach and access new potential customers.

But bear in mind that each niche has different audiences, products, and sales cycles. Therefore, research carefully to get an idea about the main traits of each affiliate type and how they promote products on behalf of brands.

Then, refine your tactics to find the best-fit affiliate marketers for your campaign.

If you operate a travel company, for instance, it will be a great idea to recruit travel bloggers, lifestyle influencers, and comparison and booking websites. These affiliates can easily connect with travel bugs.

7. Create Separate Affiliate Programs for Different Affiliate Types

If you work with several types of affiliates, a good suggestion is to organize them into different programs.

Each type promotes your products in its own way, using different channels and tactics. Segmenting your affiliates into separate programs enables you to track and analyze the performance of each group more easily and precisely. From this, you will be able to find out which type of affiliate brings in the best results for your business and which types might need additional help to improve.

This is exactly what Soundbrenner has done.

Through UpPromote, Soundbrenner has divided its affiliates into three campaigns: artists, music teachers, and content creators. That helps the brand keep tabs on how well each group drives sales, easily identify which one generates the most revenue, and actively provide targeted support to other groups to boost their outcomes.

With UpPromote, you don’t need to worry about handling multiple affiliate campaigns. Our app will simplify this task for you.

Link your Shopify store with UpPromote and then set up a unique campaign for each type of publisher.

8. Make The Signup Process Easy

How easy and engaging the signup process is can greatly impact whether affiliates decide to join.

And you know what? Creating a dedicated affiliate signup page can help you achieve just that. Such a page makes it easier to share your program on website, social media, advertise it, and optimize it for search engines, ensuring it reaches more potential affiliates.

You can use the page to highlight the key benefits of your affiliate program to attract new publishers and include a simple registration form that is as easy as 1-2-3 for them to complete

For inspiration, you can look at how Pure Dixie, a brand offering handcrafted Western leather bags & accessories, used UpPromote to design its affiliate landing page. The page showcases program perks and features a ready-to-fill, straightforward signup form, making it easy for affiliates to complete their applications.

Want to craft a beautiful yet functional registration page like Pure Dixie? Discover and utilize affiliate signup form templates on UpPromote, to customize your own.

Our system provides you with 3 flexible templates:

1. The Basic Template

2. The Comfort Template

3. The Trendy Template

9. Use Multiple Channels to Promote Your Program

Go beyond a single channel to boost the visibility of your affiliate program.

Promoting your campaign through multiple platforms boosts the chances of attracting potential publishers.

Include your affiliate program page in the website’s footer/header

Utilizing your own website to display your affiliate program is a great idea. Put the link right on the footer or header section, as these places are perfect for potential affiliates to find and join quickly.

Share your affiliate program on social media

Leveraging your Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or X accounts to introduce your affiliate campaign is also a smart option. This tactic enhances the chances that potential partners will come across it.

Run ads to promote your affiliate program

You can use paid ads to reach individuals interested in affiliate programs within your industry. Google ads or social media ads are perfectly fine. Choose a suitable option depending on your marketing budget.

List your offer on an affiliate networks

A popular affiliate marketing network like ShareASale, Impact, Rakuten, or UpPromote’s Marketplace usually has a large number of affiliates available. So, sharing your affiliate program openly on such platforms can help it gain exposure to a wide pool of potential partners.

10. Write Clear Affiliate Terms and Conditions

Don’t neglect that, as an affiliate manager, you must handle affiliate terms and conditions.

Make them clear and detailed to protect your brand and minimize misunderstandings or disputes with affiliate marketers.

As crafting an affiliate agreement, be sure to cover those things:

• Program rules: Who can join, how to enroll, and their responsibilities.
• Marketing guidelines: How to represent your brand, provided materials, and banned activities like spamming or false ads.
• Commission structure: How commissions are calculated and paid.
• Referral tracking: How referrals are tracked, including your cookie policy.
• Legal components: Confidentiality, ownership rights, and termination rules.

Look at Tréskin, a popular organic brand in the U.S. They wrote clear and simple terms to lay the groundwork for their affiliate program and make everything easier to understand from the start.

💡 Bonus tips: Consult a lawyer to review your affiliate agreements and make sure they comply with all relevant legal requirements for your business.

11. Carefully Screen Affiliate Marketers

To find the right partners to represent your brand, don’t skip the vetting process.

Whether you invite affiliates to apply or they reach out to you, it’s important to review applications and do background checks to make sure only the best are added to your program.

Think about what you want in an affiliate—their audience, reach, and promotional methods—so you can ask the right application questions and tailor your screening process to find the perfect match.

Here’s what you should keep in mind:

• Niche relevance: Seasoned affiliates in your industry can create better ads. Their promotional campaigns can easily resonate with your product types.
• Target audience match: Define your ideal customer—their age, location, and interests. Then, choose influencers, content creators, or bloggers whose audience matches with yours.
• Previous affiliate promotions: If possible, check which brands these potential affiliates have worked with before. This can give you insight into how they’ve promoted other companies.
• Content quality: Review their posts, images, and videos to see if they produce high-quality content.
• Engagement rates: Don’t just look at follower counts. Prioritize affiliates with high engagement metrics (likes, comments, shares, etc.).

💡 Bonus tips: You can ask affiliates to share their website, social media accounts, and past marketing experience before submitting their application to become an affiliate, as Pure Dixie does.

12. Set Favorable Payment Methods And Schedule

Send commissions to your partners accurately and on time is a must if you want to build trust and strengthen the relationship with them.

To achieve this, here’s what to think about:

• Choose payout methods that suit both your preferences and those of your affiliate marketers. Consider one of the popular solutions, such as PayPal, bank transfer, check, store credit, or gift cards. Think about important factors like transaction fees, speed, security, and convenience to find the best option for your affiliate program.
• Schedule a regular timeline for paying your affiliates: weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or whatever flow works for your business and for them.
• Set payment thresholds so commissions are processed only when partners reach a specified amount. This approach reduces small transactions and motivates partners to drive more sales to meet the minimum payout.

💡 Bonus tips:

Using automated payments is a great idea to make the payment process easy for both you and your affiliates. It’ll save you time and resources by reducing manual tasks and minimizing transaction errors.

If you use UpPromote, you can easily schedule automatic payouts via PayPal. Then, your affiliate partners can receive their commissions in a timely and accurate manner.

13. Convert Your Existing Customers into Affiliates

Did you know that 92% of people trust recommendations from friends and family far more than traditional ads?

Now, imagine if a happy customer referred a few friends to your brand and replicated that success at scale. It will make a boost for your customer acquisition rate.

But how can you achieve just that? The answer lies in a refer-a-friend program.

It’s easy to see that many brands are using this strategy. Even a big name like Obagi recognizes its potential.

Obagi has encouraged its customers to share their love for its products with others to receive an exclusive discount on their next purchase.

With UpPromote, the robust referral software on Shopify, you have 2 options to present your offer to customers: a landing page or a widget.

• Landing page: Easily embed a signup form on any page of your store so that your customers can register quickly and get referral links to promote your products immediately.

• Widget: A floating button is displayed on your website. Clicking it will open a popup. From there, customers can join your referral program and instantly receive their unique referral link.

14. Invest Time in Onboarding and Training Affiliates

To create a great onboarding experience, start by giving your affiliates a comprehensive kit that includes key product details, branding guidelines, and commission structures.

Next, offer step-by-step guides to help them get started quickly. Show them how to use the affiliate dashboard, track their earnings, and access promotional tools.

For training, you can choose a suitable format, such as sending emails, using an online learning portal, hosting live webinars, or sharing video tutorials.

If you’re an UpPromote user, you can easily provide affiliates with a detailed guide right from day one.

Our app lets you upload walkthrough videos, notes, or important announcements for your partners in just a few minutes via the Guide page section. Once approved to join your program, affiliates can easily access all this information through the Guide tab in their dashboard.

15. Share Creative Assets with Your Partners

Providing affiliates with pre-made marketing materials is a great way to support their work. These affiliate assets include banners, product images, social media post content, email templates, and more.

Your partners can use these resources as a foundation, adding their unique promotional techniques to engage their audience. In the meantime, you can keep control of your brand message, no matter which channels your affiliates use.

With UpPromote, you can easily upload any documents and various media types (images, videos, files, links) for your partners to start using right away.

16. Maintain Open Communication with Affiliates

Good communication builds great partnerships, and that also goes for your affiliate marketers.

Begin with clearly communicating your campaign goals and expectations from the outset. Make sure your affiliates understand your program’s rules, products, and brand values. From there, they will know what to do next and plan a clear path to reaching their targets.

But it doesn’t stop there.

For better coordination, here are a few more things you can do:

• Make yourself available to answer any questions and provide dedicated support whenever your partners need it.
• Regularly share updates on your affiliate program, new collections, marketing tools, or promotions with affiliates.
• Ask for suggestions or brainstorm ideas with affiliates to promote your products better.
• Offer feedback tailored to each affiliate’s performance, pinpointing their strengths and areas for improvement.
• Frequently reach out to your affiliates via email, message, or call to offer timely assistance and check for any issues, especially if they seem less active.
• Send a thank you message to affiliates who achieve outstanding sales results.

With UpPromote, you can easily connect and communicate with your publishers. Choosing between our 2 options to get in touch with them:

• In-app chat: Discuss with your affiliates and send direct messages without leaving the app.

• Email: Adjust our templates to reach far more affiliates much faster. Send bulk emails updating all affiliates about any changes in your program.

17. Reward Top Affiliates with Extra Bonuses

Offering bonuses for hitting excellent sales targets, along with a good commission rate, can make your affiliate program more attractive. Such rewards give your affiliates a sense of recognition and keep them motivated to perform even better.

While gift cards, free products, and exclusive discounts are great incentives, cash bonuses tend to be the top choice for affiliates.

If you use UpPromote, our affiliate software will enable you to reward your top partners with the Bonus feature easily. With just a few clicks, you can quickly create your preferred affiliate bonus with clear rules and conditions.

18. Provide Special Deals with Affiliate Partners

Customers love discounts. According to a Mediakix report in 2023, discounts influence 83% of shoppers’ buying decisions, while 97% of US consumers never shop without looking for deals.

So, combining your affiliate program with special deals is a smart strategy.

Offer your partners exclusive discount codes—these can give them a boost to share your products better and drive more sales, especially during peak shopping seasons like Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday.

PrettyLittleThing, a UK-based favorite fashion brand, shows how well this works.

Along with affiliate links, PrettyLittleThing also provides each partner with a unique discount code so their followers can enjoy the hot deals on the PrettyLittleThing website. As a result, sales grow, and the bond between the brand and its affiliates becomes even stronger.

With UpPromote, you can easily create a discount code and assign it to a specific affiliate. Choose the affiliate you want to give the new coupon to. Then, simply set up the details, such as the coupon name, discount type, value, and usage limits.

But there’s more.

Our system enables you to use the Auto-generate coupon function to make things quicker and easier. You can even turn on Tracking by coupon to track referrals using coupons instead of affiliate links.

19. Track and Optimize Affiliate Performance with Data

Just launching an affiliate program and having affiliates get on board is not enough. To make your campaign grow and really give your sales a boost, you need to monitor affiliate performance data closely and continuously improve it.

By tracking key metrics, you can identify trends and understand what’s working and what isn’t. Then, you can use this information to adjust your campaign and allocate your resources better.

For getting real-time insights, an affiliate tracking app with robust tracking methods and detailed reports on affiliate performance will work wonders. That’s where UpPromote comes in.

Take Holbrook Pickleball as an example. When running affiliate programs through UpPromote, they always focus on tracking their partners’ sales and exploring affiliate reports and analytics.

With real-time data, Holbrook knows exactly when to reward affiliates, keeping them energized and excited to promote. The outcome? An impressive 86% increase in affiliate revenue in one year.

UpPromote makes it easy to view key metrics such as the number of affiliates, orders, sales, clicks, and commissions displayed in graphs. You can quickly identify top affiliates and products, and download reports in formats like Excel, CSV, PDF, and more.

20. Focus on Preventing Fraudulent Activities

As an affiliate manager, here’s something important to know: Affiliate fraud costs businesses billions of dollars every year. In 2022, CHEQ, a top cybersecurity company, reported that ad fraud made up 17% of all affiliate traffic and caused $3.4 billion in losses.

To manage your affiliate program effectively, it’s crucial to spot scams and take steps to prevent them.

Fraudulent activities in affiliate marketing can take many forms, such as click fraud, purchase fraud, affiliate hijacking, cookie stuffing, and so on.

To protect your affiliate program from scams, you should keep in mind that:

• Clearly outline program rules, prohibited practices (e.g., misleading ads, spam), and consequences for violations. Include cookie expiration policies to deter fraud.
• Monitor each affiliate’s data carefully. Watch for unusual spikes and cross-check data to spot suspicious activity.
• Utilize fraud detection tools that can flag issues like cookie stuffing or invalid clicks.
• If you find fraud, you can penalize it to avoid further damage, such as withholding commissions, imposing fines, or removing the affiliate from your program. Consider seeking legal advice to take the right action.

With UpPromote, our app will help you control and secure your affiliate program against scams with a built-in fraud detection feature.

Here’s what UpPromote can do for you:

• Detect and prevent fraud signups/ referrals from suspicious IP addresses
• Block certain affiliates from joining your program
• Refuse referrals from suspected IP addresses
• Hide your affiliate registration form from search engines
• Allow affiliates from specific countries/regions to register for your program

21. Ensure Legal and Regulatory Compliance

Staying compliant in affiliate marketing is key. It helps you avoid legal trouble, prevents disputes with affiliates, and builds trust with your partners.

Here are important points to remember:

• Comply with privacy and advertising laws like GDPR in the EU, CCPA in California, and FTC guidelines in the U.S. to ensure transparency and avoid penalties.
• Draft clear terms and conditions covering sign-up, affiliate duties, promotion rules, commissions, payments, confidentiality, ownership rights, and termination.
• Clarify tax responsibilities and ensure affiliates provide necessary forms, such as W-9s in the U.S. or equivalents in the EU.

💡Bonus tips: 

• Seek advice from a legal expert. They’ll help make sure your affiliate program and agreements follow the rules and keep you out of trouble.
• Think about using an accounting or affiliate management tool for taxes and invoices. It’ll save you time and take the stress out of managing paperwork.

With UpPromote, managing taxes and invoices is easier than ever.

You can decide who will handle the taxes—either you or your affiliates—depending on your needs. Simply enter the tax rates based on local regulations, and the system will take care of the calculations for payouts, so you don’t have to do it manually

To make invoicing simple, you can turn on the Export Invoice feature. Whether you need the default format or the EU-specific format, UpPromote has you covered. Both you and your affiliates can quickly download invoices for paid referrals.

Each invoice includes all the key details you need: Invoice ID, Payment method, Payment info, Payment amount, Affiliate name, and Referral details.

Wrapping Up

The world of affiliate marketing is full of challenges. However, once you’ve mastered these affiliate marketing best practices, you’ll conquer every stage of the journey.

Revise each tactic to see how you can leverage it. Ensure that the applications align with your campaign’s goals and value.

Remember, success doesn’t happen overnight but requires long-term practice and improvements. Update these affiliate marketing strategies whenever your objectives or customer behavior change.

Now, it’s time to take action and shine!