Summary
CHALLENGE
- Managed a program of roughly 300 affiliates and influencers on Social Snowball.
- Wrote every affiliate invoice by hand, a heavy load across hundreds of partners.
- Had no bonus system to reward affiliates, only a flat commission.
- Couldn’t get PayPal payouts working in the EU, only in the US.
SOLUTION
- Evaluated UpPromote against each gap and moved to the Enterprise plan.
- Set up flexible one-time, monthly, and quarterly bonuses plus a sales-based tier structure.
- Turned on automatic EU-format invoicing built for German merchants.
- Enabled PayPal and Wise bank transfer as reliable EU payout methods.
RESULTS
- Removed hand-written invoicing with auto-generated, EU-compliant documents.
- Gained a bonus and auto-tier system to motivate all 300 partners.
- Secured working EU payouts after PayPal failed on the previous tool.
- Added agency support to pay a management company in a single request.
LESSONS
- A tool that works but creates constant manual work still carries a hidden cost at scale.
- Match a new platform to your specific gaps, not a generic feature list.
- For EU brands, confirm payout methods actually work in your region first.
Bems Home is a homeware brand based in Germany, known for its dinnerware sets and glassware. The company is run by a Turkish founding team working out of Germany.
Affiliate and influencer marketing was already central to how Bems Home sold. The brand had spent close to a year building a program of around 300 partners on another platform before the cracks started to show.
Two problems, in particular, pushed the team to look for something new.
Why did Bems Home outgrow its previous affiliate tool?
Bems Home had run its program on Social Snowball for about ten months to a year. The tool worked, but two gaps created steady manual work.
The first was invoicing. Payouts could run automatically, but the team had to write every affiliate invoice by hand, a heavy load for a program with hundreds of partners.
The payout we can do automatically, but the invoicing we have to write manually. That’s a lot of work.
Murat Soylu, Managing Director of Bems Home
The second gap was payments in the EU. The team had been told PayPal payouts would work, but in practice they couldn’t get it running for their European affiliates.
In Social Snowball they told us at first that it works. But after we checked, it was not working in Europe, just in the US market.
Murat Soylu, Managing Director of Bems Home
For a German brand paying German affiliates, a payout method that only worked in the US was a real constraint. Together, the manual invoicing and the EU payment gap were enough to send the team looking for an alternative.
What was Bems Home looking for in a new platform?
Before switching, the team was clear about what it needed. Its requirements tracked directly to the pains above.
The first was a bonus system to motivate affiliates. Bems Home wanted a way to reward affiliates for hitting monthly milestones, not just a flat commission. The idea was a recurring, level-based bonus that would push partners to sell more.
We want to do a level bonus monthly, so we can support the affiliates and push all of them… We just need the option first, so we can do it later.
Murat Soylu, Managing Director of Bems Home
The team hadn’t locked down the exact rules yet. What mattered first was having the option to build it.
The second was automatic, EU-compliant invoicing. Because the brand pays German affiliates, invoicing has to fit German practice. The team’s tax consultant advised issuing affiliates a credit note at zero tax, and the brand generates those documents from its side. Bems Home wanted that paperwork handled automatically rather than written by hand.
The third was payouts that actually work in the EU. After the PayPal issue on their previous tool, reliable European payout methods were non-negotiable.
Why did Bems Home choose UpPromote Enterprise?
The team evaluated UpPromote specifically against the gaps above, and the platform covered each one. Bems Home has since moved to UpPromote’s Enterprise plan.
On bonuses, UpPromote supports one-time, monthly, and quarterly bonus rules, along with a tiered structure that can move affiliates up based on their sales, the flexible, recurring reward the team had been missing.
On invoicing, UpPromote can generate EU-format invoices automatically once a payout is made, and affiliates can download their own, with tax settings built for German merchants. That removes the manual paperwork that had been eating the team’s time.
On payments, UpPromote offers both PayPal and Wise bank-transfer payouts, giving the brand EU-friendly options rather than a single method that failed in Europe.
UpPromote also supports the agency relationships Bems Home works with: an agency can sit above its influencers in a multi-level structure, see the combined performance of everyone it manages, and be paid in a single request, which fits how the brand settles with the management companies behind some of its influencers.
For a program already running at scale, the switch was less about new features for their own sake and more about closing specific, day-to-day gaps.
