Summary
CHALLENGE
- Affiliate onboarding required collecting addresses and preferences individually.
- Paid partner invoices arrived via separate emails with no central record.
- No consolidated view of affiliate performance alongside other sales data.
SOLUTION
- Single registration form link replaced manual info collection for all affiliates.
- Different programs separated standard affiliates from flat-fee paid partnerships.
- Centralized sales tracking and invoice verification in one system.
RESULTS
- 6,500 total affiliate-driven sales from ~100 affiliates in eight months.
- 4 paid partners alone generated ~3,000 of those sales.
LESSONS
- Skip pay-for-performance targets – let affiliates promote authentically.
- Keep promotion low-effort so it fits naturally into creators’ existing content.
- Use free products to motivate affiliates where commission alone falls short.
Gamers Only sells energy drink powder in both caffeinated and caffeine-free versions. Every product is zero sugar, zero calories, and vegan — formulated with vitamin structures and focus ingredients like L-Tyrosine and guarana for sustained energy without a sugar crash.
The brand differentiates on format and value. One box of powder contains roughly 40 servings, compared to a single serving per can from traditional energy drinks. Gamers Only also holds licensed IP collaborations with Naruto, Hatsune Miku, and Ninja Turtles.
Bennet Köhl, Social Media Manager, is now in charge of running their affiliate program. However, he faces a fundamental problem: managing affiliate partnerships without drowning in manual work.
What challenges did Gamers Only face in managing affiliate partnerships manually?
When Bennet joined Gamers Only, the affiliate program relied on direct, one-by-one communication. Every new affiliate meant asking for their shipping address, product preferences, and other details individually.
The brand had run a smaller affiliate setup before, but Bennet rebuilt it from scratch with a new plan. As the roster grew toward 100 affiliates, the manual overhead grew with it.
That overhead extended to paid partnerships too. High-impact partners like the Radio Nukular podcast sent invoices via separate emails, adding yet another step to reconcile costs with actual performance data.
Without a centralized system, affiliate data lived in scattered spreadsheets and email threads, making it difficult to evaluate program-wide performance at a glance.
UpPromote brought that workflow into one place. A registration form replaced the manual back-and-forth. Affiliates now enter their own details through one link. Sales tracking and invoice verification sit in the same system.
“UpPromote really helps me by having every information in one place and having it listed without needing to create my own stats and tables.”
Bennet Köhl, Social Media Manager at Gamers Only
With the operational foundation in place, Bennet could focus on what he cared about most: building an affiliate program rooted in genuine relationships rather than transactional pressure.
How does Gamers Only build an affiliate program around authenticity instead of sales pressure?
Gamers Only’s affiliate strategy rests on a single principle: affiliates should promote the product because they genuinely like it, not because they’re chasing a quota.
Bennet structures every part of the program,selection, content expectations, and motivation, around that idea. The result is a system designed for authenticity at each stage.
Selecting only affiliates who genuinely like the product
That authenticity starts at the door. Gamers Only won’t onboard affiliates who don’t enjoy the drinks. Bennet treats product affinity as a hard filter, not a preference.
“If they say, we don’t like your drinks, we don’t work with them because we want them to be authentic and real about it.”.
Bennet Köhl, Social Media Manager at Gamers Only
The logic extends to compensation too. Gamers Only avoids tying payment to specific sales targets.
“When we say we give you 5,000 euros and we want to see X sales, it creates this relationship where they have to reach that stat and it makes working not so genuine.”
Bennet Köhl, Social Media Manager at Gamers Only
By filtering for affinity upfront, the team avoids the pressure dynamics that make affiliate promotion feel forced.
Tailoring compensation across three program tiers
The brand manages three different programs, with each tailored to different groups of partners.
In the Influencer Program, each influencer earns a 10% commission on the full order and shares a 15% discount code with their community, which is simple enough to match the low-effort promotion style.
A smaller Standard Affiliate Commission program offers a higher 15% commission rate for a select group of affiliates.
The Paid Partnership program works differently. These four partners receive flat monthly fees rather than per-sale commission.
Partners like the Radio Nukular podcast invoice Gamers Only monthly, and the team verifies those amounts against actual referral data inside UpPromote.
Low-effort promotion that fits naturally into streams
Once affiliates are in the program, Gamers Only keeps the content expectations equally low-pressure.
Most affiliates are Twitch streamers, and the brand doesn’t ask them to produce dedicated content. No scripted posts, no required videos, no mandated story placements.
“They don’t have to make an extra post or story for it. They can just show it on stream quick & easy, here’s the shake and stuff like this.”
Bennet Köhl, Social Media Manager at Gamers Only
The standard program gives each affiliate a 15% discount code to share with their community, plus a 10% commission on the full order.
Free products as the primary motivator
Still, low-effort content alone doesn’t keep every affiliate engaged. For those with smaller audiences, commission alone isn’t a strong enough incentive either. Bennet addresses this gap by consistently sending free product.
The provision is just a side thing because we also make sure that they get product… They get their free drinks. They don’t have to put in much work
Bennet Köhl, Social Media Manager at Gamers Only
The approach keeps smaller affiliates engaged without introducing the sales targets Bennet explicitly avoids. Alongside free products, he maintains personal contact with affiliates to ensure they feel valued — a relationship-first investment that compounds as the program grows.
For merchants looking to streamline this process, UpPromote’s Gift feature lets you send free or discounted products directly to affiliates.
Affiliates can choose their preferred variants and enter their own shipping details when claiming. That helps remove the manual back-and-forth of collecting addresses and preferences individually.
What results has Gamers Only achieved with 100 affiliates in eight months?
That compounding effect is already showing up in the numbers. Since launching the current program in autumn of the previous year, Gamers Only has built a roster of roughly 100 affiliates who have collectively driven approximately 6,500 sales.
Within that total, 4 paid partners alone accounted for approximately 3,000 sales, demonstrating the outsized impact of the flat-fee partnership tier.
Bennet noted that as the affiliate count grows, sales grow with it, not just from direct purchases, but also from the brand touch points each affiliate creates with their followers.
