How NaughtyNuts Built a Market for Peanut Butter in a Jam-Loving Country

Naughty Nuts is a Germany-based startup making nut-based products, from nut butter and nut butter cups to spreads.

The brand was born from a gap in the market: peanut butter barely existed in Germany, even though it was a pantry staple in the US and New Zealand. Naughty Nuts set out to change that.

Introducing an unfamiliar product to a new market, though, was far from simple.

How did Naughty Nuts introduce peanut butter to a jam-loving market?

Entering the market wasn’t easy. German consumers weren’t familiar with peanut butter, leaning instead on traditional spreads like jam and honey. Several factors worked against the brand at once: an unfamiliar product, high production costs, and deeply traditional buying habits.

So Naughty Nuts didn’t try to win everyone at once. It focused on people who would already value the product: vegans, fitness enthusiasts, and clean-eating advocates who knew peanut butter’s high-protein benefits.

To reach those early adopters without overspending, the brand turned to affiliate marketing.

Why did Naughty Nuts run their program on UpPromote?

Paying influencers upfront for posts wasn’t viable for a startup on a limited budget, especially with the risk of few or no sales. Affiliate marketing flipped that: influencers earned commissions only when they drove actual sales.

From the start, Naughty Nuts chose UpPromote to run the program. The app’s automation and tracking let the small team scale without drowning in manual admin work.

From what I hear from other brands, they have to jump into Shopify once a month and do manual reporting when they don’t use a tool like this. UpPromote just makes everything so much smoother

Kristian Heichen, Head of Paid Marketing at Naughty Nuts

That automation freed the team to focus on the part that mattered most: finding the right partners.

How did Naughty Nuts choose their partners?

Naughty Nuts recruited micro-influencers through targeted Instagram ad campaigns aimed at German content creators with 3,000 to 30,000 followers.

But ads were only the first step. Each influencer had to clear a screening process: a primarily German audience and at least 5,000 organically grown followers, with no bots, fake, or purchased accounts.

The brand then reached out directly, usually on Instagram, after reviewing each creator’s content to confirm it fit their values and health-conscious audience. That careful filtering set the stage for authentic collaborations.

How does Naughty Nuts reward and support their influencers?

Naughty Nuts pairs steady commissions with perks that get partners genuinely using the product.

Fixed commissions and automatic discount codes

The brand uses UpPromote to set commissions at a fixed 10% on every sale. The software also auto-generates a personalized 10% discount code for each influencer the moment they join.

That automation removes manual code assignment, saving time while giving new partners a seamless start.

For example, lifestyle micro-influencer Andreea Man (@andreiutza2001, 12.5K followers) posted about craving a Naughty Nuts product and shared her exclusive code, NN-ANDREEA10, with her followers.

Product perks and selective macro-influencer deals

Naughty Nuts also gives each influencer a €50 gift card per month to buy products at better prices, so they can experience the range first-hand and create more authentic content. (UpPromote also lets merchants assemble gift packages from inventory and notify affiliates by email to claim them.)

While micro-influencers are the focus, Naughty Nuts occasionally works with macro-influencers reaching up to 500,000 followers. These deals are handled differently, often through story posts and formal contracts.

Beyond driving sales, those larger partners help elevate the brand’s image, making Naughty Nuts look more credible and professional to a wider audience.

How does Naughty Nuts keep only their best-performing partners?

Naughty Nuts manages their network with data. Using UpPromote’s real-time analytics, the brand reviews each influencer’s performance over the last 90 days to spot underperformers.

It filters by sales data, flagging influencers whose sales rank in the bottom 50 but aren’t zero. From there, the team reaches out by email, starting with a supportive note rather than an ultimatum.

We’ve noticed there haven’t been any sales yet. Do you need any help? Let us know if there’s anything we can assist you with. Otherwise, we might need to reevaluate our partnership in a couple of weeks

Kristian Heichen, Head of Paid Marketing at Naughty Nuts

If an influencer keeps redeeming voucher codes without posting any content, though, the brand sends a firmer note to end the partnership cleanly.

What results has Naughty Nuts achieved?

By pairing the right partners with automated management, Naughty Nuts turned a tough market into a working channel.

The program has tracked over 8,000 referrals through UpPromote while sharply cutting the time the team spends on manual work.

I actually recommend it all the time to others in our e-commerce community. We’ve been using it for about three years now on the 50-euro plan. It’s super affordable, and it saves us so much manual work

Kristian Heichen, Head of Paid Marketing at Naughty Nuts

For a startup introducing peanut butter to a jam-loving country, a lean, performance-based program proved to be the right way in.