Why ecommerce brands aren't building the anticipated traction with affiliate marketing in 2025...

❌ The 'typical' affiliate marketing lifecycle for a Shopify store.... ❌

1. Add cheap and cheerful affiliate app to store ❌
2. Set low commission rate around 5% to test the water ❌
3. Add 'affiliates' link to the footer of the navigation ❌
4. Send out a newsletter announcing a NEW AFFILIATE PROGRAMME!!! ❌
5. Believe they're now 'testing the water' with affiliate marketing ❌
6. Little to no response and quickly give up and move on to the next channel (usually ads) ❌

... and this is before you attract the crappy discount code farms that tar the affiliate industry and the opportunity it presents.

It's a real shame as, when launched and managed correctly, affiliate marketing can be a hugely profitable and consistent revenue stream in so many niches and categories.

I'm just glad you're here to figure out how to do affiliate marketing correctly. I hope I can be of help to you.

So, me and affiliate marketing go back to the last century.

Seriously. I was the first dedicated Affiliate Manager for a UK store way back in 1999. It was real pioneer territory managing the partner relationships we nurtured with the likes of BT, Royal Mail, Lastminute.com, FantasyFootball... the list expands to over 1,500 affiliate partners. We operated a store selling magazine subscriptions and pitched the idea of a 'done for you' magazine shop that affiliates could manage and earn commission on every sale. It was by far the biggest revenue earner for our business.

Fast forward 20+ years and the opportunities are still as big in today's marketplace working with social influencers, niche blogs and hobbyist sites all looking for new revenue streams. Take sustainability, health and fitness or pet owning influencers and bloggers as just a few examples... niches that are eager to build affiliate partnerships to drive up revenues alongside their ad earnings.

And the great thing for you? Your competitors are probably getting all this wrong.

My role is to help you select the right platform, flesh out your affiliate marketing strategy (commissions, tiers, target markets, managing, scaling etc) and then help build those initial affiliate partnerships that get you up and running. It's not rocket science, it's not going to take weeks or months to get you earning. It just takes a little planning, structure and great communications with your affiliates.

This is done-for-you affiliate marketing.

Integrated into your business. My job is to action your affiliate strategy so that you can confidently hire an in-house affiliate manager to take the reins.

Ready to launch and grow a highly successful (profit-laden) affiliate marketing programme for your Shopify store? Get in contact with me today using the form below.

Great question. It's a two-prong response.

• What does a great affiliate program look like for the affiliate?
• What does a great program look like for you, the store?

Firstly, consider just who you're looking to affiliate with and don't forget your customers. I've worked with smaller brands who've made huge impact on the audience reach and sales growth by incentivising their existing customers to share their brand with friends or, more importantly, through their own social spaces. So, ask yourself, how can we build an affiliate program that caters for micro-influencers, strategic partners and our best advocates?

Now you need to get the offering right. Affiliates know what's happening with CPAs in every industry. They KNOW their value to you. The bigger their audience, the greater the leverage they may hold when discussing commissions. Don't even consider launching with 5% or 10% commissions unless your average baskets are greater than £250. Even then, you can't hide from the difference between the commission you're offering and the typical CPA your business currently operates from. Be generous. This is a fixed CPA model based on either a flat fee or a percentage of sale. If your gross margins are sat at greater than 50% don't try to palm your affiliates off with a meagre commission in hope that they're do the selling for you.

This is about real partnership.

It's a two way thing. You're see some affiliates sprouting out of nowhere and bringing great business your way. Reach out to them. Acknowledge their work and deliver them a dedicated landing page that they can use to promote you. This is such a simple yet HUGELY effective way of nurturing real profitable long-term partnerships.

Your affiliate marketing strategy will nurture community around your brand. Word-of-mouth marketing will lead to better quality reviews, more UGC from brand advocates and create a moat around your business that competitors simply cannot cross. Your affiliate strategy becomes pivotal to your overall ecommerce growth strategy.

Partner communication is central to the success of your affiliate programme.

Make sure to choose an affiliate marketing platform that integrates with your email platform. The integration between Social Snowball x Klaviyo is a great example. You can push affiliate data into Klaviyo allowing you to segment by affiliate tier or volume of sale. Highlight the work of your best partners to motivate your affiliates to up their game. Why not run a monthly YouTube interview with your best affiliates? Share the inside track of just how much affiliates could be earning and inspire the next level of affiliates to invest their time in promoting your products.

I could go on... there are dozens of ways to succeed with affiliate marketing in ecommerce. It takes structure. It takes strategy. It takes work. It's immensely rewarding when you get it right.