Affiliate onboarding: getting new partners to their first sale

Say you approved twenty partners last month. How many have sent a click? How many have made a sale? If you are not sure, that is the first thing this article fixes.

It is easy to put all the effort into recruiting. But a partner who is approved and never shares their link costs you the time it took to recruit them and earns you nothing, and nothing in a sales report will show you they exist. The gap between approval and a first sale is where a program can lose people quietly.

This is a plan for that gap: how to measure it, the four places partners stall, what to send in the first 30 days, and how to tell when a partner with no sales is actually a problem. The email templates are at the end. It expands step 10 of how to start an affiliate program.

Measure the gap first

Three numbers tell you how big the gap is. Work them out for partners grouped by the month they were approved (a cohort), not for the whole program:

• Clicked: the share of the cohort who sent at least one click within 30 days of approval.
• Sold: the share who made at least one sale within 60 days.
• Time to first click and first sale: the median number of days from approval to the first click, and from the first click to the first sale.

Cohorts matter because a program-wide figure mixes the partner approved yesterday with the one approved a year ago, and the newest partners drag it down before they have had a chance. Medians matter because one partner who took 200 days to make a first sale will pull an average far away from what is typical.

An invented example, to show the shape:

Reading it: April's partners started faster than March's. If you rewrote the welcome email in April, that is a sign the new one works. The share who go on to sell has not moved, so the next problem is between the click and the sale, not before the click.

You will not know what a good number is for your program until you have a few cohorts to compare. Published "average activation rates" mostly come from vendors and rarely say how they were measured, so compare yourself with your own last cohort, not with someone else's average. Affiliate program metrics covers the rest of the monthly review.

The four places partners stall

1. Waiting for approval

The first stall is yours. A partner who applies on Monday and hears nothing until the following week has had a week to forget why they applied. Answer applications within two working days, and if you need more information, ask for it in the same message.

2. Approved, but no click

The likely reasons are unglamorous:

• They never found their link. It was in an email they skimmed, or behind a sign-in they never completed.
• They did not know what to post. "Promote us" is not a task. "Here is a three-sentence post and an image" is.
• They signed up on impulse and the moment has passed.
• They are the wrong fit, and both of you are better off knowing.

The fix for the first two is a better welcome email (template 1 below) and one specific nudge (template 2). The fix for the third is a personal note (template 3). The fourth you find out by asking.

3. Clicks, but no sale

Traffic is arriving and nobody is buying. Offering help costs nothing, so do it early. Drawing a conclusion about the partner's audience needs more clicks than you might expect (the next section shows how many). Either way, look at:

• Where the link lands. A partner who writes about one product and links to your home page makes their reader search. Give them a deep link to the product they are writing about.
• The offer. A partner's audience may need a reason to buy now: a code, a trial, a bundle.
• The audience. Some audiences click and do not buy, however good the page is. That is useful to know, not a failure.
• The tracking. Click their link yourself and buy something cheap, or in test mode. A broken link is the one cause that makes everything else on this list pointless, so rule it out first.

4. One sale, then quiet

A partner who made a sale and then stopped is not a lost cause. They have proven the audience buys. What they may lack is a new reason to post: a launch, a seasonal angle, a new product that suits their audience, or a better rate once they cross a threshold. A short personal note with one of those is more likely to land than another general newsletter.

Help early, judge late

A partner with 30 clicks and no sales looks like a problem. Often it is not one yet.

Suppose 2% of the visitors your site gets from partners buy something. If a partner's visitors buy at that same rate, the chance of seeing no sale at all is:

At 30 clicks, no sales is more likely than not, even if the partner's traffic is exactly as good as everyone else's. At 150, it happens by chance only about one time in twenty, and it is worth a proper look.

(The arithmetic: the chance that one visitor does not buy is 0.98, so the chance that none of 30 visitors buys is 0.98 multiplied by itself 30 times. Swap in your own conversion rate.)

So split the response in two. Help early: a better link, a code, a note asking what their audience responds to. That is worth sending after a handful of clicks, because it costs nothing if the partner was about to sell anyway. Judge late: deciding that a partner's audience does not buy, cutting their rate or dropping them waits until the clicks are enough to tell chance from a pattern.

The same reasoning works in reverse. A partner whose first three clicks produced two sales is not a star yet either. Wait for enough clicks before deciding either way.

The 30-day plan

Each step below happens only if the partner has not already moved past it. A partner who shares their link on day one skips the nudges and goes straight to the first-sale step when it comes.

Two rules keep this from becoming noise:

• No more than two automated emails a week to any one partner, and never the same nudge twice within two weeks.
• Send in the partner's working hours, in their time zone. A note that arrives at 3 a.m. is read with the rest of the overnight email, which is to say quickly.

What to automate and what to write yourself

Automate the messages that are the same for everyone: the welcome, the first-share nudge, the first-sale thank-you, and payout notices. Write the day-10 note and the clicks-without-sales note yourself, or at least edit each one before it goes. A partner can tell a template from a person, and these two messages work because they come from a person.

For the partners who matter most (the ones already selling, or with an audience that clearly fits), skip the automation entirely and talk to them.

Should you pay a first-sale bonus?

A first-sale bonus is a fixed amount paid on a partner's first sale, on top of their commission. It is worth considering when two things are true:

• The first commission is too small to feel like progress. Three dollars on a $30 order does not tell a new partner this is worth their time. A $25 bonus on top does.
• Your partners stall after the click, not before it. Check your cohort numbers first. If most new partners never send a click, a bonus is a weak lever: a partner who has not read your welcome email has not read about the bonus either. Fix the welcome email first.

If you pay one:

• Make it the same for everyone, and put it in the terms and the welcome email.
• Give it a deadline, such as a first sale within 60 days of approval, so it rewards starting rather than eventually selling once.
• Hold it like a commission. It is approved after the same holding period (see affiliate commission structures), so a first sale that is refunded pays no bonus.
• Cost it before you offer it. Multiply the bonus by the number of partners you expect to reach a first sale. With 24 partners approved a month and a quarter of them selling within 60 days, a $25 bonus costs about $150 a month.

When to stop chasing

After 30 days with no click and no reply to a personal note, stop the nudges. Do not remove the partner: their link keeps working, and a partner who reappears in November with a gift guide is worth more than the line they take up in your list. Move them to a quiet group that gets your newsletter and launch news, and nothing else.

Revisit the quiet group once a quarter. If someone from it starts sending clicks, they go back to the start of the plan.

Five email templates

Words in braces are filled in for each partner. Keep each email short enough to read on a phone without scrolling much.

1. Welcome (day 0)

Subject: You're in: your {brand} link and code

Hi {first_name},

You're approved for the {brand} partner program. Everything you need is below.

Your link: {link}

Your code: {code} (gives your audience {discount})

You earn {rate} on every sale from your link or code, approved {holding_days} days after the order and paid on {payout_day} once you're over {minimum}.

The easiest first step: share this post, or rewrite it in your own words.

{ready_post}

Your clicks, sales and earnings are here: {portal_link}. Reply to this email with any question. It comes to me.

{sender_name}

2. First share (day 3, no click yet)

Subject: One post, five minutes

Hi {first_name},

If you haven't had a chance to share {brand} yet, here's the quickest way:

{ready_post}

It already includes your link. If your audience is more interested in {product}, this link goes straight to it: {deep_link}

{sender_name}

3. Personal check-in (day 10, still no click)

Subject: Quick question

Hi {first_name},

I noticed you haven't shared {brand} yet, and wanted to ask: is there anything that would make it easier? A different product to feature, an image in another size, a code for your audience?

And if the timing isn't right, that's fine too. Just let me know and I'll stop nudging.

{sender_name}

4. Clicks, no sale yet (day 14 or later)

Subject: Your {brand} link is getting clicks

Hi {first_name},

Your link has sent {clicks} people our way, thank you. Nobody has bought yet, and I think we can help that along.

Most of your readers land on our home page. If you're writing about {product}, this link takes them straight to it: {deep_link}. And if your audience would respond to an offer, I can set up {offer} on your code.

{sender_name}

5. First sale

Subject: Your first {brand} sale

Hi {first_name},

Someone bought through your link today, and you've earned {commission}.

What happens next: the commission is approved on {approval_date}, once the refund window has passed, and paid on {payout_day} once you're over {minimum}. You can see it in your dashboard now: {portal_link}.

Whatever you posted worked. If you'd like more of it (a different product, a new image, a code with a better offer), just ask.

{sender_name}

Onboarding checklist

• Applications answered within two working days
• Welcome email has the link, the code, the rate, the payout timing, one ready-to-use post and where to see stats
• Deep links ready for your three most-promoted products
• Nudge on day 3 and a personal note on day 10, only if no click
• Help offered early to partners with clicks and no sales; judgment saved for when the clicks are enough, worked out from your own conversion rate
• First-sale email says when the commission is approved and paid
• First-sale bonus decided: amount, deadline and holding period, or none
• No more than two automated emails a week per partner, in their hours
• A quiet group after 30 days, revisited each quarter
• Cohort numbers (clicked, sold, median days) reviewed monthly

How Refficks helps with activation

Refficks is a new partner program platform, built on the idea that a program loses most of its money before the first sale, not after it. The plan above works in any tool. These are the parts Refficks does for you:

• The activation funnel shows how many partners signed up, sent a click, made a sale and earned commission. It names the partners stuck at the two stalls ("Never sent a click" and "Clicks, but no sales") and the median days from approval to first click and from first click to first sale: "The middle partner, not the average one."
• Lifecycle stages are earned from behavior. A first click moves a partner to onboarded, a sale makes them active, and a long silence makes them dormant, without anybody updating a spreadsheet.
• The Needs you list on the Intelligence screen ranks the partners worth your attention, with the evidence beside each one: "Approved 29 days ago and has not sent a single click." Pressing "Not now" holds a recommendation for 30 days.
• Automations fire on events such as a partner being approved, a first click, a first sale or a partner going dormant, and can send an email, add a tag or raise it for a person to decide. They can never touch money.
• Autopilot is "Prepare, and ask me" by default. Set to run on its own, it may carry out only the low-risk activation nudge, within limits you can see and change (by default 25 actions a day, two emails per partner a week, a 14-day cooldown and quiet hours in the partner's own time), and it has a pause switch.

Partners get their own portal, built for phones, with their links (including deep links and QR codes), codes, assets, clicks, sales and earnings in one place.

Start free. No card needed.