RefficksBlog

How to recruit affiliates: finding your first twenty partners

By The Refficks team · · 11 min read

You have a program, a commission plan and a signup page, and no partners. The tempting move is volume: a list of five hundred bloggers and one email to all of them. But strangers have no reason to care yet, and the ones who answer need the most convincing.

There is a better place to start: the people who already recommend you. This guide covers who to ask first, where to find them, how to judge fit before you write, a first message that respects the reader, what the law says about emailing people who did not ask to hear from you, what goes on the signup page, and how many to approve before onboarding becomes the bottleneck. There are two emails, a tracking sheet and a checklist at the end.

It expands step 9 of how to start an affiliate program.

Start with the people who already recommend you

Work outwards in four circles, and finish each before starting the next:

  1. Customers who already send you customers. The ones who left a review, answered "a friend" to "how did you hear about us?", or are named in a new customer's first email.
  2. Your own audience. Newsletter readers who reply, members of your community, people who share your posts without being asked.
  3. Creators and writers who have mentioned you, or your category, without being paid to.
  4. Businesses whose customers overlap with yours: tools you integrate with, agencies and consultants who set your product up for clients, and products your customers buy alongside yours.

Only then strangers, and only after the first group has made sales.

The first circles are the better start for three reasons. They already have a reason to recommend you, so the invitation only has to make it official. They need less onboarding, because they know the product. And when they say no, they tell you why, which is the cheapest feedback on your offer you will get.

Where to find them

  • Your order history. Customers with repeat orders, a review, or a referral already credited to them by hand.
  • Your inbox and support history. People who wrote to say they told a friend, and the friends who mentioned them.
  • "How did you hear about us?" If your checkout or signup asks it, the answers name people. If it does not, add the question now.
  • A search for your own name. Your brand and product names on search engines, YouTube and the communities your customers use, with "review", "vs" and "alternative" after them.
  • Your integrations page and your customers' agencies. The businesses already set up to recommend tools like yours to their clients.

Write each name down with the reason they are on the list. "Wrote a review in March and sent us two customers" is a reason. "Big audience" is not.

Judge fit before you write

Open one or two recent things each person has published, and check four things:

  • Their audience is your customer. A large audience that does not buy what you sell is worth less than a small one that does.
  • They publish regularly. Someone who posted twice last year will not start because you asked.
  • They recommend things honestly. Look for disclosed recommendations and a voice their audience trusts. A page of nothing but affiliate links is a different kind of partner.
  • Nothing they do would be against your rules. Bidding on brand names, posting codes to deals sites, claims you would not make yourself. Affiliate fraud prevention explains why each matters.

The first message

A good invitation is short, written to one person, and easy to say no to:

  • Say how you found them, in one specific sentence. It is the line that shows this is not a mail merge.
  • Say what is in it for them in numbers: the rate, how long a sale counts after a click, and when you pay. "Generous commission" tells them nothing.
  • Make one ask, with a link to apply.
  • Make saying no easy. "If it's not a fit, no reply needed" takes pressure off both of you.
  • Send it from your own name and address, as a plain email, without attachments or tracking images.

Which of these two you may send, and to whom, depends on where the person is: read the rules in the next section before sending either.

Email 1: to a customer who already recommends you

Subject: You've been sending us customers

Hi {first_name},

{How you know: "Two of our customers this month said you told them about us."} Thank you.

We've just started a partner program, and you're one of the first people we're asking. You'd get your own link and code, and {rate} of every sale through them, for {window} after someone clicks. We pay {when}.

If you'd like to join, it takes two minutes: {signup_link}

If it's not for you, no reply needed. We're grateful either way.

{sender_name}

Email 2: to someone who has never heard from you

Subject: {Their topic} and {your brand}

Hi {first_name},

I read your {piece} on {topic}. {One sentence on why it fits: "Your readers ask about the exact problem we solve."}

I run {brand}: {one line on what it does, for whom}. We pay partners {rate} of every sale they send us, for {window} after a click, paid {when}.

Would you like to try it? You can apply here: {signup_link}. If it doesn't fit what you write about, no reply needed.

{sender_name}

{Your postal address}

{A one-line way to say "please don't email me again"}

One follow-up, then stop

If there is no answer after a week, send one short follow-up that adds something: a ready-made post, a code for their audience, an answer to a question they might have. Then stop. And stop the moment anyone answers, applies or asks you not to write again, whatever your sequence says next.

The rules on emailing people who did not ask

No regulator rules on partner-program invitations by name, but each defines marketing broadly, so treat an invitation as a marketing email. This is the short version for four places, from each regulator's own guidance. It is not legal advice.

United States (CAN-SPAM). The law makes no exception for business email, and it does not require consent before the first message. It does require an honest "From" line and subject line, a clear statement that the message is an advertisement, your valid postal address, and a working way to opt out, with opt-outs honored within 10 business days. Each email that breaks the rules can cost up to $53,088, the FTC's figure for 2025, unchanged for 2026.

United Kingdom (PECR and UK GDPR).

  • An email to a company's address needs no consent under PECR, but you must say who you are and give a valid address to opt out, and the ICO says you should honor an opt-out.
  • Sole traders and some partnerships count as individuals. You need their consent before a marketing email, and that includes a creator or freelancer working for themselves.
  • When the address names a person (jane.lopez@company), UK GDPR applies too. A legitimate interest can be your reason to write, the person has an absolute right to object, and if you found their details yourself you must give them your privacy information within a month.
  • Since February 5, 2026, the ICO can fine up to £17.5 million or 4% of global turnover for breaking PECR.

European Union (ePrivacy Directive and GDPR). A marketing email to a person needs their consent first. Rules for emails to businesses are left to each country, so they differ. Under the GDPR, direct marketing may be a legitimate interest, the person can object at any time, and you must tell them so at the latest in your first message.

Canada (CASL). You need consent, but it can be implied when someone has published their address without saying they do not want commercial messages, and your message is about their business or role. Every message must say who you are, how to reach you, and how to unsubscribe.

What that means for your first twenty:

  • Start with people who asked. A "become a partner" link on your site, a line in your newsletter, a reply to a post: someone who wrote to you about partnering has given you the clearest reason to write back.
  • Do not lean on the existing-customer exception. In the UK and EU it covers marketing your own similar products to customers. No regulator says whether an invitation to a partner program counts, so ask customers first, in a newsletter or after a purchase, rather than emailing them cold.
  • Write down why you may email each list, before you send anything.
  • Make every email easy to refuse: who you are, your address, and a link that stops all of it.
  • Your partners' emails can be yours too. The FTC says a seller who pays for referrals is likely to have CAN-SPAM obligations for the emails that bring them, and the ICO holds you responsible for marketing you encourage others to send.

What to put on the signup page

The people you invite will read the signup page before they apply. It should answer their questions before they ask:

  • Who it is for, in a sentence, so the wrong people do not apply.
  • What you pay: the rate, how long a sale counts after a click, the holding period, when you pay and the minimum. Affiliate commission structures covers each.
  • What they get: their link, a code for their audience, and anything you provide to post.
  • The rules: disclosure of the commercial relationship, and anything you do not allow, such as bidding on your brand name or posting codes to deals sites. How to start an affiliate program covers disclosure.
  • A few questions, no more than four or five: where they will promote you, a link to it, and roughly who their audience is. Each extra question is another reason to leave the form half-filled.
  • What happens next, and when: "We reply within two working days."

How many to approve at once

The bottleneck in a new program is not finding people. It is looking after them once they are in. Each new partner needs a welcome with their link, answers to their first questions, and a nudge if they go quiet: the plan in affiliate onboarding has five touches in the first 30 days, two of them written by hand.

So approve in groups you can look after. If the two personal emails and the questions take you half an hour per partner over their first month, twenty partners is ten hours in that month. Approve that many, onboard them, and start the next group the month after. Grouping by month also gives you cohorts to compare: affiliate program metrics shows how to read them.

Open the signup page to everyone once the first group has made sales and the questions they asked have answers on the page.

Recruiting tracking sheet

One row per person. The last three columns tell you which circle is worth more time:

Name Circle Why them Invited Follow-up Answer Applied First sale
Customer, audience, creator or business Date Date, or none Yes, no, none Date Date

Recruiting checklist

Before the first invitation

  • Signup page: who it is for, the rate, the window, payout, the rules
  • Four or five questions on the application, no more
  • A reply time you can keep, written on the page
  • The rules for the countries you are emailing checked

The list

  • Customers who already recommend you, first
  • Your audience, then creators who mentioned you, then overlapping businesses
  • Each name with a reason
  • Fit checked: audience, regular publishing, honest recommendations, no rule they would break

The outreach

  • One person per email, with how you found them
  • Numbers, not adjectives
  • One follow-up, then stop
  • Stopped the moment someone answers, applies or opts out
  • Approved in groups you can onboard in their first 30 days

How Refficks helps with recruiting

Refficks is a new partner program platform. These are the parts that help with the plan above.

  • Prospect lists that remember why you may write. Each list records one of three reasons: "They agreed to hear from you", "Legitimate interest, business addresses" (with a sentence saying why, kept in History), or "People you already know". A legitimate-interest list warns you when addresses on it are personal mailboxes.
  • Up to four emails, from your own address. Outreach goes only from a sending address you have verified on your own domain, never from Refficks's. You set the days between emails, and a daily limit across all your lists protects the address's reputation.
  • Stopped the moment somebody answers. In the product's words: "sent from your own address, stopped the moment somebody answers, applies or unsubscribes." An out-of-office reply does not stop it, and replies reach your own inbox as well.
  • One email for the UK and EU. "People in the UK and EU, and anybody whose country you have not given, get the first email only, unless they click something in it or reply."
  • Nobody emailed who should not be. People who are already partners, people who asked you to stop before, and addresses that do not accept mail are held back when they are added and checked again before every send. An unsubscribe link goes in every email that lacks one, and it applies to every list.
  • Customers who already refer. When a referrer has three referrals that counted, the Intelligence screen suggests inviting them to your affiliate program: "They are already doing an affiliate's job for a thank-you."
  • A signup page you control. Switch on applications from the web, review each applicant or approve them automatically, and add your own questions. The page can run on your own domain, with HTTPS issued automatically, and carry your logo, colors and words. Everybody who applies sees the same confirmation, so the page never reveals who is already a partner.
  • The partner directory. List a program there, and partners browsing Refficks can ask to join; their application is marked "Found you in the directory".
  • New applications in one email. A daily email, "What is waiting on you", counts new applications and how many are waiting in all.

Start free. No card needed.

Sources

All read on October 16, 2026.