Sam Brady

I'll reduce your affiliate revenue, and not care. Vanity metrics don't matter to me. If your program is built on: - Partners abusing PPC - Subnetworks masquerading as content platforms - Poor quality coupon sites Then I will happily remove them all. Revenue will drop. But you'll get a healthier program in return. Your choice.

Your affiliate P&L is lying to you. Revenue looks healthy. While margin quietly leaks. Here's what most brands miss: Affiliates get credit for orders that were already happening. - Voucher codes on existing customers. - Cashback on repeat buyers. - Retargeting pixels claiming last-click. In reality you're paying commission on sales you already owned. The fix isn't complicated: • Track new vs. returning • Map your customer journey • Audit partner behaviour monthly • Challenge “convenient” conversions • Set commission tiers that reflect true value Before you celebrate Question the true value to your business Real growth looks different to every brand Stop celebrating vanity metrics. Start measuring what actually moves margin.

Reasons to love the affiliate marketing industry #4 It is brutally honest. If partners stop promoting you, something is wrong. - No broken tags. - No raised CPCs. - No Google updates. - No algorithm changes. - No missing landing pages. - No need for a survey. Affiliates vote with their feet. If it isn't working, and a competitor is They'll switch. That's the beauty of it. You get real feedback without asking. Silence speaks louder. Declining clicks mean declining interest. Because affiliates aren't loyal to your brand. They're loyal to their audience. And if your offer doesn't serve that audience, they'll find one that does. It's uncomfortable. But it's clean. No vanity metrics to hide behind. No excuses about external factors. Just honest market feedback delivered through action. When your program thrives, you know it's working. When it doesn't, you know exactly where to look. Affiliate doesn't flatter you.

A client started to blow through their affiliate budget, here’s how we solved it. We stopped We reflected We studied the data No knee-jerk reactions When budgets spiral, brands panic. • They pause programs. • Cut rates across the board. • Pull paid placements overnight. This won’t fix things. It will just kill momentum. The real issue isn't spend - it's allocation. We dug into the numbers: - Did our cashback have to be as high? - Were our coupons working hard enough? - How were EPC’s across the program? - Was our publisher mix good enough? Turns out we didn’t need to slash everything We just needed some tweaks • Capped our cashback in line with competitors. • Reduced media spend with coupon partners. • Invested in upper funnel. • Removed some ill-fitting affiliates • Moved our base rate commission down for lower funnel Result? Budget stabilised. Revenue grew. Because the answer isn't always less spend. Sometimes it's smarter spend. What would happen if you audited where your affiliate budget actually goes?

Long payment times are strangling the affiliate industry. Publishers wait months to get paid. Meanwhile, they're covering • Ad spend • Tools • Staff and overheads. Cashflow dries up. Good partners walk away. And brands wonder why recruitment's hard. The reality Most brands already have the fix. Look at your • Data • Return Rates • Cancellation Rates • Failed Credit Applications You track and log it. So, use it Build those metrics into your approval costs. Factor in the real risk, not the imagined one. Then approve more orders, QUICKER.

Doing nothing in affiliate does not keep things stable. It just reallocates margin Leaving it alone usually means: - Partners optimise for interception They're not building demand. - Discounts creep wider and deeper What started at 10% is now 20%. - Approval logic lags behind reality Partners changed their tactics without your knowledge. - Budget paying for demand you already owned That sale was happening anyway. You just paid commission for it. Nothing breaks. Revenue still shows up. Which is why it goes unnoticed. Until someone asks why contribution is flat and costs are not. Affiliate programs do not collapse. They quietly become inefficient. That is worse. Because inefficiency compounds. Month after month, you're funding behaviour that erodes profit without adding value. The fix is not dramatic. • Review your partners regularly. • Question the conversions that look too easy. • Tighten your terms before they tighten your margins.

Things to love about the affiliate channel #3 Most channels work in isolation. • CSS expands reach. • Search brings traffic. • PR elevates credibility. • Influencers create buzz. • CRM nurtures customers. All brilliant on their own. But they rarely talk to each other. Affiliate sits differently. It complements every single one. Your CSS campaign costs are rising? • Support with CSS affiliates Your search strategy brings in traffic? • Affiliates can retarget and convert what you miss. Your PR lands a feature in a major publication? • Monetise it with affiliate links. Your influencer posts a review? • Track it through affiliates. Your CRM sends out newsletters? • Segment with CUG offers/codes. It's not competing. It's connecting. Affiliate doesn't replace your other channels. • It fills the gaps. • It amplifies them. • It turns awareness into action. Ecom departments treat channels like separate entities. Affiliate treats them like a team. That's why it works so well for online brands already investing in multiple channels. You're not starting from scratch. You're making what you've already built work harder.

Want more affiliate channel budget? Then you need to flip the language. The channel gets labelled "lower funnel." • Voucher sites. • Cashback. • Shady behaviour. So we argue about methodology. We justify partners by name. We defend tactics. But, save your breath Stop talking about who your affiliates are. Start talking about what they deliver. Because when we shift the conversation to results, everything changes: - Delivered a CAC 40% lower than paid social. - Channel customers showed 22% higher LTV. - Drove 2,400 new customers last quarter. - Grew Google Shopping visibility by 35%. - Reduced site abandonment by 12%. - Helped raise AOV by 18%. Outcomes is a language leadership understands. That's what earns budget and respect. The affiliate debate isn't won by defending partners. It's won by proving commercial impact. Results speak louder than your publisher list ever will.

Ecom teams that dedicate resource to affiliates will drive exponential growth One person managing five channels. That is the norm for most ecommerce teams, Everyone pretends they’re a “lean” team. And affiliates? Gets shoved between paid social and email. Urgency always wins: - Ad campaigns hitting budget caps. - E-mails need building. - Landing pages need rewriting. There is no time to optimise affiliates. Problem is… When you cannot dedicate time: - Relationships stay shallow. - Partners stay idle. - Growth stays flat Lower funnel becomes the norm Affiliates scale when you invest in: - Building relationships - Understanding motivations - Optimising partnerships The fix is not forcing one person to work harder. It’s giving the channel the proper focus. Affiliates reward attention, not heroic multitasking.

I recently audited a client's affiliate program and saved them thousands. Performance was ok. But, it was masking bigger problems. • Fractured management - no single owner • Publisher list bloated with low-quality partners • Auto-approvals letting bad actors through • No recruitment strategy whatsoever • Zero fraud monitoring in place The biggest result? Wasted budget. For smaller businesses, this could be a killer. We stripped it back: 1. Cleaned the publisher list ruthlessly 2. Defined clear roles across the team 3. Focused recruitment on quality partners 4. Built an incentivised commission structure 5. Started the process of updating tracking Within weeks, performance grew YoY. Costs dropped. Quality rose. Trust returned. The lesson? Fix the structure first, then scale what works. P.S. I’m launching some brand new affiliate courses for ecom brands. The first 10 to DM 'AFFILIATE', gets a free copy.

Things to love about the affiliate channel #2 You can't hide behind vanity metrics. Other channels let you get away with it. Spend £10k on ads. Generate £8k in revenue. Call it "brand building." The affiliate channel won't let you. Every sale is scrutinised. Every commission is calculated. It makes you sharper. You start asking the right questions. • Did this deliver ROI? • Did this drive incrementality? • Did we erode margin to gain the sale? • Can we afford this commission structure? Suddenly, you're thinking like a CFO. Not just a marketer. If your economics are weak, affiliate will expose it. If they're strong, affiliate will scale it. The channel demands discipline. And that's exactly why it works. Find a channel that makes you think commercially.

Most brands budget like the year is flat, and it's killing performance. Historically, budget is spread evenly across 12 months. It feels logical. It keeps things predictable. But the issue… Your sales aren't horizontal. Last year's data shows exactly when you peak. And when you don't. Yet you're still drip-feeding budget in quiet months. Waiting for November to save the year. Inspired by the 12-Week Year book; - Split your budget into four quarters. - Match each week to last year's sales flow. - Max out spend when demand is high. What this unlocks: - You stop saving budget for winter spikes. - You start thinking strategically per quarter. - You push for maximum revenue in each 12-week block. Brands that align spend with demand patterns see compounding gains early. Stop planning like every month is the same. Fund the weeks that actually convert. That's where real growth happens.

And it's costing us long-term growth. For years, we've been trained to squeeze. To claw back every penny we can in cancellations. To push affiliates until they're barely hanging on. We celebrate maximum ROAS. We pride ourselves on tight return windows. We treat every pound paid out like a loss. But here's what that approach actually does: It demotivates the partners driving our revenue. It forces them to prioritise other brands. It stops them investing in better content, better audiences, better results. The affiliates who get paid well? They scale. They build businesses. They stick around. And when they grow, we grow. The brands winning affiliate aren't the ones paying the least. They're the ones paying fairly - and consistently. Because motivated affiliates don't just send traffic. They become advocates. They reinvest. They stay loyal when competitors come knocking. We need to stop asking "how little can we pay?" And start asking "how much can we afford to pay - and still win?" Pay affiliates properly. Watch them build something that benefits you for years.

My client saw +88% revenue growth in 6 weeks. But that's not what matters. It wasn't about the growth percentage. 1. It's how they structured it. 2. It's where they focused budget. 3. It's what they stopped doing. Most affiliate managers spread budget evenly. And then wonder why ROI is flat. Or why certain partners drain resources. 𝗥𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿: Your affiliates aren't all equal to your brand. There's a HUGE difference between… Treating every partner the same and aligning them with your actual customer segments. Three audience segments. Three affiliate groups. I write "groups" as we try to batch them as best we can. In this framework, affiliate allocation includes: - 70% budget to core audience partners. - 20% to secondary segment affiliates. - 10% exploring new audiences/opportunities. This structure doesn't need complex tools: - Map your customer personas. - Match affiliates to each segment. - Weight budget accordingly. We changed one client to this new structure in preparation for Q4. Their growth was +88% YoY over the past 6 weeks. That's powerful. It's strategic affiliate management. So, yeah, most people would focus on the +88%. I'd rather equip you to build programs that... Get you a strategic advantage with limited budgets, demanding targets, and boards to report to. What would change if every affiliate aligned with your brand?

Things to love about the affiliate channel #1 You only pay for outcomes. • Not just clicks • Not just "brand lift" • Not just impressions. A mutually beneficial partnership. A sale happens → commission gets paid. No sale → nothing. • It's clean. • It's honest. • It's accountable. You're not gambling on potential. You're investing in proof. Every pound spent has a direct line to revenue. No fluff. No praying to algorithms. No feeding profits to big tech. In a world of tightening marketing budgets Affiliates is making more sense than ever Because you're not paying for promises. You're paying for performance. Find your "why" for every pound spent. Affiliate gives you that clarity.

Most ecom teams are looking at the affiliate channel wrong It gets siloed, and that hinders its growth. The big picture is being missed… Affiliates touch every channel you're already running. The opportunity: • Onsite conversion tools chatting to e-com teams. • CSS partners involved in PPC conversations. • Coupon strategy part of internal trading plans. • Content partners amplifying what your PR has started. • Retargeting affiliates mirroring your display playbook. Don't separate it. Integrate it. Bring affiliate managers into cross-functional planning. Align incentives across teams. Stop internal competition. Because affiliate isn't a channel. It's a collection of channels operating under one roof. Treat it that way, and enable it to thrive

How I reduce compliance issues in 1 hour every Monday Too many affiliate programs are being hit Day in, day out, I’m seeing • Brand bidding burning budget. • Poor approval processes damaging reputation. • Leaked codes eroding margin. Imagine, if you could reduce these problems Even remove them completely (we can dream!) Your program would have: • Less wasted spend. • Better partners. • Cleaner profit. Sounds good, right? Here’s my Monday solution for managing compliance effectively 1. Sweep “brand + coupon” SERPs manually. Often. 2. Track rogue PPC automatically, not by luck. 3. Lock down terms that actually protect you. 4. Approve paid search only when you’ve vetted it. 5. Set hard approval rules before partners join. This is boring work. It saves embarrassing amounts of money.

Reasons to love the affiliate marketing industry #5 Most channels peak, then fade. Affiliates build value over years, not campaigns. Here's why that matters: Strong partners learn your brand They understand tone, product fit, audience nuance. That knowledge compounds with every promotion. They test relentlessly Creative angles, messaging, landing pages, timing. What flops today might convert next quarter. Iteration drives long-term performance. Communication deepens results Regular check-ins surface insights you'd miss alone. Shared goals mean aligned strategy. Collaboration beats one-off transactions. Trust grows with consistency. Publishers who stay loyal become brand advocates. They promote harder when the relationship matters. Retention beats recruitment every time. Performance improves naturally. Early campaigns teach what works for their audience. Later campaigns leverage that learning. ROI climbs as the partnership matures. Bottom line: Affiliates isn’t a quick win channel. It’s a compounding growth engine. Build for years, not weeks.

If you lost your top partner, would your affiliate program survive?

Still think affiliate means coupons? You’re years behind. Affiliate marketing is anything but static. One day you’re aligning with a major media network. The next, exploring partnerships with niche creators who drive real engagement. Then there are CSS partners managing product feeds. CLOs linking online to in-store sales. Loyalty, and employee benefit platforms adding depth to the mix. Each partner type plays a different role. Each requires a different strategy. Some build awareness. Some convert. Not all will fit every brand—and that’s exactly how it should be. The strength of affiliate lies in its diversity. It’s a channel you can shape around your goals, not squeeze into a template. The smartest programs don’t chase one model. They master the mix.