Not all affiliates drive results. Some generate clicks but no conversions, while others don’t align with your brand at all. To scale your referral program, you need affiliates who attract the right audience and consistently drive qualified traffic to your site. Choosing new affiliates strategically helps you set up a program that is both profitable and low-risk.

In this blog, we’ll break down four easy ways to find the best partners for your affiliate marketing program, helping you reduce customer acquisition costs while increasing revenue.

4 Ways to find high-performing affiliates for your ecommerce store

1. Turn your existing customers into affiliates

Your best affiliates aren’t influencers with a huge following. They are likely to be your loyal customers. These are the people who use and love your product and are naturally inclined to recommend it to others. 

‍

Instead of solely relying on external influencers or content creators, turn your happy customers into great affiliates too!

Why customer referral marketing works

• Customers have a genuine connection with your product, making their promotions more authentic and trustworthy.
• These word-of-mouth recommendations feel organic, leading to higher conversion rates and better brand awareness.
• They help you tap into new audiences without needing large budgets or high-effort digital marketing strategies.

How to incentivize customers to promote your store

Encourage your customer base to become affiliates by offering incentives that make them eager to share your brand. Here are a few ideas:

• Commission per sale: Give them a percentage or fixed cash commission for each sale they generate.
• Store credits or discounts: Reward them with discounts on future purchases.
• Exclusive perks: Offer VIP access, early product launches, or free products.

Want to know more? Explore these top customer referral strategies you can use for your DTC brand.

Pro tip: Turn all your customers into affiliates automatically by using Social Snowball’s “Turn your customers into affiliates” feature. Whenever someone buys from your store, they’ll automatically get enrolled in your program and will be given a unique link or code right on the order confirmation page. Here’s how it looks:

2. Find affiliates on social media and search engines

‍

The most common way to find affiliates is by manually searching for relevant affiliates on social media, blogs, YouTube, and other content distribution platforms. These channels have thousands of content creators—bloggers, podcasters, vloggers, and influencers—with highly engaged audiences who trust their recommendations. 

‍

Partnering and building relationships with relevant creators helps drive high-quality traffic, boost conversions, and improve your ROI—without relying on paid marketing campaigns that are unpredictable and expensive. 

‍

Many ecommerce brands combine affiliate and influencer marketing efforts, offering creators revenue-sharing deals in exchange for product promotions. 

Here are some best practices you can follow to find the right affiliates:

• Search by hashtags & relevant keywords: On social media platforms, you can look for creators using hashtags relevant to your niche (e.g., #fitnessgear, #cleanbeauty, #petproducts).

• Check for audience alignment: The creator you partner with should have an audience that matches your ideal customer profile. Check audience demographics to get a clear picture of how well they can help your brand attract new customers.
  
  
• Analyze engagement, not just followers: Prioritize influencers with high engagement rates rather than just a large follower base. Since the industry average is 1.85%, the affiliates you partner with should match the average or, ideally, have a higher engagement rate. 

Pro tip: Micro-influencers (10K to 100K) often have a better rapport with their audience as their community is closely knit. Due to this, their engagement rate tends to be higher, making them a great choice to be your affiliate partner. Read about the different types of influencers.

• Check out competitor mentions: See which influencers are promoting similar brands and reach out to them with a better offer.
  
  
• Use search engines to find relevant partners: Search for blogs and YouTube channels that share content about products you sell. You can then reach out to these bloggers and YouTubers and invite them to join your program. 

3. Join affiliate networks

Affiliate networks connect online businesses with affiliates who are already experienced in promoting products. Instead of spending time manually searching for potential affiliates, networks like Shareasale, Clickbank, and Amazon Associates give you access to marketers actively looking for passive income opportunities.

When choosing an affiliate network, look at these factors:

• Affiliate quality: Some networks focus on quantity, while others have strict vetting processes. Prioritize networks that attract high-quality affiliates with proven performance.
  
  
• Affiliate commission structures: Networks may charge fees or take a percentage of each sale. Compare cost structures to see if they align with your margins for higher commissions.
  
  
• Niche relevance: General networks have a range of good affiliates, but niche-specific networks can connect you with marketers who have an audience that matches your target customers.

Affiliate recruitment agencies and networks provide faster access to potential partners, making them an effective option for online retailers that are looking to scale quickly. 

However, these networks are expensive and have limitations in how you set up your program. If you prefer more control over your profit margins and the overall experience of your affiliate program, running your own program is a far better option.

To make it easy to set up and launch your program, use a specialized affiliate marketing software like Social Snowball that can help you automate onboarding, payouts, and other critical tasks, giving you a centralized dashboard to manage affiliates, communicate with them, and track performance.

4. Targeted outreach 

Waiting for the ideal affiliates to discover your program limits its reach. Instead, actively promote it across multiple touchpoints—after a purchase, follow-up emails, SMS, etc.—to maximize sign-ups and drive more sales. Some ways to do this are:

• Exit-intent popups: Set up a triggered pop-up when a visitor is about to leave your landing page, offering them an opportunity to earn competitive commissions by sharing your products.
  
  
• Promotional email marketing campaign: Reach out to your entire subscriber list, letting them know about your affiliate program, the incentives you have to offer, and how they can sign-up
  
  
• Order confirmation emails: Include an affiliate signup link in the email customers receive right after purchasing.
  
  
  
  • Example: "Hey [First Name], excited about your new [Product Name]? You can now earn every time you share it with friends. Join our affiliate program here: [Link]."
    
    

• SMS follow-ups: Send a quick message after a few days of the product delivery to invite customers to the program.
  
  
  
  • Example: "Hey [First Name], love your [Product Name]? Earn cash by telling your friends about it! Sign up for our affiliate program and start earning: [Link]."
    
    
• Customer accounts & thank you pages: Add an affiliate program sign-up option on the order tracking page and checkout confirmation screen.
  
  
• Packaging inserts: Include a printed flyer or QR code inside the package, directing customers to join your program.
  
  

• Facebook groups & communities: Promote your program in relevant groups and forums where your potential affiliates are active.

Boost your marketing efforts with the right affiliates!

Setting up a successful affiliate marketing strategy comes down to the affiliates you partner with. When you recruit affiliates who genuinely align with your brand and target audience, you’ll be able to reach potential customers more effectively and drive more sales. 

However, streamlining your recruitment process, automating tracking, and ensuring accurate payouts is as important as finding the right affiliates. Doing all this manually takes a lot more time and increases the chances of errors.

With Social Snowball, you can:

• Automate affiliate onboarding to convert customers and influencers into affiliates effortlessly.
• Generate unique, trackable referral links and discount codes to prevent fraud.
• Monitor performance metrics to optimize your affiliate program.
• Set up automated payouts for a seamless experience for affiliates.

Frequently asked questions

How do I track affiliate performance and payouts?

Attributing and monitoring performance in affiliate marketing is difficult. To track performance and make sure the right affiliate is getting paid for their efforts, monitor key metrics such as click-through rates, conversions, total revenue generated, and commission payouts. A well-structured tracking system helps you accurately attribute sales and compensate affiliates without errors.

An easy way to do this is by using an affiliate marketing tool like Social Snowball, which can automate the entire process for you by:

• Providing real-time performance insights to identify top affiliates.
• Automating payouts based on pre-set commission rates, reducing manual work.
• Eliminating tracking discrepancies by issuing a unique single-use code to ensure accurate sales attribution and prevent coupon misuse.

How can I prevent affiliate fraud in my program?

You can prevent affiliate fraud by safeguarding your program against self-referrals, fake leads, and coupon misuse in a few ways: 

• Look for suspicious patterns, such as unusual referral spikes or repetitive transactions.
• Blacklist fraudulent affiliates to ensure only genuine partners remain in your program.
• Enable real-time fraud detection to stop fraudulent activity before it affects your revenue.
• Secure your affiliate program with Social Snowball’s Safelinks, which helps your brand by issuing unique, single-use affiliate codes to your affiliate partners to prevent unauthorized coupon sharing.

‍