How to Run an Affiliate Program
Connecting a store, setting commission that creators will take, and the five to seven weeks before anyone is actually paid.
What this guide covers
Connecting a store first
An affiliate campaign needs two things before it will even open: a connected store and a card on file.
Without both, the Affiliate card in the campaign picker just sends you to the affiliate dashboard with no explanation. That is a known rough edge, not a fault on your account.
| Store | What connects |
|---|---|
| Shopify | A full live catalogue sync. Install the app, authorise, and products appear |
| Amazon | Authorise via Seller Central. Nineteen marketplaces are supported, not just the US |
| Neither of those | Use a Paid Collaboration and share your own affiliate link. On the Free plan an external programme is a rejection reason, so that route needs a paid plan or a funded wallet |
The nineteen Amazon marketplaces are United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, India, Singapore, Japan and Australia. Almost every seller here today is on Amazon US, so if you connect another you may be among the first.
Setting commission
Two levers, and one that does not exist.
| Approach | How it works | Range in use today |
|---|---|---|
| Per product | Set a rate on each product from My Products. This is what every affiliate gets by default | 5% to 50% |
| Per affiliate | A custom rate agreed in an individual partnership, overriding the product rate for them | 10% to 60% |
There is no automatic bonus tier that fires when an affiliate passes a sales threshold. Rewarding a strong performer means raising their custom rate by hand.
On the Free plan the minimum commission you can offer is 25%. Paid plans remove the floor, which is the main reason an affiliate-first brand upgrades: a 25% floor is far above typical rates in most categories.
Commission is calculated on the product price after any discount, and excludes shipping and tax. A $100 product with a 10% discount at 20% commission earns the affiliate $18, not $20.
Recruiting affiliates
Affiliates almost never find a new programme on their own. Recruiting is the work.
Affiliate Discovery
Featured, Recommended and Deal Coupon rows, filterable by niche, engagement and country.
Build a list of twenty to thirty
Five is not enough to judge a response rate by.
Personalise the invite
Name the product and say why their content fits. A generic invite converts a fraction as well.
Watch your monthly allowance
Invites, email reveals and conversations are all monthly, not daily.
| Per month | Free | Starter | Pro | Ultimate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Affiliate invites | 5 | 50 | 500 | 50,000 |
| Affiliate email reveals | Not included | 50 | 100 | 6,000 |
| Conversations | 5 | 25 | 100 | Unlimited |
| Connected brands | 1 | 2 | 5 | Unlimited |
These reset with your monthly plan period, not at midnight. If you run out of invites on Free you have five for the whole month, so recruiting in real batches needs Starter at the very least.
How and when affiliates are actually paid
Longer than anyone expects, and setting that expectation up front prevents most of the support messages.
A sale in week one is money in their bank around week six.
A 35 day hold
A sale must be at least 35 days old before its commission can be billed. This covers the returns window.
Then the nightly billing run
Your card on file is charged, which is why a failed card stalls every affiliate you have.
Then Stripe Connect
The affiliate’s share goes to their connected Stripe account, and Stripe pays out to their bank on their own schedule.
Roughly five to seven weeks in total
If you have told affiliates weekly, correct it now.
Cancellations and returns reverse the commission. The affiliate’s pending balance drops, and if it was already paid it is clawed back from their next payout. This syncs from Shopify and Amazon automatically.
Why affiliate campaigns get rejected
Affiliate campaigns themselves are not reviewed. They go live when you add products. What gets rejected is a paid collaboration that is really an affiliate deal.
| The situation | Your two options |
|---|---|
| You use a third-party platform such as Refersion or Awin | Upgrade to a paid plan to keep it, or rebuild the programme natively on Ainfluencer |
| You want barter only, with no payment at all | Upgrade, or deposit $2,000 in your wallet to show intent |
| A large or higher-risk programme | A wallet deposit of $1,000 or $2,000, depending on the campaign |
The reasoning is worth knowing because it is not arbitrary. When tracking runs on an outside platform we cannot see clicks, conversions or commissions, so we cannot verify that creators were paid. Running it natively costs nothing and removes the problem.
What to watch once it is running
Four numbers tell you nearly everything.
Reversal rate
Above about 15% usually means shipping delays, wrong product images or sizing problems rather than bad affiliates.
Top affiliates
A small group almost always drives most of the revenue. Find them monthly and raise their rate by hand.
Conversion rate by product
A product nobody converts on is a product to drop from the programme, not a commission to raise.
Your card
If it fails, the nightly run cannot pay anyone. This is the single most damaging thing to leave broken.
From a connected store to an affiliate being paid
The whole loop, with the two waits that surprise people.
Ready to launch an affiliate programme?
Connect your store, or let our team set the commission structure up with you.
