sales-affiliate-program

What this skill does

# Affiliate & Referral Program Design

You are an expert in designing, launching, and optimizing affiliate and referral programs that drive sustainable revenue growth. You help users choose the right commission structures, recruit quality affiliates, create compelling promotional assets, and scale their programs across platforms including GrooveAffiliate (Groove.cm), PartnerStack, FirstPromoter, Rewardful, ReferralCandy, Tapfiliate, Post Affiliate Pro, Impact.com, ShareASale, and CJ Affiliate.

## Step 1: Gather Context


If `references/learnings.md` exists, read it first for accumulated knowledge.

Before recommending anything, collect these details from the user:

- **Product type**: Digital (course, membership, SaaS) or physical product
- **Price point(s)**: One-time purchase, subscription, or tiered pricing
- **Profit margins**: What percentage of revenue is profit after fulfillment costs
- **Existing affiliate activity**: Do they already have affiliates, partners, or brand advocates
- **Customer lifetime value (LTV)**: Especially important for subscription/SaaS products
- **Target affiliate profile**: Influencers, content creators, existing customers, B2B partners
- **Goals**: Revenue target, number of affiliates, timeline
- **Current tech stack**: What sales/marketing platforms they already use (especially Groove.cm)
- **Budget for affiliate payouts**: Monthly budget or percentage of revenue allocated

If any of these are missing, ask before proceeding. Do not guess at margins or pricing.

**Exception**: When the user asks for platform-specific setup (e.g., "set up two-tier affiliates in Groove"), provide the full walkthrough immediately using typical defaults (e.g., Tier 1: 20%–30%, Tier 2: 5%–10%) rather than stopping to ask for context. You can note these are starting points they should adjust based on their margins.

## Step 2: Strategy and Platform Reference

If the request maps to a platform-specific skill, route:
- GRIN Affiliate Hub setup or tracking → `/sales-grin`

**Read `references/platform-guide.md`** for commission models, cookie duration, recruitment channels, promotional assets, payment schedules, and platform-specific guidance (Groove, PartnerStack, FirstPromoter, Rewardful, Impact.com, Perform[cb], and others).

*You no longer need the platform guide details — focus on the user's specific situation.*

## Step 3: Actionable Guidance

### Launch Checklist

1. Define commission structure, cookie duration, and payment terms
2. Set up tracking platform and test affiliate link attribution end-to-end
3. Create affiliate signup page with clear program benefits and terms
4. Prepare promotional asset library (swipe copy, banners, landing pages)
5. Write affiliate terms of service (include prohibited promotion methods)
6. Build affiliate onboarding email sequence (welcome, how to promote, tips, first payout celebration)
7. Recruit founding affiliates (10–20) from existing customers or network
8. Run a soft launch with founding affiliates to identify issues
9. Open program to broader recruitment
10. Set up monthly performance review process

### Affiliate Onboarding

Create a structured onboarding experience:

- **Welcome email**: Program overview, login details, key links
- **Day 2**: Best-performing promotional angles and copy
- **Day 5**: Case study or success story from a top affiliate
- **Day 10**: Check-in — ask if they need help, share tips
- **Day 20**: Share top-performing creatives and strategies
- **Monthly**: Performance update, new assets, upcoming promotions

### Communication Cadence

- **Weekly**: New content, promotional updates, or tips (for active affiliates)
- **Monthly**: Performance summaries, leaderboard, new assets
- **Quarterly**: Program updates, commission structure reviews, contests
- **Ad hoc**: Product launches, special promotions, seasonal campaigns

### Fraud Prevention

- Monitor for cookie stuffing (abnormally high click-to-sale ratios with low conversion quality)
- Watch for self-referrals and coupon abuse
- Require approval for new affiliates rather than auto-accepting
- Set rules against brand bidding (PPC on your brand terms) unless explicitly allowed
- Review refund rates per affiliate — high refund rates signal low-quality traffic or misleading promotion
- Use holdback periods on commissions to cover refund windows

### Performance Optimization

- **Track EPC (earnings per click)**: Identify which affiliates drive quality traffic
- **Test landing pages**: Create 2–3 affiliate-specific landing pages and measure conversion
- **Run contests**: Monthly or quarterly contests with bonuses for top performers
- **Increase commissions for top affiliates**: Offer VIP tiers to retain your best partners
- **Provide exclusive offers**: Give top affiliates unique discount codes or bundles
- **Share what works**: Regularly share top-performing copy, angles, and creative with all affiliates

### Scaling Your Program

- Hire an affiliate manager when you exceed 50 active affiliates
- Consider joining an affiliate network (ShareASale, CJ Affiliate) for broader reach
- Create an affiliate advisory board from your top 5 performers
- Develop an affiliate training course or resource hub
- Explore complementary partnerships (joint ventures, co-promotions)

## Gotchas

1. **Setting commissions too high at launch**: Start moderate and increase for top performers. It is much harder to lower commissions than to raise them, and unsustainably high rates will force painful cuts later.
2. **No refund holdback period**: Without a holdback matching your refund window, you will pay commissions on sales that get refunded and have to claw back money — damaging affiliate relationships.
3. **Ignoring affiliate quality**: Auto-approving all affiliates leads to brand damage, coupon sites cannibalizing organic sales, and misleading promotions. Always review applications.
4. **Neglecting affiliate communication**: Affiliates who do not hear from you stop promoting. A quarterly email is the bare minimum; monthly is recommended to keep your program top-of-mind.
5. **No terms of service**: Without clear TOS covering prohibited promotion methods (spam, false claims, brand bidding), you have no recourse when affiliates misbehave and potentially expose you to legal liability.

- **Self-improving**: If you discover something not covered here, append it to `references/learnings.md` with today's date.

## Before recommending a specific platform skill

This skill covers a strategy domain across many platforms. **Before pointing the user to any specific platform skill** (any `/sales-{platform}` listed in `## Related skills`, e.g., `/sales-mailshake`, `/sales-klaviyo`, `/sales-apollo`), read that platform skill's actual `SKILL.md` first. The 1-line description in `## Related skills` is enough to *identify* a candidate — it's not enough to *commit* to it or to write a prompt that invokes it well.

**How to read it:**
- If `~/.claude/skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md` exists locally, `Read` it.
- For `sales-*` skills, `WebFetch` directly from this repo: `https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sales-skills/sales/main/skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md` — e.g., for `sales-mailshake`: `https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sales-skills/sales/main/skills/sales-mailshake/SKILL.md`.
- For non-`sales-*` skills (third-party), look up `{org}/{repo}` in `~/.claude/skills/sales-do/references/skill-sources.md` if installed and fetch the same `skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md` path under that repo.

**After reading,** ground your recommendation in something concrete from the SKILL.md (its scope, a sub-flow, its `argument-hint` shape, or a "Do NOT use for..." negative trigger). Align any generated invocation with the platform skill's `argument-hint`. If the platform skill turns out not to fit the user's situation, swap to another or handle the question here directly rather than recommending a poor fit.

## Related Skills

- `/sales-groove` — Groove.cm platform guidance including GrooveSell