17 tips to design the best Affiliate Marketing Program

Because of my work in the CRM, Nocode, and automation space, I get approached for affiliate partnerships. Program managers always ask what would make it easier for me to promote them. So I thought I would make a partners-friendly affiliate marketing program checklist for Program Managers at SaaS/B2C companies.

Wishlist of an affiliate & content marketer

I am a systems builder. I work with multiple SaaS tools. To improve the capabilities of the tools my clients use, I have to look for other tools that will help my clients achieve their goals. So I am always in a position to transparently pitch tools that would help my clients.

This made me an accidental affiliate and content marketer.

To be successful in this role, I need the support and resources from the brands I am promoting and plugging.

So here’s my checklist that lists what would help me pitch partner products easily.

What makes a great Affiliate Marketing Program Checklist?

All things Brand/Product

Brand Assets (brand guide, logos, illustrations)
A one-line description of the product
A 200-300 word description of the product
An expert listings/directory for eligible partners
A community for partners and experts to contribute

All things Content Production

Access to a full-feature sandbox account
Branded screenshots
Sample test datasets/databases
SWAG
Shared product roadmap
Insider news about new feature launches

All things Affiliate Partner

Custom links to track signups
Generate multiple links for attribution
Incentive for users to sign up using MY link (lifetime x% discount, or an extended trial)
Competitive % commission structure (Pipedrive)
Ability to manually add referrals
Easier payment options (direct bank transfers, not PayPal)
Excellent tracking and reporting
Single point of contact and prompt support when things go wrong
Ability to recruit sub-affiliates (Bardeen, Dedupely, Bonsai)

8 Affiliate Software Solutions to help you run your Affiliate Marketing Programs

Here’s a detailed list of affiliate software solutions.

Partnerstack helps you recruit, engage, and scale your entire ecosystem of partners — from affiliates to referral and reseller partners.
Reditus is an affiliate management software focused on SaaS businesses. Check it out and learn how to grow your MRR without any upfront costs.
LeadDyno offers everything you need to launch, manage and grow your affiliate, ambassador and influencer marketing programs – in one platform.
Rewardful is an all-in-one SaaS affiliate and referral tracking software.
Tapfiliate takes care of all your affiliate and referral marketing needs. Sync Tapfiliate with Shopify, WooCommerce, and 30+ other integrations.
Partnero maximizes revenue with all-in-one solution for seamless partnership management.
Kiflo is designed for Partnership Teams to help recruit, onboard, engage, track, and reward your partners using a single and easy-to-use platform.
PostAffiliatePro helps track affiliate partner performance, assign commissions and issue payouts on one platform with an affiliate software platform.

Brands with the best affiliate marketing programs

I have listed some of the best exclusive deals, promo codes/discount codes, and extended trials by SaaS companies.
If you’d like to be a part of this page, please write to me at hello(at)amitsarda(dot)xyz with your best offer for my readers.

The following brands deserve a special mention:

Coupler: offers my readers exclusive discount codes, recruit sub-affiliates, and generous lifetime commissions to affiliate partners
Pipedrive: offers tiered % commissions based on revenue slabs to affiliate partners, and extended trials to my readers
Glide Apps: offers affiliate partners lifetime revenue share, rewards for growing customer revenue
Bardeen: allows affiliate partners to recruit sub-affiliates
Dedupely: allows affiliate partners to recruit sub-affiliates
Bonsai: allows affiliate partners to recruit sub-affiliates AND offers generous one-time commissions (minimum $50 for each paid customer)