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Affiliates are the best early channel
What affiliates do
An affiliate has a surface of their own, whether a website or an audience, and wants to sell the product to it. They get paid a percentage of revenue or a fixed acquisition cost, and they go out of their way to make content and reviews. Anyone who feels they can earn money from the product even before being a customer often becomes one.
Victor's numbers
It sits outside the referral program because it doesn't run through the product. At Victor, a good 10% to 15% of monthly acquisition comes from affiliates, who get a 10% to 15% revenue share. An affiliate who brings in a company paying $10,000 a month earns $1,500 a month from that one sale.
Why it compounds
Some affiliates earn $20,000 to $30,000 a month. It ramps up when it starts early, and a program built so people want to earn money from it compounds.
How do affiliate links credit a sale?
Each affiliate receives a unique link that carries an identifier. When a visitor clicks, a cookie stores the identifier for a set window, and a purchase inside that window pays the affiliate. Amazon launched its Associates program in 1996, and it was among the earliest programs run this way. Affiliate networks later arrived to handle tracking and payments between merchants and affiliates.
Why must affiliates disclose their payment?
In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission's Endorsement Guides say that a material connection between an endorser and a brand has to be clearly disclosed. A commission on sales counts as one. The guides were revised in 2023 to address social media and online reviews more directly.
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