Most affiliate programs do not fail because the product is bad or the commission is too low. They fail because someone launched in the wrong order. This is the practitioner's checklist that keeps that from happening to you.
Free · No sales call required · Instant download
Tell us where to send it and it is yours right now.
We are committed to protecting your privacy. Alfie by XPFlow uses the information you provide to deliver this checklist and share relevant content, products, and services. You may unsubscribe at any time. For more information, see our privacy policy.
One short form and the PDF is yours. A copy lands in your inbox at the same time so you never have to hunt for it.
Eight phases, each one a gate. Work top to bottom and do not move on until every box in a phase is checked.
Most brands run the sequence in two to four weeks and open the doors with anchor partners in place instead of an empty dashboard.
They picked a network before they knew their economics. They opened the doors before they had a single partner lined up. They wrote terms after the first payout dispute instead of before. Get the sequence right and the program builds momentum on its own. Get it wrong and you spend the next year cleaning up decisions you made in week one.
Platforms picked before anyone ran the math on margin, average order value, and return rate
Programs that go live with zero partners recruited, then stall out in month two
Terms, trademark policy, and disclosure rules written after the first dispute instead of before launch
Every phase is a gate with a named owner and a set of boxes. Nothing in here is theory. It is the order I run when a brand is launching from zero.
One primary goal, a target CPA, margins that actually support a commission, and a named program owner.
Pick the network, fire a real test transaction, lock attribution, dedupe against other channels, verify mobile.
Base rate, flexible structures by partner type, what counts as a valid sale, launch incentive, payment terms.
Program agreement, promotional guidelines, trademark and paid search policy, FTC disclosure, removal process.
Starter creative pack, approved copy, a product feed if relevant, and the one-page program overview partners judge you on.
Build a target list of twenty to fifty before you open, find who already ranks for your keywords, land two or three anchors.
The few metrics that matter, a reporting cadence, fraud and quality checks from week one, a partner scorecard.
Soft launch with anchors, activate every approved partner, keep recruiting weekly, review at 30, 60, and 90 days.
VP of Product Marketing, Alfie.io
Dustin has spent his career building and scaling affiliate programs for brands and agencies. He hosts the Affiliate Nerd Out series and works with teams every day on the exact launch and recruitment problems this checklist is built around. Every line in it came out of a program he has actually run.
Brands who know they should be doing affiliate but do not know what order to build it in.
Programs that went live, never got traction, and need to find which phase got skipped.
Teams standing up new client programs who want one repeatable sequence instead of a fresh scramble every time.
Finding partners, pulling their contacts, and sending personalized outreach is slow manual work. Alfie automates the whole recruitment workflow and saves 10+ hours a week, so your program launches with partners already in the pipeline instead of an empty dashboard.
Nothing. It is free, and there is no sales call attached to it.
Most brands work through all eight phases in two to four weeks. Rushing it is the single most expensive mistake you can make.
No. The checklist is platform agnostic and works whether you run on Impact, Awin, Rakuten, Partnerize, EverFlow, or a SaaS tracker.
Use it as an audit. Work backwards through the phases and you will usually find the one or two gates that got skipped at launch.
A 12 page PDF you can download, print, and hand to whoever owns each phase.
The launch is the easy part. The programs that grow are the ones that recruit partners every single week.
Go get 'em · Dustin & Alfie ⚡
