Design affiliate programs with ak:affiliate-marketing

Use ak:affiliate-marketing to design or improve a partner-led acquisition program. The Skill turns product economics, audience evidence, partner context, and operational constraints into a program structure, platform requirements, partner-vetting process, outreach drafts, fraud controls, compliance checklist, and measurement plan.

Its normal output is a proposal and report. It does not sign a provider contract, enroll a partner, send outreach, publish terms, create tracking links, approve a payout, or move money unless those actions are separately authorized and supported by an available integration.

Choose ak:affiliate-marketing for partner-led acquisition

Use ak:affiliate-marketing when

• You need a recurring, one-time, tiered, hybrid, or other commission model evaluated against current unit economics.
• You need platform requirements, integration questions, or a provider comparison for affiliate operations.
• You need to identify, vet, recruit, onboard, and support affiliates, creators, KOLs, KOCs, agencies, or other partners.
• You need attribution, hold, refund, chargeback, brand-bidding, fraud, payout, disclosure, and termination rules.
• You have program data and want a review of partner quality, conversion, retention, commission cost, or incremental value.

Choose another workflow when

• You want a customer-to-customer referral program rather than a compensated affiliate or creator channel. Use ak:referral-program-building.
• You need a wider launch or multi-channel campaign. Use ak:launch-strategy or ak:campaign.
• You need legal, tax, privacy, employment, or regulatory advice. Use qualified counsel for the relevant locations and agreement.
• You do not yet know customer value, gross margin, refund behavior, or the maximum sustainable acquisition cost. Resolve the economics before proposing compensation.

Prepare economics, partner, and policy inputs

Provide the product and eligible plans, customer and partner profiles, approved claims, price and margin inputs, customer value method, refund and chargeback windows, target acquisition cost, attribution model, existing partner data, geographies, payment process, tax owner, brand-bidding policy, disclosure rules, and available integrations.

Keep personal data, tax identifiers, payment details, credentials, and private partner records out of the prompt unless the approved task and data policy require them. Historical provider names in the Skill include FirstPromoter, Rewardful, PartnerStack, Impact.com, and Tapfiliate; verify current features, prices, contracts, data flows, and availability directly with each provider.

See Runtime adapters for projection limits.

Invoke a bounded program design

/ak:affiliate-marketing "Design an affiliate-program proposal for the supplied SaaS economics and approved partner profile. Compare recurring, one-time, and tiered compensation; define attribution, hold, fraud, disclosure, and payout controls. Draft outreach only—do not contact partners, select a vendor, publish terms, or commit funds"

/ak:affiliate-marketing "Design an affiliate-program proposal for the supplied SaaS economics and approved partner profile. Compare recurring, one-time, and tiered compensation; define attribution, hold, fraud, disclosure, and payout controls. Draft outreach only—do not contact partners, select a vendor, publish terms, or commit funds"

$ak:affiliate-marketing "Design an affiliate-program proposal for the supplied SaaS economics and approved partner profile. Compare recurring, one-time, and tiered compensation; define attribution, hold, fraud, disclosure, and payout controls. Draft outreach only—do not contact partners, select a vendor, publish terms, or commit funds"

The Skill accepts [program or strategy]. State the business, economic, geographic, data, outreach, and spending boundaries in the request.

Follow the affiliate-program stages

1. Define the program contract. Set eligible products, qualifying events, partner types, non-goals, attribution, refund treatment, currency, payment schedule, budget ceiling, and owners.
2. Model partner economics. Compare commission models using current margin, customer value, service cost, refunds, taxes, provider fees, and payout risk. Record formulas and scenarios rather than copying a historical percentage.
3. Select operational requirements. Map payment processor, CRM, analytics, email, webhook, API, reporting, tax, privacy, and fraud needs. Evaluate providers only with current primary evidence and an approved buying process.
4. Design recruitment and onboarding. Define partner criteria, conflicts, brand safety, audience fit, content review, disclosure, outreach sequence, proposal, onboarding material, and support cadence. KOL and KOC labels do not replace evidence about a specific partner.
5. Set fraud and compliance controls. Define prohibited traffic, self-referral, brand bidding, bot or fake-lead handling, review queues, hold and clawback rules, appeals, recordkeeping, disclosure, privacy, tax, and termination responsibilities.
6. Measure and improve. Track clicks, qualified conversions, refunds, chargebacks, commission cost, partner activity, customer quality, and incremental value. Separate correlation and platform attribution from proven incremental acquisition.

Keep outreach, contracts, and payouts behind approval

Use the generated outreach as a draft. Before sending, verify the recipient, lawful contact basis, claims, social proof, compensation terms, disclosure, sender identity, schedule, and opt-out handling. Never fabricate earnings, scarcity, partner results, or named-customer success.

Review outputs and evidence

The canonical report path is assets/reports/performance/{date}-affiliate-program.md when the workflow uses the packaged asset-organizing convention. A complete report should include:

• Program scope, qualifying event, partner segments, proposed economics, and sensitivity scenarios.
• Provider requirements and the current evidence used for any recommendation.
• Vetting, outreach, onboarding, content-review, disclosure, and support flows.
• Attribution, tracking, consent, fraud, hold, payout, clawback, dispute, termination, tax, and recordkeeping controls.
• Metric definitions, source systems, date range, data gaps, approval owners, and unresolved decisions.

Troubleshoot safely

Know the current limits

• Bundled prices, percentages, benchmarks, legal figures, provider descriptions, and case-study outcomes are historical examples and are omitted here as durable claims.
• The Skill cannot guarantee partner recruitment, conversion, customer quality, revenue, acquisition cost, fraud prevention, or program return.
• Program success depends on current economics, partner behavior, platform and payment integrations, attribution quality, and human operations.
• This documentation is workflow guidance, not legal, tax, privacy, accounting, or contractual advice.

Continue with the Marketing Kit overview or compare ak:referral-program-building before choosing the program model.