Glossary/Affiliate collaboration
What is affiliate work?
Short answer
Affiliate work is payment for results: the creator gets their own link or discount code and earns a commission on the purchases that went through it. The brand only pays once there is a sale and the creator risks their time — which is why the model works where a product is bought quickly.
What exactly is affiliate work?
A contract in which the payment is a percentage of the basket or a fixed amount per order. The sale is attributed by a link with a parameter or by a code, and the settlement runs in cycles — usually monthly. The key thing is the length of the attribution window: how many days after a click a purchase still counts as referred.
When does affiliate work and when does it fail?
The model is convenient for the brand, but it has limits:
It works with products bought on the spot and at a familiar price.
It fails with expensive decisions, where several weeks pass between the first contact and the purchase.
It needs a fair attribution window — a single day moves the whole risk onto the creator.
It does not replace a rate for the material when a product is only entering the market and nobody is looking for it.
Why are creators sometimes wary of it?
Because all the work is done up front and the payment depends on things the creator has no influence over: the price, availability, how the site looks, the cost of delivery. That is why a mixed model is becoming more common — a lower rate for the material plus a commission on sales.
Where to order it or find tasks
Related terms
Words that come up in the same conversations. Each has its own definition in the glossary.
- Conversion
- The action the brand launched the campaign for: a purchase, a booking, a sign-up. That, and not the number of views, tells you whether the collaboration paid off. Read more
- CTR
- The share of people who clicked the link after seeing the material. The first signal of whether the promise in the content was concrete enough for someone to want to look further. Read more
- Paid collaboration
- The creator is paid in money for producing and publishing the material. The terms — scope, deadline and amount — are settled before the start, not after delivery. Read more
- Barter
- Settlement in a product or a service instead of money: a dinner, a treatment, an order from the shop. For smaller companies it is often the first way into a collaboration. Read more
Frequently asked questions
How high is the commission in affiliate work?
Most often from a few to a dozen or so percent of the basket value, depending on the margin in the category. With services you see a fixed amount per client brought in.
Does affiliate material have to be labelled?
Yes. Earnings that depend on a purchase are a financial benefit, so the material is advertising — the label is mandatory even with just a discount code.
How is affiliate work different from a discount code?
A code is sometimes only a measurement tool. We talk about affiliate work when a commission on sales is attached to the code or the link, not just a discount for the audience.
