Affiliate Marketing

Paid Media

Also: Partner Marketing · Performance Partnership · Referral Partnership

ModelPay per action — sale, lead or click

RiskLow — cost only incurred on results

Who does itAffiliates promote your product for commission

Watch forBrand safety and attribution quality

Quick definition

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based channel where third parties (affiliates) promote a business's products in exchange for a commission on each sale, lead or click they generate. The advertiser only pays when a defined outcome is achieved.

How it varies across Australia

Affiliate marketing is most mature in Australian e-commerce, financial services, travel and education. Insurance comparison sites, cashback platforms and content publishers are the dominant affiliate types in the Australian market. Commission rates vary significantly by category — financial products typically command higher rates than physical goods.

See Acquisition Performance scores by industry →

The affiliate marketing ecosystem

Advertiser

The business selling the product or service. Sets the commission structure, provides creative assets and defines what counts as a qualifying conversion.

Pays commission

Affiliate

The publisher or promoter who drives traffic to the advertiser. Can be a content website, comparison platform, influencer, cashback site, email publisher or coupon aggregator.

Earns commission

Affiliate Network

A platform that connects advertisers with affiliates, handles tracking, attribution and payment. Australian examples include Commission Factory, Impact and Awin.

Intermediary platform

Tracking Link

A unique URL assigned to each affiliate that records clicks, attributes sales and calculates commissions. The technical foundation of the programme.

Attribution mechanism

What it actually means

Affiliate marketing shifts the financial risk of customer acquisition from the advertiser to the affiliate. The affiliate invests their own resources — time, content, paid traffic — to drive customers to your product. If those customers convert, the affiliate earns a commission. If they do not, the affiliate absorbs the cost.

This makes affiliate an inherently low-risk channel for advertisers: you only pay for results. The tradeoff is margin — commissions reduce the profitability of each sale — and brand control — you cannot fully control how affiliates present your product.

The most common affiliate types in Australia include: content publishers (review sites, comparison platforms, niche blogs), cashback and loyalty programmes (ShopBack, Cashrewards), coupon and deal sites, influencers and creators who receive unique codes, and email newsletters with affiliate arrangements.

Affiliate programmes are typically managed through an affiliate network that handles tracking, reporting and payments, or through direct relationships with a small number of high-value partners.

Affiliate marketing is one of the few channels where acquisition cost is fixed by design. You only pay for what works.

How it shows up

Affiliate performance shows in your attribution data as revenue, leads or conversions attributed to affiliate tracking links, alongside commission costs. The key metrics are cost per acquisition by affiliate, return on affiliate spend and customer retention rates segmented by affiliate source.

The Australian context

The Australian affiliate market is served by networks including Commission Factory (Australia's largest), Impact, Awin and Rakuten. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) requires affiliates to disclose commercial relationships when making recommendations. Influencer affiliates must clearly disclose when they are earning commission from a recommendation — the '#ad' or 'paid partnership' disclosure is required under Australian consumer law.

Where people get this wrong

Setting commission rates without modelling LTVA commission rate that looks reasonable on a first purchase may be unsustainable once customer acquisition cost, returns and churn are factored in. Commission rates must be modelled against the full unit economics of the customer, not just the first order value.

Allowing any affiliate to join without vettingAffiliates who use misleading claims, brand-bidding on your branded keywords or coupon-stuffing at checkout dilute brand value and inflate your reported conversion rates. Vetting partners and reviewing their promotional methods is not optional.

Ignoring last-click attribution biasMost affiliate programmes pay on last click — the affiliate whose link was clicked last before purchase gets the full commission. This overvalues coupon sites (clicked at checkout) and undervalues content affiliates (clicked at the research stage). Multi-touch attribution models provide a more accurate picture of each partner's actual contribution.

Common questions

How much commission should I offer affiliates in Australia?

Commission rates vary by category. Physical goods typically range from 3 to 15 percent of sale value. Digital products and SaaS can go higher, sometimes 20 to 30 percent of the first payment or a flat recurring commission. Financial services products (insurance, credit cards, loans) typically pay flat fees per qualified lead or policy rather than percentage commissions. Research what comparable programmes in your category offer before setting your rate.

What is the difference between affiliate marketing and influencer marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based model — the affiliate earns commission when a tracked outcome occurs. Influencer marketing may or may not be performance-based. Many influencer arrangements involve a flat fee for content creation or reach, regardless of sales. Some influencer programmes combine a flat fee with a performance commission. The structural difference is risk: in affiliate, the advertiser pays on result; in influencer, the advertiser often pays on delivery of content.

Do I need an affiliate network to run an affiliate programme?

Not necessarily. Small programmes with a handful of known partners can be managed with unique discount codes and manual commission payments. As the programme grows, an affiliate network provides tracking infrastructure, automated payments and access to a pool of potential affiliate partners. Commission Factory is the most commonly used affiliate network among Australian e-commerce businesses.

Keep exploring

About New Rebellion

New Rebellion is a marketing intelligence consultancy. We build tools, score Australian businesses on how their marketing actually performs, and publish Debrief every day. This dictionary is part of how we work in the open.

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