3 SaaS Founders Reveal Their Winning Affiliate Program Strategies

Paulina

How would you feel having a free sales army working for you?

Well, that’s exactly what affiliate marketing can do for your SaaS business.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Affiliate marketing? Isn’t that just a bunch of scams?” I used to think the same thing. I associated it with a way of making money by building niche blogs while referring Amazon products (which I must confess I tried, with no success). But there’s much more to it than that.

Today, I’ll look at it from a different angle. Many legit SaaS tools like ConvertKit or Webflow offer reward programs that have seriously boosted their revenue.

Not only can you make more money. Affiliates can act like free promoters, improving your SEO with quality backlinks, and building trust with people who’ve already won the confidence of your target audience.

You might’ve heard myths like “affiliate programs don’t work for lower-priced SaaS products”. That’s not necessarily true. With the right approach, you can make it work regardless of your price point.

Maybe you’ve tried an affiliate program before and it didn’t bring in many customers. Don’t give up just yet!

Here are the successful tactics from 3 SaaS you can apply in your product.

Testimonial.io by Damon Chen

Damon Chen is the founder of ​Testimonial.io​, a platform for collecting video testimonials. Ten days after launching in 2020, he made $3,025, and by March 2024, the platform reached $1 million in annual revenue. Talk about product-market fit!

Four years ago, Damon launched an ​affiliate program​ that now brings 10%-15% of the platform’s revenue. Affiliates receive 30% of the monthly revenue, and customers get a 15% discount for the first year. This equates to $18 for the Premium plan and $54 for the Ultimate plan.

How does Damon attract affiliates? His main strategy is promoting the program to current users by mentioning the affiliate program in his new user onboarding campaigns: “Existing customers performed better than stranger signups, specially those customers who are influential in their industry, or have many connections (like running a marketing agency),” he shares.

Another clever strategy including an affiliate calculator on his site so that potential affiliates can know how much they could earn.

Additionally, he promotes the affiliate program on Twitter and LinkedIn, sharing success stories and screenshots of payments. He includes a call-to-action (CTA) and link in his posts to attract more affiliates:

Headshotpro by Danny Postma

Danny Postma has generated over 14 million professional headshots for over 86,000 customers with his AI tool ​HeadshotPro​. Within a year of its launch, he reached $300,000 in monthly revenue.

His ​affiliate program​ has been highly successful, hitting $100,000 at the start of this year and now bringing him more than $50k per month, which accounts for over 15% of the company’s monthly revenue. Affiliates earn $8.70, $11.70, and $17.70 for the Basic, Professional, and Executive plans, respectively.

Danny believes the affiliate program plays a crucial role in the brand’s growth: “I think without the affiliate program, fewer people would write about us as there is no financial incentive to do so for them. Having this affiliate program makes us a much stronger brand.”

Danny ​gives away his product​ in exchange for reviews. Users fill out a form, and Danny reviews their content to ensure it’s high-quality and aligns with his audience.

How does he grow his program? He includes an affiliate link in the footer of his website and benefits greatly from traffic driven by his SEO efforts. Like Damon, Danny also shares milestones with his large social media following of 130,000 people:

Pallyy by Tim Bennetto

The social media platform ​Pallyy​ was stuck at $1-2K in MRR for almost two years. However, founder Tim Benetto found a way to break through. After nearly five years of daily work, Pallyy now generates $85k of revenue, has a small team and over 100,000 users.

Although Pallyy’s ​affiliate program​ started pretty slow, it now contributes 22% of the total MRR. As of September 2024, affiliates have generated $150K in revenue. The program pays a 20% commission on all payments, which translates to $5.40 per account. Originally, the commission rate was an aggressive 40% for the affiliate’s lifetime, which helped drive early growth.

He mentions one overlooked benefit of affiliates: they bring in valuable backlinks, which helps Pallyy’s rank better in search engines.

Tim’s early strategy for acquiring affiliates was manual outreach. He searched for blogs related to social media marketing by Googling relevant topics like “Top Instagram analytics tools” and reviewed the articles to see if they included affiliate links. If they did, he added the blog to his list and sent a direct, simple one-sentence email asking to be included. Although the response rate was low, this method helped him secure some of Pallyy’s top affiliates he has today.

While some sites charge to include you in their lists, Tim clarifies he’s never paid for inclusion. However, since these sites dominate many search terms, it’s better to be included if the opportunity arises.

Today, Tim simply includes a link on Pallyy’s dashboard so that his users can sign up on autopilot. Now he only needs to spend around 10 minutes per month on paying affiliates.

Summary of tactics to make your affiliate program work

  • Promote your affiliate program to your existing users by including a link in your onboarding message or within your product.
  • Feature your affiliate tool as a partner and include a link that redirects to your affiliate page.
  • Create a strong landing page:
    • Hook: Use a persuasive title that sparks interest, like HeadshotPro’s “We take their headshots. You take 30%” or Testimonial’s “Be our affiliate. Earn 30% commission!”
    • Earnings clarity: Show how much affiliates can earn per plan in a clear way.
    • Multiple CTAs: Include “Join our affiliate program” buttons throughout the page.
  • Offer a generous commission (30-50%) to accelerate growth in the early stages.
  • Reach out to niche websites or top directories that rank tools to include your affiliate program.
  • Promote your affiliate program on social media or in newsletters by highlighting payments or celebrating affiliate milestones. Always include a link for those interested in joining.

Setting up an affiliate program for your SaaS seems to be a great way to increase your product’s earnings, boost SEO, and build trust with your target audience.

These cases show that with the right strategies, you won’t can build a successful affiliate program that works, regardless of your product’s price point or starting position.

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Paulina Sáez

Paulina is the creator and main writer at UpGroves. She spends her days analyzing how successful creators and entrepreneurs grow their businesses. She's a curious generalist that likes to spend her time going down on internet rabbit holes, reading, and walking in nature.

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