Affiliate Infrastructure
Don't let your hard-won traffic stop at the first conversion. We build end-to-end affiliate and referral infrastructure — in-app widgets, partner portals, automated payouts, and ongoing partner recruitment — that turns every new user into a growth channel.
The Opportunity
Every satisfied customer is a potential advocate. Without a structured referral program, that word-of-mouth is random and untracked. With one, it becomes a predictable, measurable acquisition channel with the lowest CAC in your stack.
You only pay when a signup converts. The cost is a percentage of revenue already earned, making affiliate CAC structurally lower than any paid channel.
Referred users arrive with higher intent, onboard faster, and churn at a fraction of the rate of cold paid traffic. They were pre-sold before they signed up.
Most programs take 3–6 months to show results because setup is slow. We compress that to 30 days by running recruitment in parallel with infrastructure build.
Our Process
Four stages that take you from no affiliate infrastructure to a live, compounding partner network — in 30 days.
We audit your current acquisition channels and design an affiliate structure matched to your pricing model, churn rate, and ideal affiliate profile. Commission rules, cookie windows, attribution logic — all decided before a line of code is written.
We set up your affiliate portal (or integrate with your existing stack), build the in-app referral widget, wire up tracking, and configure automated payout flows. Your team reviews and approves — we handle the technical lift entirely.
We run targeted outreach to 50+ niche bloggers, newsletter writers, comparison sites, and creators who already reach your ICP. We vet, onboard, and brief each partner — you get a live roster with projected traffic volumes.
We track which partners drive quality signups versus vanity traffic, adjust commission incentives, prune underperformers, and recruit replacements continuously. Monthly reports show CAC, LTV-to-commission ratios, and compound growth rate.
What We Build
A complete affiliate program is more than a tracking link and a payout. We build all four layers — referral mechanics, partner network, attribution, and reward infrastructure — so the system actually scales.
What's Included
One fixed fee covers strategy, setup, partner recruitment, and ongoing management for the full 60-day pilot.
Unlike paid ads that reset to zero when budgets stop, affiliate programs build momentum. Each new partner, each satisfied referral, each automated payout makes the system stronger — not more expensive.
Client Result
"We went from zero affiliate revenue to 22% of new MRR coming through the partner channel in under 60 days. The program basically runs itself now — Crest set up everything so well that our team barely touches it."
FAQ
No. The referral program (in-app) benefits from an existing user base, but the affiliate partner channel is independent — it recruits external bloggers, creators, and comparison sites who already reach your target audience. We typically run both in parallel, but even a product with a few hundred users can launch a strong affiliate partner program immediately.
We have hands-on experience with Impact, PartnerStack, Rewardful, FirstPromoter, and Tapfiliate. We also build custom lightweight affiliate systems for products that need tighter integration with their billing stack. We recommend the right tool based on your pricing model and technical constraints — not what earns us a referral fee.
We build multi-layer fraud filters from day one: email domain checks, payment method verification, session behaviour analysis, and a minimum activation window before commissions unlock. We also vet every external affiliate partner manually before onboarding — no bulk directory recruitment.
It depends on your pricing and churn. For monthly plans, 20–30% recurring commission is standard and highly motivating for long-term partners. For annual plans, a flat first-payment commission (30–50%) works better. We model the economics for your specific numbers during the program design phase so you never pay out more than your unit economics allow.
Yes. We work with Stripe, Paddle, Chargebee, and most major billing platforms. For in-app referral widgets, we provide a JavaScript snippet that works with any frontend framework — no full product integration required. We also connect with HubSpot, Intercom, and Customer.io for automated partner communications.