affiliate-recruitment-outreach

The saved excerpt is a snapshot from when this skill was listed. The external source remains the complete and most current version.

---
name: affiliate-recruitment-outreach
description: Draft the outreach copy and sequence plan used to recruit new affiliates into a commission-based affiliate program - prospect qualification and tiering, pitch angle, first-touch recruitment email, follow-up sequence with a breakup touch, channel mix, and outreach tracking. Covers B2B SaaS and B2C ecommerce/DTC programs. Use whenever the user mentions recruiting affiliates, affiliate sourcing, or pitching content and review sites, coupon and cashback partners, newsletter operators, communities, podcasters, or agencies to join a program, even if they never say recruitment. Do NOT use for pitching one individually vetted creator - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@influencer-outreach instead.
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: Maya-Beth Finotti
  version: "1.4.5"
---

# Affiliate Recruitment Outreach

Draft the copy and sequence plan an affiliate program manager uses to actively recruit new affiliates. This skill owns active outreach only.

Affiliate recruitment has no canonical named industry framework. The only affiliate-native vocabulary with broad adoption is the active/passive recruitment split, coined by practitioner Geno Prussakov:

- _Passive_ recruitment makes the program findable.
- _Active_ recruitment reaches out to identified prospects.

Vendor and course models circulating in this space (five-P flywheels, "perfect partner" lists, 20-60-20 splits) are individual commercial programs, not industry standards. Never present one as a standard.

## Interview

Ask before drafting anything. One question per message; offer multiple-choice answers when possible. Skip any question the user already answered.

- Is the program B2B SaaS or B2C ecommerce/DTC? (Or both - then segment everything downstream.)
- What makes the product worth promoting - the value prop an affiliate's audience would actually care about?
- What is the already-decided commission, exactly: rate/model, cookie or attribution window, payout terms? This skill communicates the commission; it never designs or adjusts it.
- Which affiliate categories does this list target? (Content/review/comparison sites, coupon/cashback/loyalty, newsletter operators, communities, YouTube/podcast, consultants/agencies/integration partners, existing customers, competitors' current affiliates.)
- Where did the prospect list come from, and how warm is it? (Competitor backlink analysis, marketplace directory, event contacts, existing customers, inbound-adjacent, purchased.)
- Where are the prospects located? (US / EU / UK / Canada / mixed - this drives the legal regime for each segment.)
- What is the brand voice? (Formal, peer-casual, playful - or point to an example message.)
- Which CTA can you actually honor: apply link, pre-approved account, reply-for-more-info, or a booked call?
- Who signs the email, and from which address?
- By what date must recruited affiliates be producing? (A live date, next quarter, or no fixed date.)
- Is this a one-off win - a launch, a seasonal push - or a compounding channel you will still be running next year?
- What is the effort ceiling: manager hours per week, and what is already owned? (An existing affiliate roster, a licensed backlink or publisher-discovery tool, a retained agency, an existing customer list.)

The last three questions decide every ranking downstream - sourcing categories, discovery methods, tier attention split, cadence, CTA - so ask them before drafting, never at the moment of choosing.

- A hard near date promotes the fast rungs: competitor-affiliate and SERP sourcing, the 5-touch cadence, the reply-for-info CTA. It demotes complementary vendors and agency/integration partners, which pay a quarter later.
- A compounding mandate reverses that: complementary vendors, agencies, and podcast partners move up, and the long tier-1 pursuit becomes affordable.
- A low effort ceiling deletes the rungs needing coordination or procurement rather than demoting them - name which ones you d