Affiliate and referral programs, B2C then B2B fintech
Commission structure, partner enablement and payout screening are mine to set. I ran B2C affiliate programs in home improvement and clean energy at ToLocal, then launched a B2B fintech affiliate program the same way.
Six years running partner channels as a P&L, then rebuilding the playbook for B2B fintech
At ToLocal I managed a $10M annual media buy at 80%+ ROI, leading a team of 7 in the US, with 5 more in China and running B2C affiliate programs in home improvement and clean energy. That B2C affiliate discipline is the foundation I later used to launch the B2B fintech affiliate program at PingPong and referral-led growth systems, where partner quality and compliance matter as much as volume. The write-up below is the only end-to-end record of that build, and the case studies linked here cover the attribution and growth work around it.
Read how the B2B program was built ›Partner programs I ran as a P&L: a team of 7 in the US, with 5 more in China, ToLocal 2015–2021
Program design
Partner enablement
Tracking & attribution
Quality & compliance
Profile first,
pay on proof
01 · Profile the partner
I decide who is allowed into the program before I recruit anyone, scoring partners on ICP fit, region, compliance posture and how they actually sell. Six years of B2C affiliate work taught me the roster is set months before the results are.
For the B2B fintech program, content affiliates, resellers and referral sources each got their own qualification bar. Anyone whose traffic sales would reject or compliance would flag never made the list. Sales has already agreed to work the partner map.
Recruiting is filtering; the wrong partner costs more than no partner02 · Structure the incentives
The margin math happens on my side of the table before anyone signs, the same discipline that held a $10M annual media buy at 80%+ ROI. You get what you pay for, so my contracts pay for qualified acquisition.
Commission tiers step up on qualified accounts, and the agreement spells out what qualifies. I ran this across the B2C affiliate programs at ToLocal, then rebuilt it for a B2B fintech program where a bad payout is a compliance problem.
03 · Enable at scale
I build the kit once, so every new partner onboards the same way.
Each partner gets the same kit: positioning docs, campaign templates, an onboarding sequence that runs without me in the room. With the kit packaged that way, a team of 7 at ToLocal ran the programs without drowning in one-off requests.
Enable the newest partner as fast as the first04 · Measure & protect
I treat partner reporting like payouts depend on it, because they do. At ToLocal I tracked each partner through CJ Affiliate, Impact and Voluum, with UTM discipline underneath.
Every partner link carried governed UTMs into GA4 and Looker Studio, so payouts followed measured contribution per partner. I screened for fraud before money moved, which is why compliance kept signing off on the B2B program.
A channel only compounds if the numbers underneath it are realWhat tracks and pays partners:
networks, tracking and payout
networks
CJ Affiliate
Impact
attribution
Voluum
⌁UTM strategy
GTM
& reporting
GA4
Looker Studio
& CRM
HubSpot
Salesforce
Zapier
Make
We worked closely together rolling out a new part of the business, and I was constantly amazed not only by his technical project management skills, but also by his ability to keep the team motivated through the inevitable challenges.
Michael DivinsSales Director
Need a partner channel that compounds?
I price the terms and screen the partners before any payout goes out.