Before accepting an affiliate, require that they have personally used your product and can provide a transformation testimonial. This ensures their promotion is authentic and compelling. Affiliates motivated by genuine belief will always outperform those just seeking a commission.

The key to Robinhood's viral referral loop wasn't just offering variable stock rewards. Conversion skyrocketed only after they added a step requiring new users to affirmatively 'claim' their free stock, turning a passive reward into an active first engagement and driving user activation.

To maximize the impact of community engagement, Wiz offers tangible, status-enhancing rewards. After completing a difficult hacking challenge, users receive a custom-made certificate of excellence. This praises their skill and gives them a professionally valuable artifact to share, turning a single engagement into widespread, user-driven promotion.

Instead of a passive, open-ended affiliate program, create concentrated launch windows (e.g., one week) with a public leaderboard and prizes. This injects competition and urgency, motivating affiliates to push far harder than they would in a standard, always-on program.

A powerful first move for a new brand is leveraging community-driven affiliate platforms. By getting the product into the hands of engaged creators in relevant communities, a brand can build authentic word-of-mouth and generate multi-million dollar revenue before ever investing in traditional CRM or paid media channels.

Instead of treating high commission payouts as a pure expense, view them as a marketing asset. Actively ensuring it's known that top reps make a lot of money serves as the best possible recruiting tool, attracting other A-players to your company.

Retailers like Tesco use AI to deploy gamified "challenges" at scale. This experiential approach builds long-term loyalty and emotional connections by engaging customers in a way that moves beyond traditional, transactional price-based promotions.

Involve creators early by giving them exclusive previews. This makes them feel like valued partners, not just hired talent, generating genuine excitement that translates into more authentic and powerful promotional content for their audience. It's a key step to improving results.