"How to find affiliates" gets answered the same way on most pages: join a network, post your program, wait. Networks work for big consumer brands with a known name. For an app, a SaaS product or a growing DTC brand, posting a program and waiting produces coupon sites and silence.
Affiliates who move revenue are already busy. They have a site that ranks, a channel that gets views, or an audience that buys, and they are promoting somebody, usually your competitor. Finding affiliates is the work of locating those people, in the places where they already earn, and giving them a reason to add you. Here are the six places, in the order that pays.
Key Takeaways
The best affiliates already promote your competitors. Start there; the deal and the audience are proven.
The pages ranking for "best [your category]" and "[competitor] review" are affiliates by definition. Get into them.
Creators with discount codes on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram are affiliates who happen to use video.
Your own customers, especially the ones with an audience, convert best of all and are free to find.
Networks and communities are fine for volume, poor for quality. Work them last.
1. Your competitors' affiliates
Every affiliate link pointing at a competitor is a person who has already decided to promote in your category and already has the audience to do it. This is the highest-converting list you can build, and it is public.
How to find them by hand: take a competitor's domain into a backlink tool and filter referring pages for tracking parameters (ref=, aff=, tag=, network subdomains), then read the referring page to confirm it is a real recommendation. The full walkthrough is in how to find affiliate websites with Ahrefs, including where the method stops working. For creators, search the competitor's name with "code" and "discount" on each platform and read the descriptions and captions.
How to do it in minutes: paste the competitor's URL into AffiliateSpy. The scan returns the creators and the websites promoting it, each with the receipt (the post, the code, the affiliate link), a fit grade and a verified contact. The free influencer finder shows the first scan.
2. Roundups and review sites ranking for your keywords
Search "best [your category]", "[your category] apps", "top [your category] tools" and "[competitor] alternatives". The first page is a list of affiliates: comparison sites, niche blogs, review publishers. Most of them monetise with affiliate links, and most will consider adding a product that pays a competitive commission and has a working landing page.
The pitch here is not "join our program". It is "you rank for X, you feature A and B, here is why C belongs in the list, and here is the commission". Send the writer a short product summary, screenshots and the link; make it easy to add a section. AffiliateSpy's Placements view lists these pages per keyword, which competitors they feature, whether you are in them, and the writer's contact.
3. Creators with codes
A creator who reads out "use code RIVAL20 for 20 percent off" is an affiliate on video. YouTube reviewers, TikTok how-to accounts and Instagram niche creators are the fastest-growing affiliate channel for apps and DTC brands, and they respond to the same offer: a code, a rate, and a tracked link. The full method for finding them, platform by platform, is in how to find influencers already promoting your competitors.
4. Your own customers
The cheapest affiliates to find are already paying you. Search your customer list for people with an audience: a newsletter, a YouTube channel, a blog, a following on LinkedIn or X. Search your support inbox and reviews for people who wrote at length about the product. Invite them personally, with a higher rate than the public program. Customer affiliates write the most credible content and churn the least.
5. Networks and marketplaces
ShareASale, Impact, CJ, Awin, PartnerStack and the SaaS-focused programs (Rewardful, FirstPromoter, Tapfiliate) all have marketplaces where affiliates browse programs. Listing there is cheap and it gets you inbound applications. Expect coupon and deal sites first, content affiliates rarely, and creators almost never. Use the network for tracking and payment; do not rely on it for recruitment. If you are choosing one, best affiliate tracking software compares them.
6. Communities and job boards
Reddit's affiliate marketing communities, niche Facebook groups, affiliate-marketer Discords and the "affiliate wanted" boards produce volume, most of it unqualified. Post there once with a clear rate and landing page, answer questions, and move on. Never spend recruiting time here before you have worked lists 1 to 4.
The process, whichever list you start with
- Build the list with the receipt. For every prospect, record where they promote (the URL of the page or post), what they promote (the competitor, the code), and how big the audience is (traffic estimate or median views).
- Qualify. Drop anyone whose last promotion is over a year old, whose audience is in a country you do not sell in, or whose content is a coupon dump.
- Find the contact. Business email in the bio or About page, a contact page, a link-in-bio page, an agency listing. Verify it before sending.
- Pitch the add. Reference the specific page or post, state the rate and the cookie window, include the link and assets. Ask for a reply.
- Follow up at three, seven and twelve days.
- Onboard fast. A tracked link, a code and a one-page brief within a day of the yes. Affiliates who do not post in the first two weeks rarely post at all.
- Track it. Contacted, replied, agreed, live, paid. See how to recruit affiliates for the outbound mechanics in detail.
Tools for each list
| Where to look | Manual tool | Purpose-built |
|---|---|---|
| Competitor affiliates (web) | Ahrefs or Semrush backlinks, filtered by tracking parameters | AffiliateSpy scan of the competitor's domain |
| Competitor affiliates (creators) | Platform search for the brand plus "code" | AffiliateSpy scan of the competitor's app or site; free influencer finder |
| Roundups and reviews | Google, one keyword at a time | AffiliateSpy Placements, per keyword, with contacts |
| Your customers | Your CRM and support inbox | The same, plus a personal invite |
| Networks | The network's marketplace | Rewardful, FirstPromoter, PartnerStack listings |
| Outreach | Gmail plus a spreadsheet | AffiliateSpy sequences from your own inbox, replies in a pipeline |
Frequently asked questions
How many affiliates do I need? Ten active content affiliates or creators outperform a hundred dormant sign-ups. Recruit thirty from lists 1 to 3, expect a third to go live, and grow from there.
What commission should I offer? Whatever your competitors offer plus a margin, within what your unit economics allow. For software, 20 to 30 percent recurring for at least a year is the common shape; for apps and DTC, a percentage of first purchase or a flat bounty per install with a code.
Can an AI agent do this? Yes. AffiliateSpy exposes the scan, the shortlist and the outreach draft as MCP tools, and ships a skill for recruiting affiliates already promoting competitors that an agent can run end to end, with your approval before anything sends.