A note from Michael Butler, founder of Insert Affiliate.
I recently sat down with the team at Remerge for episode 238 of the Apptivate podcast, "Solving affiliate attribution for app businesses". It was a fun conversation about why affiliate marketing is still one of the most criminally underused acquisition channels for apps, and what it takes to turn it into something you can actually measure.
If you have not listened yet, you can listen to the full episode here. Here is what we covered.
Why I built Insert Affiliate
The origin story will be familiar to anyone who has tried to grow an app on paid channels. Apple Search Ads and Meta Ads were producing customer acquisition costs that made no sense for a subscription app, and the obvious alternative, working with creators and influencers, had a different problem: there was no reliable way to connect an in-app purchase back to the person who drove it.
Web affiliate marketing has had that solved for decades. Apps did not. That gap is what I built Insert Affiliate to close: attribution links, referral short codes, and transaction tracking that tie every purchase to the affiliate who referred it.
Affiliate marketing is measurable user acquisition
A big theme of the episode is reframing affiliate marketing as a UA channel rather than a brand or PR activity. Once each purchase is attributed to an affiliate, you can see exactly which creators are producing revenue, what your effective cost of acquisition is per partner, and where to double down.
That measurability matters more every year. As paid UA costs climb, a channel where you only pay when a customer actually converts becomes very hard to ignore.
Launching a simple program for a new app
My advice for a new app is to keep the first version of the program small and simple:
- Pick one attribution method to start with (a link or a short code) and one incentive structure.
- Recruit a handful of affiliates who genuinely use and like the app.
- Track everything from day one so you know what is working before you scale.
You do not need a large network to get results. I mentioned None To Run, a running app, which generated around $5K in revenue from only a handful of affiliates.
Which apps do best with affiliates
Not every category converts equally well through creators. Apps with a clear outcome the user cares about, and a community of people who already talk about that outcome online, tend to perform best. Fitness, health, productivity, education, and finance apps all fit that pattern. The common thread is that a creator can honestly say "I use this and here is what it did for me".
Quality over quantity in creator recruitment
The line from the episode I stand by most:
"If you find an affiliate that's a really good fit, really likes what you're building, and will post about it in a very genuine way, they don't need a large audience, just an engaged one."
Micro-influencers with engaged audiences frequently outperform larger creators on a revenue basis. My tip for finding them: start with your own customers. If you know who your customers are and where they spend time online, you already know which creators will resonate with them.
Affiliates also need guidance, the same way any new team member does. Give them the key messages, a clear call to action, and their code or link, and let them put it in their own voice.
Compensation models: flat fee vs revenue share
We compared the two main ways to pay affiliates:
- Flat fee per install or sale. Simple to understand and easy for affiliates to forecast, but it shifts the risk to you if those users do not retain.
- Recurring revenue share. Aligns incentives with long-term subscriber value and is what most subscription apps end up using. Affiliates earn as long as the subscriber keeps paying.
My general steer is to pay on sales rather than installs wherever possible. Installs are cheap to generate and easy to inflate; a completed purchase is the outcome you actually want.
Turning affiliate UGC into paid advertising
The final topic is one many teams miss. Content that affiliates create about your app is often the best performing creative you will ever get, because it is authentic and already validated by real engagement. With the right agreement in place, you can reuse that content in your paid campaigns, which lowers creative costs and usually improves conversion rates at the same time.
How this maps to Insert Affiliate
Everything we discussed is what I built the platform to support:
- Attribution links and short codes so you can pick the method that fits each affiliate and campaign.
- Transaction tracking across the App Store, Google Play, RevenueCat, and other purchase sources, so every purchase is attributed to the right affiliate.
- Flexible commission rules, including recurring revenue share and flat amounts.
- One-click payouts so paying your affiliates takes seconds rather than a spreadsheet and a bank login.
Thanks to the Remerge team for having me on. You can listen to the full episode on the Remerge site.