Affiliate is TrendLife's single largest area of untapped potential. The ambition is to scale affiliate revenue by 4-5x. Today, TrendLife operates across Rakuten Advertising, Impact Radius, and CJ Affiliate, but the channel is significantly underperforming - limited partner recruitment, maintenance-mode operation, no cohesive global architecture. You'll own this transformation end-to-end: aggressive publisher business development, platform decisions, commission optimization, fraud prevention, and incrementality measurement.
You'll use AI as your unfair advantage. AI-powered partner discovery to identify high-value publishers at scale. Claude Code to build your own tracking dashboards and commission models. Automated outreach workflows. AI-driven fraud detection. You'll move faster than a traditional affiliate manager because you'll automate the operational overhead and spend your time on relationships and strategy.
Program Architecture and Strategy- Design and govern the global affiliate program: commission structures, partner tiering, promotional calendars, and brand safety standards
- Evaluate platform consolidation across Rakuten, Impact Radius, and CJ - use AI to analyze partner overlap, revenue attribution, and cost efficiency across platforms to inform the recommendation
- Build a 6-month growth roadmap with specific milestones, recruitment targets, and revenue projections toward the 4-5x ambition
- Own the strategic decision on agency vs. in-house execution for affiliate
Publisher Business Development - AI-Accelerated- Lead aggressive partner recruitment: use AI tools for partner discovery at scale - identifying high-value affiliates across technology review sites, personal finance publishers, digital lifestyle creators, coupon/deal sites, and strategic technology partners
- Build automated outreach workflows: AI-drafted personalized pitches, follow-up sequences, and partner onboarding communications
- Develop clear timelines from identification to activation, with AI-powered pipeline tracking
- Source non-traditional partnerships: content creators, influencer programs, and strategic distribution deals in consumer cybersecurity
Measurement and Incrementality- Use AI to build your own affiliate performance dashboards - daily revenue tracking, partner contribution analysis, and trend detection without waiting for network reporting cycles
- Ensure affiliate activity is genuinely additive - build incrementality testing frameworks using AI-assisted analytics to separate real partner-driven revenue from brand-riding activity
- Partner with Performance & Analytics on attribution clarity, integrating affiliate measurement into the broader analytics framework
- Use AI and machine learning for commission optimization, performance prediction, and automated partner scoring
Technology and Operations- Own the affiliate technology stack: tracking platforms, fraud detection, partner discovery, and payout management
- Use Claude Code or Python to automate reporting, payout calculations, and compliance monitoring
- Deploy AI-powered fraud detection: pattern recognition, anomaly detection, and automated flagging of suspicious activity
- Manage contract negotiations and network commercial terms across regions
Cross-Functional Coordination- Work with regional acquisition leads who own local activation and partner priority
- Coordinate with the agency on affiliate scope - define clear swim lanes between in-house and agency responsibilities
- Partner with marketing and PR on co-branded campaigns and product launch activation through the partner channel
- Align with the SEO/content team to avoid cannibalization between organic and affiliate-driven coupon/deal content
You Bring- 5-7+ years in affiliate marketing, partnerships, or business development - ideally multi-region with a genuine network of publisher relationships you can activate immediately
- Deep knowledge of major affiliate platforms (Rakuten, Impact, CJ), tracking technology, and attribution challenges
- Proven track record of scaling affiliate programs through active publisher recruitment - not just managing existing partners
- Genuine AI fluency: you already use or are eager to adopt AI tools for partner discovery, outreach automation, data analysis, and workflow efficiency - experience with Claude Code, Python, or similar is a differentiator
- Strong analytical approach: you can model commission scenarios, run incrementality tests, and separate signal from noise in partner performance data
- Experience with fraud detection, compliance, and partner quality management at scale
- A learning mentality - you'll be building new AI-powered workflows from scratch and need to enjoy that process
- Familiarity with consumer technology, cybersecurity, or subscription verticals is a strong plus
