AI-powered affiliate program optimization
The Actions Inbox runs an automatic analysis of your AvantLink and Impact affiliate data and surfaces specific, prioritized recommendations - each one naming a concrete action, not generic advice. Think of it as an affiliate program manager reviewing your data regularly and leaving a prioritized to-do list.
How it works
OptimizeAffiliate runs an AI analysis against your synced affiliate data on a regular schedule. The model evaluates partner performance trends, promo code attribution, inventory status, creative freshness, commission efficiency, and progress toward your revenue goal. Each finding is converted into a named action with a specific recommended next step.
You can also trigger an on-demand run at any time by clicking Run Agent Now inside the inbox. On-demand runs are identical to scheduled runs in analysis depth and output quality.
Partner Intelligence - the profile behind each partner action
Partner-specific actions - partner_decline, rising_star, dormant_partner, ntf_champion, consistency_score, and others - don't just fire an alert. Each one links through to that partner's Partner Intelligence profile: an AI-generated analysis covering revenue trend, customer quality, profitability, and behavioural archetype.
When the inbox flags a Rising Star, the profile tells you why - their 8-week revenue arc, NTF rate versus program average, repeat purchase rate, true profit per order, and a 4-6 sentence strategic summary written by Claude. That context is what turns the recommended action (a commission bump, a product push, a re-engagement email) into a confident, specific conversation rather than a guess.
Think of it this way: the Actions Inbox tells you when to act on a partner. The Partner Intelligence profile tells you who that partner actually is so you know how. See the Partners documentation for a full description of what each profile contains.
Priority tiers
Actions are sorted into three priority tiers. Priority 1 items are revenue-critical and surface at the top. Priority 2 items are program-health improvements. Priority 3 items are long-term strategic considerations.
Priority 1 - Act today
These are things actively costing you money or blocking your revenue goal right now. Trademark bidding violations surface at the very top of Priority 1 - they represent a direct conflict with your paid search budget and require same-day action.
| Field | What it means |
|---|---|
| trademark_bidding | An affiliate is running a paid search ad that links through an affiliate tracking URL on one of your protected brand keywords. This violates standard affiliate program terms and cannibalizes your own paid media spend. Identifies the network and ad copy so you can act immediately. Requires Protected Keywords to be configured in Strategy. |
| goal_behind_pace | Your program is more than 15% behind the monthly revenue pace needed to hit your goal. Recommends specific partners to activate or increase commission. |
| promo_leak | A discount code is being used at checkout but revenue isn't being attributed to any affiliate. Indicates an unauthorized code share or a tracking gap. |
| inventory_alert | One or more products in your affiliate feed are out of stock or critically low. Affiliates sending traffic to these pages are burning clicks with no conversion opportunity. |
| promotion_creative | A promotional window (sale, holiday, campaign) is approaching and no updated creative has been published to affiliates. Generated when a promo end date is set in Creatives. |
Priority 2 - This week
Partner performance and program health improvements that compound over time.
| Field | What it means |
|---|---|
| partner_decline | A previously active partner's revenue or clicks have dropped significantly over the last 30 days. Recommends outreach or commission adjustment. |
| rising_star | A newer affiliate is showing strong early momentum - high CR, growing clicks, or high NTF rate. Recommends a proactive commission bump to lock in the relationship. |
| raise_commission | A high-performing partner's commission rate is below the program average or below what comparable partners earn. Recommends a targeted increase. |
| creative_refresh | An audit of your active network creative flagged quality issues - generic CTAs, expired seasonal copy, missing offers, or landing URLs pointing to homepages instead of relevant product pages. Low-quality creatives reduce click-through rates across every partner using them. |
| recruit_partners | Affiliate click volume from a specific category (e.g., content, coupon) is low relative to program size. Recommends targeted recruitment. |
| return_rate_high | A specific affiliate is driving purchases with an unusually high return rate - orders that reverse after attribution. May indicate coupon stacking or low-intent traffic. Requires Tier 2 enriched order data. |
| customer_quality_low | A partner's enriched order data shows a low rate of new customers combined with a high return rate - traffic that is mostly repeat buyers who return products. Recommends restructuring to a CPA or net-revenue commission. Requires Tier 2 enriched order data. |
| dead_stock | Products with 20+ units on hand have zero affiliate sales in the last 30 days. Recommends a targeted promotion or creative push. |
| product_coverage_gap | A product category has strong catalog presence and in-stock inventory but affiliates have driven little or no revenue from it in the last 90 days. Recommends recruiting category-specific affiliates or pushing targeted creative to close the gap. |
| margin_underperformer | A partner's commissions are consuming more than 60% of the gross margin their sales generate - the economics of the relationship are unsustainable at current rates. Recommends switching to a margin-adjusted CPA structure. Requires Tier 2 enriched order data. |
Priority 3 - Strategic
Long-term program optimization opportunities. Lower urgency, but high value over a quarter.
| Field | What it means |
|---|---|
| low_cvr | An affiliate is driving significant click volume but converting at a rate well below the program average. Recommends landing page review or creative swap. |
| concentration_risk | More than 70% of your affiliate revenue is concentrated within one publisher type (e.g., all coupon or all content). Recommends diversifying your publisher mix to reduce program fragility. |
| dormant_partner | A previously active affiliate hasn't generated a click or sale in 30+ days. Recommends a re-engagement campaign with an exclusive incentive. |
| lower_commission | A partner's CR, revenue, and new-customer rate have all declined while their commission rate remains unchanged. Recommends a rate restructuring conversation. |
| promo_code_expiring | An affiliate-specific promo code is within 14 days of its expiration date. Recommends informing the partner and deciding whether to renew or retire the code. |
| sample_opportunity | A high-CR content partner with a strong new-customer rate has no active product sample relationship. Product seeding typically lifts conversion rates by 30-50%. |
| ntf_champion | A specific affiliate has an unusually high NTF rate - they're consistently bringing in new customers. Recommends recognition and a dedicated new-customer bonus tier. Requires Tier 2 enriched order data. |
| partner_accelerate | A mid-tier partner is showing consistent upward momentum - growing clicks, improving CR, or rising revenue trend over multiple weeks. Recommends an account review to explore a co-marketing opportunity or strategic partnership tier before a competitor locks them in. |
| consistency_score | A partner who previously generated $100+ per period has become intermittent - active in only one of the last four weeks. May indicate they're rotating another program or losing interest. Recommends proactive outreach to investigate before the relationship lapses. |
| commission_efficiency | A partner's revenue-to-commission ratio has fallen below 5x - the program is paying more than 20 cents in commission per dollar earned. Recommends renegotiating terms or moving the partner to a performance-based tier. |
AI Visibility actions
Two additional action types are generated from the weekly AI Visibility scan - which queries Claude and ChatGPT for shopping queries relevant to your brand and records which domains appear in results. These surface separately from the three main priority tiers because they're driven by a weekly scan cycle rather than the regular affiliate data sync.
| Field | What it means |
|---|---|
| ai_recruit_target | A domain appeared in AI engine results for queries relevant to your brand but is not in your affiliate program. Because it already ranks in AI-generated shopping responses, it's a higher-probability recruit than a cold outreach target. |
| ai_star_partner | A partner in your program was cited three or more times by AI engines this week for brand-relevant queries - they are actively driving AI-search visibility for your brand. Recommends a commission bump or exclusive offer to sustain their momentum. |
Marking actions complete
Each action has a Mark Complete button. Marking an action done removes it from the active inbox and logs it to history with a timestamp. History is exportable via the Export CSV button - useful for reporting affiliate program management activity to stakeholders.
Daily digest
A summary email of your top actions, along with the prior day's key metrics, sends daily at 7am (configurable in Settings). The digest is suppressed on days when all metrics are zero to avoid noise.
Related reading
Go deeper on the two most commonly actioned partner signals: How to Identify Rising Star Affiliates covers the four detection signals and exact thresholds behind the rising_star action. How to Identify and Re-Engage Dormant Affiliates explains the dormancy window, detection logic, and outreach templates behind the dormant_partner action.
Frequently asked questions
How does OptimizeAffiliate generate affiliate program recommendations?
The Actions Inbox uses an AI model that runs automatically against your synced AvantLink and Impact data. It looks for statistically meaningful patterns - a partner's CR dropping 20%+ week over week, a promo code appearing in orders without affiliate attribution, a rising affiliate whose commission tier hasn't been adjusted - and converts each finding into a specific, named action. The model is instructed to never generate generic advice: every action names a specific partner or product.
What is a Priority 1 action in the affiliate Actions Inbox?
Priority 1 actions are things that are actively costing you money or directly blocking your revenue goal right now. Examples: a trademark bidding violation where an affiliate is running paid search ads on your brand keywords, your program being behind its monthly revenue pace, a promo code leak attributing sales to no affiliate, or an inventory alert flagging out-of-stock products in your affiliate feed. Trademark bidding violations surface at the very top of Priority 1 because they conflict directly with your paid media budget. All Priority 1 items are meant to be acted on the same day.
Can I run the affiliate program analysis manually, or does it only run on a schedule?
Both. The agent runs automatically on a schedule. You can also trigger it on demand at any time by clicking 'Run Agent Now' inside the Actions Inbox. On-demand runs use the same model and produce the same quality of output - there's no difference in analysis depth.
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