Q: I'm hiring my first affiliate manager. What KPIs do I set?

Q: I'm hiring my first affiliate manager. What KPIs do I set?

Don't measure them on raw revenue alone, that rewards volume over health. Build a scorecard in this order:

— Active partner count: how many drove a sale this month, not total signups. Activation is the core job.
— Revenue from new versus existing partners, tracked separately, so recruiting and account management both show.
— Net revenue after reversals. A manager chasing fraudulent volume looks great until clawbacks land. Tie their number to clean money.
— Time-to-first-sale for new partners. Fast activation is the manager's craft.
— Margin per partner, so they protect rates instead of buying loyalty with discounts.

The caveat: weight quality above gross, or you'll get exactly what you measure, a flood of low-value or fraudulent partners that inflates the dashboard and drains your margin. Set a fraud-rate ceiling as a guardrail KPI: cross it and the bonus is void, no matter how good the topline looks.

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