I run affiliate programs for several brands.
Some days it feels like my calendar is just:
Checking performance
Talking to partners
Tweaking funnels and creatives
Planning what to test next
And somewhere in between, I still need to:
Discover new partners
Keep current partners happy
Show my clients the program is moving
Outreach is where the money comes from.
Discovery is where my hours disappear.
So my default stack stayed very boring for a long time:
Google
Search operators
Spreadsheets
Stuff like:
brand + "review"competitor + "alternatives"[niche] + "cashback"site:youtube.com competitor review
Those simple combo’s still finds some of my best partners, so I never felt a strong urge to change it.
What did change: I wanted a more consistent way to find new partners, even on busy weeks.
Whether you manage multiple programs or one brand you want to grow, it is the same problem:
You want outbound to keep moving
without turning every week into a research marathon.
That is when I started testing tools like AffiliateFinder.ai and Affistash.
Just to see if one of them could remove some of the grind without giving up control.
This edition is about AffiliateFinder.ai, purely from how I actually used it.
I am not a professional tool reviewer. I just test things in my own outreach and share what actually helps me.
How I first plugged it into my day
I did not start with a “perfect” setup.
I picked one brand where:
Conversion already worked
Competitors were clear
The niche had enough publishers
Then I added inside AffiliateFinder.ai:
The brand’s site
Geo and language
10 competitors
A few strong keywords
(In the screenshot above I’m showing a test search, so I don’t give away my real client search terms.)
Nothing special.
After that, the tool started to:
Scan the web, YouTube and Instagram
Find sites and creators already talking about the niche or my competitors
Show me where the traffic is coming from and how high the traffic is
Enrich them with mail addresses
Result: one central list that actually felt like a starting point, not a random dump.
At this point I was still in “prove it” mode.
Plenty of tools look nice on day one and then stay closed forever.
Where it really started to help in my week
1️⃣ Weekly emails that quietly nudge me to do outreach
The first thing that hooked me was very simple.
Once a brand is set up, I get a short email every week:
“Here is how many new potential affiliates we found”
A few examples with links I can click into
In practice the workflow is simple:
I open the email when I’m in outreach mode
I click through to the brand’s list in AffiliateFinder.ai
I pick the strongest fits and add them into my sheet / pipeline
So I don’t start from a blank page every time.
There is always a fresh batch of prospects that already passed a basic relevance filter.
For agencies: this keeps several clients moving without separate “research days” for each.
For a single brand: it gives you a steady trickle of new options to contact while you focus on everything else.
That small nudge is enough to keep multiple programs moving, even when the week is messy.
Affiliate recruitment becomes a rhythm instead of a heroic research sprint every few weeks.
2️⃣ Cleaning the list before I waste energy or VA hours
The second thing that changed my behaviour: how I triage publishers.
Inside the tool I can see for each prospect:
One or more email addresses for many sites
Social profiles for a lot of creators
Traffic metrics, so I can see if there is at least some volume
Last published date, so I can ignore blogs that died quietly in 2021
In my old workflow, this step was the mental drain:
Clicking through contact pages
Solving CAPTCHAs
Wondering if the site still gets any traffic or checking it through Similarweb or Semrush.
Throwing this at a VA and paying for hours of manual hunting
Now I do something like this:
Filter on relevance
Glance at traffic signals
Decide “yes” or “no” much faster
The question becomes:
“Is this a real potential partner for this brand, right now?”
not
“Can I somehow find a contact’s mail address and is it worth it to reach out to them?”
The difference in energy is big.
I can use the saved time to think about the angle, the value for them, and how this fits the program.
How I now split work between search operators and AffiliateFinder.ai
After a few weeks, this is how it settled in my head.
I still use search operators when I want to:
Understand a niche
See who ranks for certain terms
Spot content gaps and angles
I still enjoy doing this part myself.
It gives me intuition for the space.
I use AffiliateFinder.ai when I want to:
Keep a living list of potential partners per brand
Get a weekly flow of new opportunities
Quickly see who is active, who has some traffic and who is basically a ghost
Grab emails and socials from one screen instead of 20 tabs
Right now it sits next to my boring stack as a discovery and enrichment layer.
As I keep optimising how I set it up and move to a bigger plan, I see it taking over more and more of the manual prospecting work I do today.
How I would test it if you are in a similar position
If you manage outreach for clients or for your own brand, this is the test I would actually run:
Pick one brand that already converts and is important for you
Set it up in AffiliateFinder.ai with:
Your site
Geo and language
3 to 5 real competitors
A few strong keywords
Let it run for a few days, then filter on:
Multiple relevant content pieces
Traffic that looks real enough
Recent activity
Use the contacts in your existing outreach templates
After the 7 day trial, look at:
How much time you spent on research
How many people you actually reached out to from the AffiliateFinder.ai list
If you see less research time and more outreach, it probably earned a permanent spot in your stack.
One good partner can pay for the tool, so with the free trial and the up to 35% BFCM discount, this is a very low risk moment to let it take over a chunk of your manual prospecting.
If you want to try it while the offer runs
Right now they offer:
A free 7 day trial
Up to 50% off for BFCM
👉 If you want to run the same experiment on your side, claim your 7 day trial now.
Next edition I will share how Affistash fits into this picture, so you can see where each tool makes sense in a real outreach workflow.
(This edition contains affiliate links. If you buy or subscribe through one of these links, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend tools I actually use or test in my own workflow.)
Best,
Jani Gysels