Affiliate Marketing and Influencer Marketing: How a Store Pays for Referrals

Affiliate marketing and influencer marketing are two ways of paying someone else to recommend your product, and what separates them is what you pay for and who you pay. In affiliate marketing you pay for a result: a sale or a captured lead, whoever generated the click — a blog, a price comparison site, a cashback service or an influencer with an account in an affiliate network. In influencer marketing you pay for a post by a specific person — as a flat fee, in product, or as a commission — because you are buying their reach and credibility, not just the link they leave behind. Both models carry the same legal consequence: if a creator or publisher receives something of value from you for a post, that post has to be identifiable as advertising, and under EU consumer law the advertiser cannot simply hand that responsibility to the creator. This article covers how the payout works, which affiliate networks operate across Europe and what they charge, how to work out whether a commission pays for itself, and what EU law requires when you disclose a collaboration with a creator.

Affiliate marketing — what it is and how it works

Affiliate marketing runs on a triangle: the advertiser (your store) → the affiliate network (a platform that connects advertisers with publishers and tracks results) → the publisher (a blog, a comparison site, a cashback service, an influencer's channel). The publisher posts a unique tracking link or code assigned to them; the network records that an order or a lead came through that link and settles the commission on that basis.

In e-commerce the default model is CPS (cost per sale) — a commission on the value of a completed sale. Awin, one of the large networks in Europe, pitches it to creators in exactly those terms: "earn commission on every sale" (awin.com, read 2026-10-02). It also makes clear that there is no single commission across the network: "Commission structures vary depending on the programme, some pay a percentage of the purchase, others offer a fixed fee for a sale or a lead" (Awin FAQs, read 2026-10-02). The advertiser sets the rate, not the network.

The second model is CPL (cost per lead) — a commission for a captured contact (a completed form, a booked consultation, a scheduled call), whether or not that contact later buys.

For a store with an online checkout, CPS is the starting point, because it ties the payout to an actual sale rather than to interest. With CPL you pay for a contact that may or may not turn into an order, so the risk of a lead that never converts stays with you.

In practice the two worlds — affiliate and influencer marketing — overlap. A creator can have their own link or discount code registered in an affiliate network. Their post is then both an influencer collaboration (you pay a specific person for reach) and an affiliate one (settlement runs on CPS). Which label fits a given agreement better depends on whether the network automates the payout or you negotiate it directly with the creator.

Affiliate networks in Europe

Several affiliate networks operate across European markets, each with its own pool of publishers and its own terms — and none with a single commission rate for the whole market.

Awin runs country sites across much of Europe, including Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland. Worldwide, it reports more than 1 million publishers, 30,000 advertisers, and £18 billion in revenue for advertisers and £1.2 billion for publishers "in the last financial year" (awin.com/gb/about-us, read 2026-10-02). These are the network's own global figures, not EU numbers.

Awin publishes its advertiser pricing per country, in local currency. On the eurozone pages checked on 2026-10-02 the entry plan, Access, costs €99 + VAT a month plus a 3.5% tracking fee on each transaction in Germany, Ireland, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria and Belgium, and €89 + VAT on the French page, with a three-month minimum term (Awin pricing, Ireland; Germany; France). The higher Accelerate plan is priced on request on the Irish page. Publisher commission comes on top of all of this — you set it separately.

Tradedoubler, founded in Stockholm in 1999, says its network spans "over 90 markets worldwide" (tradedoubler.com, read 2026-10-02) — again a global figure, not an EU count. Its site does not publish an advertiser price list.

Neither network publishes one commission rate for publishers that applies across its platform — both refer you to the terms of the individual advertiser's programme. There is no "typical affiliate commission": the rate is a decision the store makes, not a market parameter.

Pick a network on three questions, not on its logo:

• Does it have publishers in your niche — specialist blogs, comparison sites, creators, cashback services?
• What does it cost to run? Awin publishes its prices per country; Tradedoubler does not, so ask before you sign.
• What does the reporting show: clicks and orders broken down by individual publisher, or only a total?

Check the technical integration requirements (a tag on your site, server-side tracking) in the chosen network's documentation, also before you sign.

Affiliate marketing commission: doing the maths

With no market rate to lean on, the calculation has to rest on your own numbers, not on someone else's example from the internet.

The cost of orders from an affiliate programme is: publisher commission (a percentage of order value or a fixed amount) × number of orders attributed to the publisher + any fees the network charges for running the programme. At Awin that is the monthly subscription plus the tracking fee on each transaction; for other networks, check the commercial terms.

Awin gives its own example: with a 6% publisher commission on a €100 transaction, the publisher receives €6 and Awin, on the Access plan, €3.50. That is €9.50 in total, or 9.5% of the order value, before the monthly subscription. In this example the network's fee is more than half the publisher's commission, so count it from day one, not as a minor extra.

Profitability is not decided by the commission rate on its own, but by whether the commission plus the network fee fits inside the contribution margin on the order — what is left after the cost of goods, payment processing fees, shipping and packaging. The formula and its variables are in our article on ecommerce KPIs: that is where you work out the margin on an order; here you only add one more cost to it — the affiliate commission and, where the programme has one, the network fee. For the same reason, comparing networks by the name of their settlement model tells you little: what counts is the specific rate in the specific programme plus the network fee, not the label.

The form of the commission matters regardless of its size. A percentage commission rises and falls with basket value, so its cost per order moves with average order value (AOV). A fixed amount per order works the other way: it is predictable whatever the customer buys, but it does not grow when the customer buys more than average. Which one suits you depends on how order values are distributed in your store — and it is part of the same contribution-margin calculation, not a separate decision.

Returns are a question of programme terms, not technology. How long after a purchase a transaction is finally approved for payout is set by the advertiser in the terms of each programme; none of the networks described here publishes a standard number of days for the whole market. If you don't want to pay commission on orders that come back, set that period to cover the withdrawal period and the time it takes for goods to be returned. Do it before the programme launches, not after the first invoice has been settled.

Influencer marketing — how the collaboration works

Influencer marketing is a paid or in-kind collaboration with someone who has their own audience on social media. Unlike affiliate marketing, where the network automates settlement, here you negotiate terms with a specific creator (or their agency), and payment can be a flat fee, product, a commission or a mix.

How the sale is attributed deserves thought before the campaign starts. A shopper who sees a product in a post does not necessarily click straight through: they may search for it later or come back to the store days afterwards. A link records only the click-through; a discount code assigned to the creator can still be typed in at checkout by a customer who arrives through a search engine, so the sale can still be credited to the creator. That is a good reason to give each creator a code as well as a link, and to make sure both stay valid for longer than a single session.

"Micro-influencer" is used in the industry for a creator with a smaller, more niche audience than a large account, but there is no single official follower threshold that defines one. When you negotiate, look at the actual reach and audience of the specific account, not at the label.

Disclosure — what EU law requires

If a creator receives something of value for a post, the post has to be identifiable as advertising — whether you pay an affiliate commission, a flat fee or in kind (product to test). In the EU this follows from the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive 2005/29/EC, not from a separate "influencer law":

• failing to identify the commercial intent of a commercial practice, where it is not already apparent from the context, is a misleading omission (Art. 7(2));
• using editorial content to promote a product that the trader has paid for, without making that clear in the content or by images or sounds clearly identifiable by the consumer, is on the Directive's list of practices that are unfair in all circumstances (Annex I, point 11);
• a "trader" includes "anyone acting in the name of or on behalf of a trader" (Art. 2(b)) — so the store that commissions the post and the creator who publishes it are both within the rules.

The Directive is implemented by each member state, so the authority that enforces it, its guidance for creators and the size of fines differ from country to country. The Omnibus Directive (EU) 2019/2161 set a floor for the most serious cases: for widespread infringements handled through coordinated EU enforcement, the maximum fine must be at least 4% of the trader's annual turnover in the member states concerned (Art. 13(3) of the amended Directive, applicable since 28 May 2022).

In practice, the safest form of disclosure has two layers: the platform's own paid-partnership or commercial-content label, where the platform offers one, plus a disclosure you add yourself — in the caption, on the image or video, or in the voice-over. A label that is technically there but easy to miss — a hashtag at the end of a long caption, or a brand name with no context — does not make the commercial intent "clear", which is the standard the Directive sets.

If you work with an agency that deals with creators for you, put the two-layer disclosure requirement in the brief, in writing. The brief matters: a trader's responsibility extends to what it told the creator to do, or not to do.

Reviews and recommendations under the Omnibus Directive

If an affiliate programme or a creator collaboration involves publishing reviews or recommendations of a product, a further set of rules applies. The Omnibus Directive (EU) 2019/2161 added two practices to the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive's list of practices that are unfair in all circumstances — no need to show that anyone was actually misled:

• stating that reviews of a product are submitted by consumers who have actually used or purchased it, without taking reasonable and proportionate steps to check that they originate from such consumers (Annex I, point 23b);
• submitting or commissioning another person to submit false consumer reviews or endorsements, or misrepresenting consumer reviews or social endorsements, in order to promote products (Annex I, point 23c).

The second point applies directly to working with publishers and creators: commissioning them to post fake consumer reviews or endorsements falls under point 23c.

A store that shows customer reviews has a separate information duty as well: where a trader provides access to consumer reviews, information about whether and how it ensures that they come from consumers who actually used or bought the product is treated as material information (Art. 7(6)). Leaving out material information can be a misleading omission.

Contract checklist for a creator or publisher

Before the collaboration starts — with an affiliate network, in an affiliate programme or directly with a creator — put these points in writing:

• Ad disclosure — who adds it (the creator), in what form (two layers: the platform's label plus a disclosure in the content itself) and who is responsible if it is missing.
• Brief and content limits — what the creator may and may not claim about the product (for example health or financial promises the advertiser could not make itself).
• A unique tracking link or code — assigned to that publisher or creator; without it you cannot tell whether the collaboration produced results.
• When commission is settled — on the transaction itself, or only once the withdrawal and return period has ended (see the section on the maths).
• Reporting — how often and in what form the network or creator shows the numbers (clicks, orders, value), so the settlement can be checked rather than taken on trust.
• Content rights — whether the store may reuse the published material (post, photo, video) on its own channels, and for how long.
• Duration and end of the collaboration — whether the creator's link or code stops working immediately or expires later, and whether the published material stays on the creator's channels or has to come down.

No affiliate network or social platform will enforce these points for you — each has to be negotiated. The last one has a legal side too: an active affiliate link that still earns the creator commission is still a benefit from the sale, so later posts carrying that link are subject to the same disclosure rules.

The other paid promotion channels for an online store — Google Shopping, Meta Ads, TikTok Shop, price comparison sites and SMS campaigns — are covered in the other articles in our ecommerce marketing section.