Brand Partnerships, Referral Programmes and Creators

Content and cashback publishers bring you new shoppers. Your existing customers can bring you more, and so can the customers of brands you don’t compete with. 

You can reach both through brand partnerships, referral programmes and creators, with every sale tracked through your affiliate network. 

In a brand partnership, a brand shows another brand’s offer to its customers and earns commission on each sale it refers. A referral programme rewards customers for recommending a brand to friends. A creator partnership pays influencers and content creators to promote a brand’s products. 

Here’s how each one works, and how to run it with Awin. 

How brand partnerships work as retail media 

A brand partnership puts another brand’s offer in front of your customers, and you earn commission when they take it up. Offers can sit on your order confirmation page, in a member perks area or in customer emails, and shoppers redeem them after completing their purchase with you. 

Relevance matters here, so the offer should suit what the shopper just bought. Say Hearthly, a made up UK kitchen appliance retailer, adds a meal kit offer to its confirmation page: 

Hearthly earns from traffic it already has. The meal kit brand reaches new customers who have just shown they like to cook. 

Selling space on your own site like this is a form of retail media. Awin describes brand partnerships as non-endemic retail media, because the partner’s products aren’t ones you stock. 

Running brand partnerships through BrandSwap 

BrandSwap is a technology partner integrated with Awin. Switch it on with one click through the Awin MasterTag, and it shows your shoppers rewards from partner brands before or after they buy. You earn commission on each referral. 

An AI relevance engine matches offers to each shopper’s basket, which is how Hearthly’s oven buyer sees a meal kit. You choose the design, the partner brands and which customers see offers. 

Awin describes BrandSwap as enabling “retail media at scale”. Currys used it to launch post purchase rewards ahead of Black Friday: 

Behind the scenes, technology partners like BrandSwap connect both brands, manage tracking and handle activation through the MasterTag. They’re paid on a cost per acquisition basis, as explained in Awin’s guide to technology partnerships. 

Building a customer rewards page with Tyviso 

A rewards page is a section of your website, often in the customer account area, that lists offers from partner brands. It gives customers a reason to come back, and you earn commission each time they redeem an offer. 

Here’s how one might look for Hearthly: 

Tyviso is a brand partnerships solution provider integrated with Awin. Its rewards technology lets you add, update and remove partner offers through a drag and drop page builder, styled to match your brand. 

Plusnet used Tyviso to launch its Perks Rewards page, choosing offers from a reward library that Awin and Tyviso put together. It brought on more than 25 advertisers in the first six months, and customers who explored the page were 90% more likely to complete an upgrade. 

How referral programmes turn customers into a sales channel 

A referral programme rewards your existing customers for recommending you to friends and family. Each customer gets a personal link or code to share, and when a friend buys through it, affiliate tracking credits the sale to the customer who referred them. 

Rewards come in two main forms: 

• Single sided: only the customer who refers gets a reward, such as credit or a voucher. 
• Double sided: the customer and their friend both get something. 

Imagine Hearthly runs a double sided programme with £10 off for each side. A customer who loves their new oven shares their link with a friend who’s redoing their kitchen. The friend saves £10 on their first order, and the customer gets £10 off their next one. 

Referral programmes and affiliate programmes compared 

Referral programmes and affiliate programmes both bring in new customers on a pay for results basis. The difference is who does the recommending: 

Customer referral is also separate from brand partnerships, where another brand sends its customers to you. In a referral programme, the person recommending you is one of your own customers. 

Running a referral programme with Soreto 

A referral technology partner gives you the share links, rewards and tracking ready made, so you don’t need to build them yourself. 

Soreto is a referral marketing and social sharing technology partner integrated with Awin through the Awin MasterTag. It adds sharing prompts to your site in your own design, so customers can pass an offer on to friends by message or on social media. The sales it drives are tracked through Awin. 

You can find Soreto in Awin’s partner directory. 

Roman used Soreto to build a referral programme it could own and control. Its customers saw refer a friend offers on the order confirmation page, in their account area and in emails. Compared with the year before it went live, revenue from the programme rose 88% and sales rose 75%: 

How creator partnerships fit a performance model 

Creators show your products in use across social media, through recipes, reviews, tutorials and hauls. Their followers trust their taste, so a recommendation from them can introduce your brand, help someone decide or prompt a purchase on the spot. 

In a creator partnership, which blends influencer and affiliate marketing, each creator shares a tracked link or voucher code, so you can see which sales their content drives. You can pay them in a few ways: 

• Commission: a percentage of each sale they drive 
• Flat fee: a set payment for agreed content, such as a video or a post 
• Hybrid: a smaller flat fee plus commission on sales 

Hearthly could launch its new air fryer with a home cooking creator. She films three weeknight recipes using it and adds her voucher code. Hearthly pays a small fee for the videos and commission on every sale her code brings in. 

Working with creators through Awin 

Finding the right creators and managing dozens of relationships takes time. On Awin, you can discover creators, contact them and manage your partnerships in the same platform as the rest of your affiliate partners. 

You can run creator campaigns in two ways: 

-Source: Awin, influencer solutions

Awin also works with influencer subnetworks such as LTK, Metapic, Vamp and ORPIVA AI, which bring more creators into reach. Its Creator App won Most Innovative Technology or Platform at the 2026 Global Performance Marketing Awards.

Managing every partner type in one network 

Running each partner type through its own tool means separate tracking, invoicing and reporting. Through Awin, you can manage these alongside your publishers, track results in one place and pay every partner through one network. 

Here’s each partner type at a glance: 

For brand partnerships, Awin handles the payments between the two brands, so you don’t need a separate contract with each partner. Existing Awin advertisers pay their standard network fees, which you can check on the pricing page. 

FAQs on partnership types 

What is a brand partnership in affiliate marketing? 

A brand partnership is a performance based arrangement where one brand shows another brand’s offer to its customers and earns commission on each sale it refers. Offers can appear on order confirmation pages, rewards pages or customer emails, so the host brand earns extra revenue from its existing traffic. 

Is brand partnership marketing a form of retail media? 

Yes. When a retailer shows another brand’s offer on its own website, it’s selling space on its own channels, which is retail media. Awin describes brand partnerships as non-endemic retail media, because the partner brand’s products aren’t ones the host sells. Awin also describes BrandSwap as enabling retail media at scale. 

What is the difference between an affiliate programme and a referral programme? 

An affiliate programme pays publishers, such as content sites, cashback sites and creators, commission on the sales they drive. A referral programme rewards your own customers with credit, vouchers or discounts for recommending you to friends and family. Both reward results, and they reach new customers through different people. 

Can brands run customer referral programmes through Awin? 

Yes. Brands can run customer referral programmes with Awin through Soreto, a referral marketing and social sharing technology partner integrated with Awin. Soreto adds sharing prompts to your site, and the sales they drive are tracked through Awin. Roman used it to grow referral revenue 88% on the year before launch. 

Can I work with creators through Awin? 

Yes. You can discover creators, contact them and manage partnerships in the Awin platform, or have Awin’s team run a managed campaign for you. Managed campaigns cover briefs, content approvals and contracts through CreatorIQ. Both options come with flexible payment models and full funnel performance tracking.