Affiliate Manager

Affiliate Manager |📍London – Hybrid (Insert days) | 💰Competitive Salary + Benefits

About the Role

Are you passionate about building high-performing affiliate partnerships that drive commercial growth? Join Buyagift & Red Letter Days as our Affiliate Manager, where you'll own and shape our affiliate strategy, identify new opportunities, and deliver measurable business impact through data-led decision making and strong commercial relationships.

Reporting to the Head of Performance Marketing, you'll take ownership of our affiliate programme, working closely with internal teams, affiliate networks and partners to grow revenue, improve profitability and unlock new opportunities across our brands. Success in this role will be measured by growing affiliate revenue and profitability, expanding our active partner network, delivering a continuous pipeline of optimisation opportunities, and building a balanced, resilient affiliate programme.

Own and deliver the affiliate marketing strategy, driving sustainable channel growth through scalable campaigns and continuous optimisation.

Identify new commercial opportunities and strategic partnerships to diversify the affiliate programme and drive incremental revenue.

Manage and optimise the Buyagift and Red Letter Days affiliate programmes, ensuring activity supports wider commercial objectives.

Manage affiliate budgets, monitor performance and continually optimise investment to maximise revenue, profitability and ROI.

Produce regular performance reporting, sharing actionable insights and recommendations with stakeholders during trading meetings.

Use performance data, attribution insights and market trends to inform investment decisions and improve channel profitability.

Build and maintain strong relationships with Rakuten, affiliate partners and internal stakeholders to deliver successful campaigns.

Identify, recruit, onboard and develop a diverse and balanced mix of affiliate partners across multiple publisher types, growing the number and contribution of active partners.

Negotiate commercial agreements, promotional activity and partner incentives where appropriate.

Develop and deliver a continuous testing and optimisation roadmap to improve partner performance, commission strategies and campaign effectiveness while identifying new growth opportunities.

Collaborate with colleagues across Acquisition, Marketing, B2B and Trade to align affiliate activity with wider business priorities.

Own affiliate operational, technical and commercial processes, resolving issues efficiently to ensure the programme performs effectively.

Support finance and data processes, including reporting and validation activities.

Stay up to date with affiliate industry developments, emerging technologies and new publisher opportunities, representing the business at relevant events where appropriate.

Retail or eCommerce experience.

Experience using Rakuten or other leading affiliate networks such as Awin, Partnerize, CJ or Impact.

Managing content, influencer or editorial affiliate partnerships.

Working with Adobe Analytics, Power BI or similar reporting platforms.

Minimum of five years' experience in an Affiliate Marketing role, gained in-house, agency-side or with a publisher.

Strong experience managing affiliate networks and external partner relationships.

Commercial mindset with experience working in sales-focused, target-driven environments.

Excellent analytical skills, with the ability to turn complex data into clear commercial recommendations.

Advanced Excel skills, including formulas, lookups and pivot tables.

Confident presenting insights and influencing stakeholders at all levels.

Strong negotiation, communication and relationship management skills.

Proven ability to prioritise effectively and manage multiple projects in a fast-moving environment.

Comfortable working independently while collaborating closely with cross-functional teams.

Resilient, adaptable and motivated by delivering measurable results.

Naturally curious with a proactive approach to testing, learning and continuous improvement.

Strong attention to detail and commitment to producing high-quality work.

Able to quickly understand technical concepts and systems.