How do I run pay-for-results creator marketing when my brand sells mainly through retailers?

So a link to a retailer takes people to where many of them already shop. You can pay for results without an online shop of your own. What you need to settle first is twofold: who counts and pays for clicks and sales, and how creators come to feature your product at all.

An affiliate programme (Partnerprogramm) is a shop’s offer to pay partners for the clicks or sales they bring in. Not every shop runs one. Check this for each retail partner before you build a campaign on it.

An example: a creator shows your body lotion in her story and adds a link sticker to the product in a drugstore chain’s online shop. If someone buys through it, the drugstore chain pays a commission from its affiliate programme, at its own rates, to the partner the link runs through. In this case the commission doesn’t come from you, but you don’t set the rate either.

The drugstore chain’s programme usually covers its entire range. It pays partners when people buy through their links, but it doesn’t make anyone feature your body lotion in particular. Being signed up to the programme is a long way from linking to your product, and the very creators you want rarely post without a reason. Creator platforms are no different: your product being available to pick doesn’t mean anyone features it.

Nor can you take it for granted that your retail partner will recruit creators for your products. According to Bitkom, 13% of the trading companies surveyed already work with influencers (505 companies in wholesale, retail and motor trade with ten or more employees, surveyed in spring 2025).

So the real task isn’t the commission, it’s activation: reaching creators who suit your product, many of them at once, and then seeing who sells. A higher commission rate that you negotiate with your retail partner for the campaign period makes your product more attractive to partners. It may or may not bring in new creators. You create an occasion of your own with a campaign budget that you pay out against agreed key performance indicators (KPIs), such as clicks or reported sales.

The routes can be combined: the shop’s programme pays for the sale, and your budget gives creators the reason to post. If you pay for both, agree in advance on how your budget treats sales the shop already pays commission on.

1. Decide which products go into the campaign and which shops sell them online. Check that they will be in stock during the campaign, especially around promotions.
2. Find out which of these shops run an affiliate programme. If the website doesn’t say, ask your retail partner directly.
3. Align product data with your retail partners: the same name, the same variant and the same GTIN (EAN), the number under the barcode, in every shop. That makes it easier for creators and platforms to find the same item in several shops.
4. Plan how creators will hear about the campaign: approach creators who suit your product, many of them at once and with a fixed period. Taking part is each creator’s own decision.
5. Decide what you pay for on top: sales only if the shop reports them, otherwise clicks, views or reach.
6. Agree on measurement in advance: who delivers which figure, and by when? Ask your retail partner for sell-out figures for the campaign period.
7. Put the labelling into the briefing, following the German media authorities’ guide: links to the shop with “Werbung” or “Anzeige” (advertisement), affiliate links also with an asterisk and an explanation, each right next to the link, discount codes with “Werbung” or “Anzeige” right next to the code. Paid image and text posts start with “Werbung” or “Anzeige”, videos centred on your product show “Werbung” on screen throughout, and every promotional story slide is labelled on its own.

Be careful with UTM parameters, the tags on a link that tell web analytics where a visit came from: on a link to a retail partner’s shop, they end up in that shop’s analytics, not yours. Discount codes only work if the shop sets them up.

With wyrld Boost, you put your budget behind creators who feature your products, starting right away. You set the products, the period and the payout KPIs, for example sales, clicks, watch time or reach, and many creators can take part at the same time. You also decide where people buy: without a shop of your own, for example on Amazon or with price comparison across the shops that stock your product. wyrld measures clicks through the links, sales count where the shops report them, and creators upload watch time and reach from their statistics. Joining is up to each creator, and creators label campaign videos as advertising.

The brand and shop subscription shows you every day which creators feature your products, who brings clicks and who sells. Here too, you only see sales where the shop reports them. It also shows who already features your product without a campaign, since creators can usually pick products from the partner shops already. With the creators who perform, wyrld sets up individual terms or plans the next Boost campaign with you. You don’t necessarily need an affiliate programme of your own; without one, you arrange the connection with wyrld directly. Prices for the subscription and Boost are available on request.