BusinessLeague, the revolutionary gamified affiliate marketing platform, has launched an Affiliate Manager Program that will upend the industry norm of fixed prices with an innovative and automated performance-based compensation approach.

Launched in 2024, BusinessLeague empowers businesses and marketers to identify new opportunities and partners to radically accelerate their growth by giving them unprecedented levels of transparency. This is in stark contrast to the opaque nature of much of the industry, which provides little performance or benchmarking data to either brands or marketers.

The new affiliate opportunity

UK brands spent £1.67 billion on affiliate marketing in 2023, up 17% year-on-year. As such, the channel represents a major opportunity for ambitious scale-ups and start-ups, yet barriers to entry remain. Traditional agencies require large monthly budgets with no guaranteed ROI, with brands still needing to invest significant resources in media planning and managing suppliers. Plus, 67% of brand marketers expressed concern about affiliate marketing fraud, highlighting issues around transparency.

The Affiliate Manager Program removes those barriers for both brands and marketers on BusinessLeague:

• It creates a new revenue opportunity for affiliate managers – no matter what their experience levels – paying commission and bonuses based on performance, on a Cost-Per-Sale model
• Brands can access experienced affiliate managers to run campaigns without the need to hire in-house talent or manage a direct supplier relationship

Transformative transparency

BusinessLeague is owned by leading European affiliate marketing network 2Performant (BVB: 2P). Dorin Boerescu acquired 2Performant in 2009, became CEO, and has turned it from a five-figure turnover network into a multi-million euro business listed on the Romania stock exchange. To date, it has processed 14 million transactions worth more than €700 million.

He said: “Affiliate managers are the most undervalued category of professionals in performance marketing. With Affiliate Manager we’re closing the gap to ensure they are rewarded for the fantastic results they drive, breaking down the barriers that stopped both talent and brands from realising the affiliate marketing opportunity until now.”

Almost 500 brands now use BusinessLeague. Both retailers and marketers can see how others are performing, as well as live updates on recent sales and the amount of commission they generate.

Supporting a new generation of talent

Boerescu said: “We have a generation of talent entering the workforce that have grown up gaming, with the best publicly rewarded online. We’ve brought this hunger and experience into affiliate marketing with BusinessLeague, and the results have been fantastic. Not only are both retailers and marketers keen to see how they’re doing against their peers, but they tell us they are motivated to do better by the performance of others.”

Daniel Birtas, CEO of ecommerce specialist Kimono Group, said: “Affiliate marketing is an essential part of our go-to-market strategy because it allows us to adjust budgets and scale efforts based on results. Being able to manage that with BusinessLeague’s Affiliate Manager Platform will help us achieve even greater success, giving us access to talented marketers who can generate sales through a win-win partnership.”