Super Affiliate

A top-tier partner whose volume materially moves program numbers — typically the top handful of accounts driving most FTDs.

Super affiliates are the accounts your quarterly numbers depend on: major comparison portals, dominant SEO sites in key GEOs, large media groups.

Managing concentration risk

Their leverage is real and they use it — premium terms, exclusivity fees, roadmap influence. Pay what the volume justifies, but manage the dependency: when three accounts drive 60% of acquisitions, a single defection is a bad quarter. The counterweights are deliberate mid-tier development (next year’s supers), direct-channel strength, and never letting contract renewals for major partners cluster in the same quarter.