Behind PlusVibe’s 5X ARR: Taking Partner Activation From 2% to Over 20%

Affilial and PartnerStack recently published a case study on how PlusVibe grew ARR 5X in six months, and I’m mentioned in it as the account manager. Victor Moen, Affilial’s co-founder and CEO, shares the agency’s perspective in the interview. I managed this account day to day, including the onboarding rebuild and partner activation work the case study describes, so I wanted to add the view from my side of it. This article covers what I did, what changed, and the thinking behind my decisions.

Starting from a neglected program

PlusVibe’s program had been neglected for a long time by the time I took it on. The case study mentions the manual tracking and limited partner support, and onboarding looked similar: as far as I could tell, a single long email with all the information packed into it. Picture getting IKEA furniture in one huge box with a million unlabeled pieces and no instructions. That’s a lot to ask of someone who just said yes to your program, so working out where to start was the real job.

How I approached activation

Working out what would get partners activated was my job. With a program that neglected, no single fix was obvious, so I started with the launch itself, right after all the changes went live. The first campaign was a $50 bonus for a first sale within that month. It didn’t matter whether a partner had sold before, because it doubled as a thank-you for migrating with us and putting up with all the changes. In the case study, Victor says a large group of affiliates started promoting because of that one campaign.

After that first round, I made the bonus permanent and raised it to $100, on top of commission for any partner who drives a referral within their first 30 days. That was my call. The first round was an experiment, and it worked out well. I keep investing in what works and drop or change what doesn’t, so making it evergreen was an easy decision. We also wanted to open each new relationship strongly and stand out from competitors. The case study reports that the share of partners driving sales went from 2% before the bonus to 18% once it was running, and that over 20% of partners now drive sales every month, even as new partners keep joining.

I also ran a campaign that paid partners for publishing content and sharing proof of it. It helped with brand awareness, and it rewarded people for engaging, since a paid referral can feel far away when you’re just starting out. I like breaking things into baby steps for that reason.

Then I ran feedback polls, and they got far less engagement than I expected. I figured partners would be keen to share opinions, especially if they could vent a little. The answers that did come in mostly said they were waiting for a good offer. That was weird, honestly, and it pointed me straight back to the incentives.

The welcome flow underneath it

Underneath those campaigns sits a 13-email welcome flow that replaced the single giant email. It’s the standard flow I’ve tested time and time again across programs, and it’s the format behind my digital product, The Affiliate Activation Sequence. That’s the guide and AI prompt I use to build flows like this one easily, and it’s customizable, so it adapts to each brand. I’ve covered welcome flows in more depth on my blog, so here’s the short version. The first email covers what the program is, the partner’s link, the fastest way to start promoting and what other partners are doing, plus shared assets and a reason to act now, which for PlusVibe was the $50 first-sale bonus.

The rest of the flow reaches partners at specific moments: when they hit a certain number of clicks, get their first signup, or make their first sale. We revamped the commission structure in this project too, so partners get touch points as they move up the tiers. There are also check-ins for partners who go quiet, because people go quiet for plenty of reasons and a short message costs far less than assuming they lost interest.

How much of the 5X belongs to this work?

I can’t tell you exactly how much of the jump in active partners comes from the welcome flow and how much from the bonus itself. The 5X also came from several changes working together: the new platform, the new commission structure, the smaller partner list and the activation work. That’s why I’d rather describe what I did and what happened than claim credit for a single number.

Wrapping up

Looking back, most of this work came down to giving partners a nearer first step and a good reason to take it. The first-sale bonus did that for partners who hadn’t sold yet, the content campaign gave them something smaller than a paid referral to aim for, and the welcome flow gave every new partner a clear path instead of one overwhelming email. I can’t split the 5X into neat pieces, but I can say that testing small, keeping what worked and changing what didn’t is what got this program moving again.

If your program has a long list of partners who haven’t made a sale yet, a short bonus that includes them is an easy thing to test, and you can keep it or drop it based on what happens.