[Hiring] Affiliate Marketing Lead @Shopify

Role Description

We are building Shop's paid acquisition channels. Affiliate is one of them, and it is yours to build and run. This is a hands-on role. You will:

• Pick the platform, sign the publishers, wire the tracking, set the payouts, watch for fraud, and prove the channel is worth the money.
• Help shape the strategy and own the execution.

The mandate: take affiliate from proof of concept to an always-on program with clean tracking, healthy economics and a defensible read on incrementality. You will work with:

• Paid media
• Data
• Product
• Creative
• Legal
• Finance
• External partners

Key responsibilities include:

• Build the program: Select and manage the affiliate platform or network. Own the account setup, tracking implementation, terms, and the partner-facing program details.
• Recruit publishers: Source and onboard partners across content and editorial commerce, cashback and rewards, loyalty apps, deal sites and browser extensions. Decide which categories we want, and which we don't.
• Own the economics: Set and negotiate commission structures by partner and by action. Model payback, watch cost per install and cost per new buyer, and cut what doesn't pay.
• Wire the tracking: Own mobile and web attribution end to end: deep links, deferred deep links, postbacks, install and event tracking, and the QA to prove each link works before it goes live.
• Prove incrementality: Build the tests that show real lift — holdouts, geo tests, coupon and cashback exclusions — and report the honest number.
• Police it: Monitor for fraud and policy abuse: install farms, cookie stuffing, trademark bidding, coupon leakage, off-brand placements. Enforce the terms.
• Report and document the numbers: Build dashboards, metric definitions, QA checks, weekly reporting, partner records, tracking conventions, and payout forecasts that make the channel easy to run and evaluate.
• Handle the money: Forecast payouts, manage invoicing and accruals with Finance, and keep partner payments accurate and on time.
• Work with creative and product: Brief the assets partners need, keep messaging on brand, and work with Shop product teams on landing experience, offer mechanics and the path from click to first purchase.
• Use AI: Put AI tools to work on partner research, outreach drafting, anomaly checks and analysis. Speed matters here.

What you'll own:

• The affiliate channel end to end: platform, partner mix, terms, tracking, payouts, performance.
• Publisher recruitment, onboarding, activation and ongoing relationship management.
• Commission structure and partner-level economics, including negotiation.
• Attribution and tracking implementation and QA across app and web, with the mobile measurement partner and Shop product teams.
• Incrementality testing and the reported effect of the channel.
• Fraud, compliance and brand safety monitoring, including FTC disclosure and trademark policy enforcement.
• Dashboards, weekly reporting and payout forecasting with Finance.
• Partner-facing assets, offers and program communications, built with creative.
• Documentation, naming conventions and operating hygiene for the channel.
• Proposals for the next partner category or test, backed by data.

Qualifications

• 5–10 years in affiliate, partner or performance marketing, with hands-on ownership of an affiliate program at consumer scale.
• Direct experience in an affiliate platform (for example Impact, Partnerize, Rakuten, CJ, Awin, or an in-house equivalent).
• Track record building or scaling a channel, not only inheriting and optimising one.
• Strong analytical skills. You can size an opportunity, model payback and write your own SQL or advanced spreadsheet analysis without waiting on an analyst.
• Working knowledge of mobile attribution: deep links, deferred deep links, postbacks, install tracking, and tools like AppsFlyer, Branch or Adjust.
• Measurement judgment. You know last click overstates affiliate and can design and defend a test that shows true lift.
• Experience negotiating commercial terms with partners and comfort holding a partner to them.
• Exceptional attention to detail. Broken links, wrong payouts and duplicate credit are the failure modes here, and you catch them before they ship.
• Experience spotting and shutting down affiliate fraud and policy abuse.
• Clear, concise written communication. Short readouts, plain conclusions, no burying bad results.
• Comfortable working with Finance on forecasts, accruals and partner payments.
• Bonus: cashback and rewards partners, coupon and extension ecosystems, multi-market programs, commerce or fintech background.

Company Description

Opportunity is not evenly distributed. Shopify puts independence within reach for anyone with a dream to start a business. We propel entrepreneurs and enterprises to scale the heights of their potential. Since 2006, we've grown to over 8,300 employees and generated over $1 trillion in sales for millions of merchants in 175 countries.

This is life-defining work that directly impacts people's lives as much as it transforms your own.

About you

Moving at our pace brings a lot of change, complexity, and ambiguity—and a little bit of chaos. Shopifolk thrive on that and are comfortable being uncomfortable. That means Shopify is not the right place for everyone.

Before you apply, consider if you can:

• Care deeply about what you do and about making commerce better for everyone.
• Excel by seeking professional and personal hypergrowth.
• Keep up with an unrelenting pace (the week, not the quarter).
• Be resilient and resourceful in face of ambiguity and thrive on (rather than endure) change.
• Bring critical thought and opinion.
• Put AI agents and tools to work on the tasks they're built for, and focus on the work only humans can do.
• Embrace differences and disagreement to get shit done and move forward.
• Work digital-first for your daily work.

We may use AI-enabled tools to screen, select, and assess applications. All AI outputs are reviewed and validated by our recruitment team.