Advertisers: Brand Search, your brand inside the Affilae mobile app
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Brand Search is the part of the Affilae mobile app where content creators discover brands, browse their online store and save the products they like. Every product they save generates a tracked link, and creators group their finds into a Wishlist that they then share as a page with their community.
For you, the advertiser, this is a passive recruitment channel: creators come to you, product by product, and the affiliate partnership is created the moment they pick your brand.
Not to be confused with the Product Marketplace
Both features put products in the hands of creators, but they work very differently.
| BRAND SEARCH | PRODUCT MARKETPLACE | |
|---|---|---|
| Where | In the Affilae mobile app, Brands tab. | On the web, in the advertiser Product requests menu. |
| What the creator gets | A tracked link to a product in your store. Nothing is shipped. | A physical product that you ship for them to test. |
| Who decides | The creator picks your products. You approve the partnership, automatically or manually. | The creator applies product by product. You accept or refuse each request. |
| Preparation on your side | No listings to create: creators browse your store exactly as it is. | Create product listings, with photos, price and delivery time. |
For the full Product Marketplace procedure, see Product Marketplace: getting your products tested by creators. The rest of this article covers Brand Search only.
How your brand shows up in the app
Creators open the Brands tab in the mobile app and browse the list of available brands, with filters and sorting. They tap a brand, your store opens inside the app, and they browse your product pages freely.
On each product, they get two actions.
- Add to favorite: the product joins one of their lists. A tracked link is created at the same time, without them having to ask for it.
- Create a tracked link: the link is generated and copied to their clipboard, ready to paste into a story, a bio or a newsletter.
Creators then group their products into a named list, under My lists. The app explains the idea: “Your lists allow you to create collections of products and share them with your community.” They finally generate their public page address with Copy page URL and share it wherever they want. That page can mix several brands, so yours sits alongside others.
Asking to be listed
The setting that makes your brand visible in the mobile app sits in your program configuration, but it is reserved for the Affilae team: the Brand Search section carries the Admin only label and does not appear in your interface. So you cannot switch it on yourself.
- Contact the Affilae team, through your usual account manager or via the contact form.
- State which program is concerned and which visibility level you want (see the table below).
- Provide a profile picture for your brand. The instruction shown in the tool is “Picture must be at least 500px, in height or width, and be under 6 MB.”
You will also find a Contact sales button in your own interface, on your program’s Product feeds page, when you open the feature selection for a feed.
The two visibility levels
The Visible to setting offers only two values. It combines with a second setting, Partnership validation, which decides whether applications coming from the app are accepted automatically.
| SETTING | WHAT THE CREATOR SEES |
|---|---|
| All publishers and Automatic | Your brand is open. The creator enters your store and creates links without waiting for your approval. |
| All publishers and Manual | Your brand is visible to everyone, but the creator has to Apply and wait. They then see “Waiting for brand approval”. The tool sums it up as “If set to manual, you validate each application yourself.” |
| Partners only | Only your already accepted partners see your brand. The tool tooltip states “only publishers already in partnership with you can see this program”. The validation setting no longer applies. |
In the app, every brand carries a badge telling the creator where they stand: Private, Pending, Approved or Refused.
Restricting your products on an existing feed
If a mobile app product search feed is already set up on your program, you keep control of it from Product feeds. The feed form contains the switch Make this feed public on the app ?.
Its help text reads exactly: “Disabling this option will hide your products from content creators and influencers on the Affilae mobile app. You’ll need to grant them access upon request.”
Measuring what the app brings you
Conversions coming from the app are not mixed in with the rest: a dedicated filter isolates them.
- Open Manage my programs, click your program, then Conversions.
- Expand the extra filters with the settings icon, to the right of the filter bar.
- Use the Mobile App Affilae: All filter and pick yes to keep only conversions coming from the app, or no to exclude them.
On the matching rows, a badge comes with the tooltip “Conversion from mobile app Affilae”. You then get the usual detail: amount, commission, status.
The same marker exists on the partnership side. In My affiliates, the Mobile App Affilae filter isolates partnerships born in the app, and a partnership record carries the note “This partnership was created via Mobile App”. That is the most direct way to measure the recruitment this channel brings you.
Why open your brand to Brand Search
- You recruit without prospecting. Creators find you in the Brands tab and come forward on their own, with no recruitment campaign on your side.
- You prepare nothing. No product listings to write: creators pick from your store exactly as it is, new arrivals included.
- You gain lasting presence. A product added to a list stays on the creator’s page, which they keep sharing long after the original post.
- You stay in control of how open you are. From “All publishers” with automatic validation to “Partners only”, you choose who reaches your products.
Best practices
- Start on Manual if you want to screen profiles, then switch to Automatic once you know how many applications you get.
- Take care with the profile picture you provide. It is the only thing a creator sees before tapping your brand in the list.
- Check that your product pages read well on a phone screen: creators browse them in a browser embedded in the app.
- Handle applications quickly. In manual mode, the creator stays stuck on “Waiting for brand approval” and moves on to another brand.
- Check the Mobile App Affilae filter in My affiliates once a month to see whether this channel really recruits for you.
Use cases
- A fashion brand in peak season. It asks to open on “All publishers” with automatic validation before the sales. Fashion creators build “winter looks” lists mixing its pieces with other brands, and it tracks the outcome with the conversions filter.
- A cosmetics brand that wants to keep control. It picks “All publishers” with manual validation: it appears in the brand list, but reviews each profile before opening its store.
- An advertiser running a closed program. It goes for “Partners only”: its twenty long-standing affiliates find its store in the app and create links on the go, while no other creator ever sees the brand.
Related articles
- Product Marketplace: getting your products tested by creators
- Products marketplace: test the products you love
- Mobile app: Dashboard
- Reporting: Explanation and Operation
- Quickly add an affiliate to your program
Frequently asked questions
Voir plus de questions reponses
It is not in your interface. The Brand Search section of the program configuration carries the Admin only label and is visible to the Affilae team only. Go through your account manager or the contact form on the website to request activation, stating the program and the visibility level you want.
No. The Visible to setting only offers All publishers and Partners only. A second setting, Partnership validation, adds the choice between Automatic and Manual. The most restrictive result is Partners only, where only your already accepted partners see your brand.
Brand Search happens in the mobile app and only involves links: the creator browses your store and creates tracked links, you ship nothing. The Product Marketplace is a web feature where you publish product listings and physically send items to creators so they can test them. Both can run in parallel on the same program.
No. Creators browse your online store directly from the app, on your real product pages. So there is no catalogue to maintain inside Affilae, and your new arrivals are available as soon as they go live on your site.
Open Conversions in your program menu, expand the extra filters with the settings icon, then use the Mobile App Affilae: All filter and pick yes. The matching rows also carry a badge whose tooltip reads Conversion from mobile app Affilae.
Not yet. In the feed feature selection, the Custom searches in mobile app option is shown with a Coming soon badge and cannot be selected, with the note This feature is under development. If a feed of that type already exists on your program, you can however make it private or public with the Make this feed public on the app ? switch.
Yes. They are ordinary affiliate links, subject to your program commission rules and your attribution window. They show up in your clicks and conversions like any other, plus the marker that flags their mobile origin.
Yes. A list is a collection of products that can mix several brands, by theme, season or look. Your brand therefore sits alongside other advertisers, and each product keeps its own tracked link, which guarantees correct sales attribution.