Frequently Asked Questions

  • T-Shaped is an independent affiliate marketing consultancy. I audit, rebuild, and build affiliate programs from zero across B2B SaaS, enterprise platforms, DTC ecommerce, consumer marketplaces, and SaaS advisory. I work on Impact (an affiliate network) and Profound (an AI search visibility platform) simultaneously, so every engagement is built as both a revenue channel and an AI visibility channel.

  • Affiliate placements on review and comparison sites are heavily cited by LLMs (Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews). Long-tail and prompt-based queries are starting to drive real signup volume, which means affiliate is no longer just a revenue channel — it's a discovery channel for AI search. Every program I touch is instrumented for both: affiliate-attributed revenue AND AI visibility lift. On one engagement, this approach drove a 10% increase in AI search visibility across major LLMs alongside 15.8x revenue growth.

  • B2B SaaS marketing leaders, partnership and growth managers, DTC and ecommerce founders, and enterprise platforms launching new product lines. Common situations: an underperforming program with hundreds of dormant partners, a brand-new program building from zero, a plateaued program that needs a fresh strategy, or a founder designing program economics before going to market.

  • A few common shapes:

    • Audits. Short-form, flat-fee. A full assessment of program health, partner mix, attribution, leakage, AI visibility, and what's actually driving results.

    • 30-day rebuilds. When the right partners are in place but infrastructure is broken — landing pages, nurture, payout structures. One recent rebuild hit 2.5x ROAS in month one.

    • 90-day restructures. Audit, cleanup, dashboards, partner re-recruitment. Most common engagement.

    • Year-one builds. New programs from zero, including Salesforce integration for real-time SQL visibility. One enterprise build produced a 10–12% closed-won rate on affiliate-sourced leads in the first year.

    • Multi-quarter transformations. Cross-network rebuilds, AI visibility instrumentation, or full repositioning. The largest recent restructure drove 15.8x affiliate revenue growth year over year with a 1,425% lift in paid conversions.

    • SaaS advisory. Program design, commission modeling, and blog monetization via AI citation strategy.

  • 60 days for the fastest rebuilds, 90 days for the most common restructures, 9–12 months for full transformations or year-one builds. A short-form audit on its own typically takes 2–3 weeks.

  • Audits are a flat fee. Ongoing fractional consulting work is retainer-based. Pricing depends on program scope, networks involved, and engagement length. Specifics are discussed on the free 30-minute intro call.

  • I'm network-agnostic — I recommend what fits the brand and the program's audience. I currently run programs on Impact, Partnerstack, Profound (an AI search visibility platform) and have also worked extensively with PartnerStack. I can advise on platform migration as well.

  • Affiliate is the pillar, but the work usually extends into adjacent channels because affiliate doesn't operate in a vacuum. I've built brands on Shopify and Klaviyo, integrated affiliate programs with Salesforce for Demand Gen visibility, and built content + AI citation strategies that monetize through LLM-cited placements rather than chasing pure organic traffic. I also have experience with Meta and Google Ads.

  • Yes. I work remotely with companies anywhere. Most clients are US-based, but engagements aren't limited geographically.

  • A T-shaped marketer pairs horizontal breadth across the marketing stack with vertical depth in one or two disciplines executed at a specialist's level. Affiliate is the vertical bar — the specialty. The horizontal bar is fluency across the channels including, paid media, lifecycle, content, brand partnerships, and AI visibility. That breadth is part of what makes the affiliate-specific work land.

  • A working call, not a sales pitch. We walk through what your program looks like today (if it exists), where it's stuck, what you've already tried, and what success would actually look like. By the end you'll have either a clear next step or a candid "this isn't the right fit." Both outcomes are useful.

  • A free 30-minute intro call. Get in touch via the contact page. No pressure, no pitch deck.