Editor’s note, May 2026: This article was first published in July 2022. We updated it to reflect changes in affiliate marketing, cashback platforms and partner-funded reward models.
Affiliate marketing refers to an advertising model where third parties promote another company’s products or services. Advertisers reward affiliates with a commission for each customer they refer online or in-store. This may reward a visit, lead or sale. Most commonly, affiliate marketing rewards a completed transaction.
Traditionally, affiliate marketing was driven by online publishers. These publishers would come in many shapes and sizes: niche vertical blogs, content sites on specific topics, deal-finder sites, social media influencers and more. Publishers link within their content to affiliated retailer websites hoping their audiences will click-through to earn sales commissions from the traffic they generate.
Major affiliate marketing platforms help brands track sales origins and manage commission payments. Partnerize is one example. Its platform helps brands manage, track and pay affiliate and partnership networks at scale. Partnerize also supports partner onboarding, management and commission payments. Companies can use this type of affiliate marketing technology to manage partners within loyalty programs.
A new breed of affiliate marketing platforms
In the last few years, more affiliate marketing platforms have passed value directly to consumers. This has happened most clearly in retail, where cashback apps have become mainstream. These apps let consumers earn part of their purchase back as cash credit. Some platforms also offer coupons, voucher codes, shares or charity donations.
Whilst traditional affiliate platforms can be leveraged to manage partners and transactions within a loyalty program, cashback apps also allow advertisers to reward customers without one.
How do cashback platforms work?
- Merchants give cashback platforms an affiliate link
- Cashback platforms share the affiliate link with members
- When members purchase through the affiliate link, merchants give the cashback platform a percentage of the sale
- Cashback platforms share a portion of the percentage with members, AKA cashback
Passing affiliate commission to customers
ShopBack is a cashback reward program operating across several Asia-Pacific markets, including Australia. In Australia, members can shop with 2,000+ brands through the app. Globally, ShopBack promotes 20,000+ stores and more than $650 million in cashback earned. Merchants fund this value through affiliate marketing and other partner-funded reward models.
Swagbucks works in a similar way. It is available in the U.S., Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal and India. Members save money with coupons and promo codes when shopping at featured stores in the app. Members earn points, called SB, for online purchases. They can redeem them for gift cards, PayPal cash, prepaid Visa cards or a cheque. A key feature in Swagbucks is that customers can also complete surveys to earn gift cards. This is great market research the company can monetise and use to provide a better service to brands.
Rakuten also works with merchant networks and offers cashback through Rakuten Rewards. The Rakuten rewards service operates across markets including the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Spain and Germany. Rakuten explains the model simply. Stores pay Rakuten for sending them shoppers. Rakuten then shares part of that commission with members as cash back. In 2026, Rakuten promotes cash back at over 3,500 stores.
TopCashback, a UK company also operating in the U.S., Canada and India is slightly different to other cashback apps and affiliate structure. Members join for free, but also can pay for TopCashback Plus, to access a higher cashback, additional benefits and features. They deviate from the norm as they don’t keep any merchant commission for themselves, instead, they pass 100% to their members. TopCashback says members earn $450 a year on average. It generates income through affiliate links, sponsorship and advertising.
Tiendeo was a Spanish platform for digital catalogues, weekly ads and local retail offers. ShopFully acquired Tiendeo in 2022. In 2023, Tiendeo became ShopFully in several markets. This shows how affiliate marketing, local offers and drive-to-store technology continue to converge. Consumers could browse catalogues, brochures and offers online for their local shops; check current promotions, scan the latest catalogues, compare prices and get key information about most shops and best prices at hand. In addition, members who had opened an account could earn cashback and coupons for uploading their receipts, and access discounts from advertising brands by linking from Tiendeo to their online stores. Another feature was that members could link their favourite store loyalty cards and use them when they shopped via the app.
Megabonus offers cashback from thousands of online stores and services. It promotes cashback of up to 40% on standard offers, with higher rates during promotions. Its model shows how affiliate marketing can support broad, cross-border cashback offers. Megabonus’s technology connects any online store regardless of its geographical location, the only criteria is that online merchants can deliver in the country where their offers and ads are served. The variety of merchants featured in Megabonus is also wide, their network expands from ‘pizzas to travel’ (as the app states), an impressive variety. A key difference that Megabonus has is that their technology can also be used as a white label through an API. Any brand can offer cashback on their website without having to develop their own platforms.
Upstreet was an Australian app and browser extension offering fractional share rewards. Members could earn share rewards when shopping with participating brands. Upstreet closed in 2023, but the model remains useful as a loyalty innovation case study.
Beem is an Australian digital wallet. Members can pay, request, transfer and split money. Beem also promotes rewards, gift cards and loyalty card storage in one app. In addition, through Beem Rewards, members access a network of advertisers offering discounts. Members can also buy and personalise gift cards and store their loyalty cards in the app by scanning or entering details manually so they can present them when shopping at a particular retailers.
Benefits of cashback programs
Compared to the traditional affiliate marketing structure, cashback platforms can:
- Promote offers to large member bases
- Incentivise regular purchases and loyalty
- Keep customers active and engaged
- Offer value many brands cannot create alone
- Foster communities of savvy buyers
- Help merchants protect headline prices
- Offer a cost-effective reward channel
- Reach consumers when they are ready to buy
- Provide market intelligence to merchants
- Help merchants manage cashback offers
- Let merchants switch offers on and off
- Support affiliate marketing inside loyalty programs
- Provide white-label partner management options
The challenge
Cashback platforms continue to evolve, which makes the channel harder for merchants to manage. Consumers can compare offers across several apps, browser extensions and reward portals. This makes relevance, margin and timing more important. After advertising costs and commissions, unless a brand has healthy margins, all they can offer to consumers is two or three percent – unfortunately a prevalent discount on these platforms across brands.
Merchants must remember that many members use more than one platform. Their goal is often to find the cheapest way to buy. Brands should run the numbers before increasing cashback rates. They should also examine how cashback can drive traffic and support customer relationships beyond the transaction.
Conclusión
Traditional affiliate marketing can help publishers send potential customers to a website.
Cashback platforms go further by giving consumers a reason to complete the purchase. Their technology allows them to focus on user experience, engagement and reward consumers for their purchases. These platforms also offer a full advertising channel and their technologies will continue to evolve. New apps will continue to grow, and affiliate marketing dollars will continue to flow. Merchants must decide how affiliate marketing and cashback platforms fit their loyalty strategy. They should consider margin, customer behaviour and post-purchase engagement. Cashback can drive sales, but it does not automatically create loyalty.
2026 update: affiliate marketing and cashback rewards
Since this article was first published, affiliate marketing and cashback platforms have continued to mature.
ShopBack, Rakuten and TopCashback remain major examples of consumer-facing cashback platforms.
Some 2022 examples have changed. Upstreet has closed, and Tiendeo became part of ShopFully.
The strategic lesson remains the same.
Cashback can help brands acquire customers and drive transactions.
But merchants still need to manage margin, attribution and long-term customer loyalty.
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