Somewhere right now, a handful of websites are earning a commission every time someone buys from your competitor. They already write about your category, their audience already trusts them, and they have already proven they can convert a reader into a customer for a product just like yours. Recruiting them is faster than starting from zero, and it is one of the most underused strategies in affiliate marketing, mostly because it feels a little sneaky the first time you try it.
It is not. Finding a competitor’s affiliates is closer to competitive research than anything else, and once you see how it is done, it becomes one of the fastest ways to build the first wave of affiliates for your own program .
Why competitor affiliates are worth targeting first
An affiliate who already promotes a product like yours has cleared every hurdle a brand-new recruit still has to clear. They understand the category, they already have an engaged audience interested in it, and they have a working content format, whether that is a review, a comparison post, or a coupon page, that is proven to convert.
Recruiting cold, by contrast, means finding someone who might be a good fit and then hoping they can write convincing content about a product category they have never covered before. Both approaches work, but competitor affiliates get you to your first sales far faster, which is exactly why this is worth doing before, or alongside, any of the other outreach channels you use to grow your program.
A quick note on ethics before you start
Most affiliates are not exclusive to a single brand, and there is nothing improper about reaching out to one who currently promotes a competitor. A review site comparing five project management tools, or a coupon page listing three different software deals, is not “your competitor’s affiliate”, it is an independent publisher who gets paid for sending traffic, and who is usually glad to add another relevant offer if the terms are competitive.
The one real exception is an affiliate under a signed exclusivity clause, which shows up occasionally in high-touch partnerships but is rare in typical affiliate programs. If a site’s content makes exclusivity obvious, for example, if it is literally branded as an official partner page, treat that one differently. Everyone else on your list is fair game.
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Method 1: Run a backlink analysis on your competitor’s domain
This is the fastest, highest-volume method, and it does not require guessing where to look. A backlink tool like Ahrefs Site Explorer or Semrush shows you every site that links to your competitor’s domain, which for most established products includes dozens or hundreds of affiliates.
Here is the process:
- Enter your competitor’s homepage or their dedicated product page into the tool’s site explorer.
- Pull the full list of referring domains, not just referring pages, since one affiliate site often links to a competitor from several articles.
- Sort by traffic or domain rating so you prioritize sites that actually get visitors, not abandoned pages with a single old link.
- Filter out obvious non-affiliates: news coverage, directory listings, and social platforms rarely convert into a recruitment lead the way a review or comparison site does.
- Open the top 20 to 30 results manually and check what kind of content links to your competitor. Review posts, “best of” roundups, and comparison articles are the strongest signals of an active affiliate.
A single backlink report like this often produces a better shortlist in twenty minutes than a week of cold outreach.
Method 2: Use search operators to surface active affiliates
If you do not have access to a paid SEO tool, Google search gets you most of the way there for free. A few searches that consistently surface affiliate content:
"[competitor name]" review"[competitor name]" alternative"[competitor name]" vs"[competitor name]" couponor"[competitor name]" discount codebest "[competitor name]" alternatives 2026
Pages that rank for these terms are almost always written by affiliates, since organic traffic to comparison and review content is the entire point of that content existing. Skim the first two or three pages of results for each query and you will typically find a handful of sites worth reaching out to that a backlink tool alone might rank lower.
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Method 3: Find out which affiliate network your competitor uses
Many merchants list their program publicly, either in their website footer under “Affiliates” or “Partners”, or on their own dedicated program page. If your competitor’s program is public, you now know exactly which channel to apply to or recruit from.
If nothing is listed on their site, check which network badges show up on the review and coupon sites you found in Methods 1 and 2. Networks like Awin, CJ Affiliate, or Impact often display their branding on partner pages, and once you know the network, you can often see related or similar programs listed alongside your competitor’s, which surfaces even more potential affiliates in one place.
Method 4: Check coupon and deal sites directly
Coupon and deal aggregator sites are affiliate-run almost without exception, and they tend to list every major competitor in a category on the same page. Search your product category plus “coupon”, “promo code”, or “deals” and you will typically land on two or three large aggregator sites that already list several of your direct competitors. A single outreach email to a well-trafficked coupon site can be worth more than a dozen smaller blog partnerships combined.
Method 5: Search social platforms for branded mentions
Influencers and creators who promote a competitor do not always show up in a backlink report, since a lot of that promotion happens on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube rather than a website. Search your competitor’s brand name alongside hashtags like #ad or #sponsored on the platforms your audience actually uses, and check the comments on your competitor’s own social posts for creators who are clearly already familiar with the product, sometimes as paying customers who would be a natural fit to formalize into an affiliate relationship.
Turning your list into actual affiliates
Once you have a shortlist, the outreach itself works the same way it does for any other affiliate recruitment channel: a short, personal message that references their specific content, a clear commission rate, and a fast, simple way to apply. Affiliates who already promote a comparable product do not need to be convinced the category works, they only need a reason to believe your offer is worth adding alongside, or in place of, the one they already promote.
Not every competitor affiliate is automatically a good fit. The same criteria that make any affiliate worth recruiting still apply here: real audience overlap, genuine engagement rather than just traffic, and a track record of content that actually converts, not just content that exists.
Final thoughts
Competitor research is one of the most efficient ways to build the first wave of a new affiliate program, precisely because the hardest part, finding people who can already sell in your category, is done for you. Combine a backlink report, a handful of search operators, and a quick look at your competitor’s public affiliate network, and you can build a genuinely useful outreach list in an afternoon rather than a month.
From there, the process is the same as any other recruitment channel: a clear offer, fast onboarding, and reliable tracking so both you and your new affiliates can see the results. Post Affiliate Pro handles that last part, so you can spend your time building the list instead of the spreadsheet.
