THE BRIEF
Help a new partner make a first merchant referral.
Shopify had affiliates, YouTube educators, review publishers, and developer partners with different ways of reaching merchants. I led the platform migration, then built the equivalent of sales training for that distributed network. Partners learned whom Shopify served, how to explain its products, and how to make a tracked referral.
I built onboarding and re-engagement programs to help partners make their first merchant referral.
THE CHALLENGE
Keep referrals working while changing the platform.
The move to Impact required coordination across Product, Engineering, Finance, Legal, and the teams using the data. I carried attribution, agreements, incentives, and reporting into the rollout. Once the tracking was in place, I could see where partners stalled between joining and referring a merchant.
I mapped the partner lifecycle and used referral data to identify where partners needed support.
After proving email could drive partner activation, I rebuilt the lifecycle infrastructure, moving from Shopify’s partner dashboard to Impact and later to its in-house platform without interrupting critical automations. I delivered 420+ localized lifecycle emails across 12 languages.
HOW THE PROGRAM WORKS
An always-on partner lifecycle
I built a closed-loop lifecycle combining acquisition, onboarding, activation, reactivation, and full-funnel reporting to mobilize partners toward sustained productivity.
01 ACQUIRE
Drive inbound applications and recruit high-value affiliates.
02 QUALIFY
Verify audience, expertise, content, history, and compliance.
03 ONBOARD
Send tracking links within 2 hours, then route partners to localized guidance and the Growth Center.
04 ACTIVATE
Target free-trial referrals within 30 days using lifecycle content, incentives, and experiences.
05 REACTIVATE
Trigger a 30-day reactivation journey; remove partners still inactive at day 90.
06 OPTIMIZE
Review the full funnel weekly and quarterly; refine using performance trends and partner feedback.
RESULTS
From partner volume to partner value
~1K → 20K+
monthly active partners
600K+
paid-trial merchants across the partner ecosystem
12%
increase in merchant conversion in the coach and educator funnels
12
languages supported
WHAT I LEARNED
More partners alone did not create growth. More productive partners did.
Lifecycle became the operating system for the unmanaged population: engage new partners within hours, intervene at 30 days, and remove persistent inactivity by day 90.