Migrating to Affilync
Moving an affiliate program between networks is not like moving a database. Your tracking links are already published — in blog posts, YouTube descriptions, newsletters, and PDFs you no longer control. You cannot rewrite them, and nothing on our side can either.
So this guide is built around one principle: run both networks in parallel, then retire the old one when its traffic has decayed. There is no hard cutover, and you should be suspicious of any platform that promises one.
Expect the overlap to last 60–90 days for most programs.
What moves, and what does not
| Moves to Affilync | How | |
|---|---|---|
| Campaign / offer definitions | Yes | Imported on connect, then kept in sync |
| Affiliate roster | Partly | Imported as records; each affiliate still has to accept an invite to get an Affilync account |
| Commission history | Not yet | Export it from your old network and keep your own copy — see below |
| Performance history (clicks, conversions) | Not yet | Read during sync for reporting, but not stored as historical rows |
| Existing published links | No | They belong to the old network's domain. See Phase 3. |
| Payout history / tax forms | No | Export from your old network and retain it yourself |
Historical commission and click records do not import yet. Campaigns do. Everything you earn on Affilync is recorded from day one — this only affects historical rows from your previous network, and once that account is closed those numbers are gone for good. Export them, and keep the file: commission history is a tax record.
The bottom two rows are what decide your timeline. Everything above them is either a sync job or a spreadsheet you keep.
Supported networks
| Network | How you connect | Credentials checked on connect |
|---|---|---|
| Impact | API key | Yes |
| CJ Affiliate | API key | Yes |
| ShareASale | API key | Yes |
| Awin | API key | Yes |
| Amazon Associates | API key | Yes |
| Rakuten Advertising | OAuth | Yes — you sign in at Rakuten |
| ClickBank | API key | No — see note |
ClickBank accepts your API keys without testing them against ClickBank first, so a "Connected" message does not confirm they are correct. Run a sync immediately after connecting and confirm your products and performance data actually appear before relying on it.
Don't see your network? Every network above is read through its public API. If yours has one, tell us — adding a network is a connector, not a rewrite.
Phase 1: Prepare
Do this before you connect anything.
1. Export from your current network. Whatever happens, you want your own copy. At minimum: affiliate list with emails, commission history, payout history, and your current commission rates per offer. Most networks put this under Reports → Export.
2. Get read API credentials. You only need read access to migrate.
| Network | What you need | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Impact | Account SID + Auth Token | Settings → API Access |
| CJ Affiliate | Website ID + Personal Access Token | Account → Web Services |
| ShareASale | Merchant ID + API Token + Secret | Tools → API |
| Awin | Publisher/Advertiser ID + API Token | Account → API Credentials |
| Amazon Associates | Access Key + Secret + Partner Tag | Product Advertising API |
3. Write down your commission structure. Not the export — the reasoning. Which offers pay what, which affiliates have custom rates, and which of those rates you actually intended to keep. A migration is the cheapest moment you will ever get to fix a rate you regret, and the worst moment to discover you have forgotten why one exists.
Phase 2: Connect and sync
Brands: go to Settings → Integrations (/brand/integrations).
Affiliates: go to Integrations (/affiliate/integrations).
- Pick your network from the catalog.
- Enter the credentials from Phase 1.
- Confirm the connection reports success — for the five verified networks above, this means your credentials were actually tested against the network.
- Run the first sync and wait for it to finish before doing anything else.
Then check the numbers before you trust them:
- Campaign count matches what you have on the old network
- Commission rates on each campaign match what you intended in Phase 1
- Affiliate roster looks complete
If a total is off, do not proceed and do not "fix" it by re-syncing — a mismatch here means something is being read wrong, and re-running it will only produce the same wrong number a second time. Contact support with both figures.
Bulk import instead
If your network isn't listed, or you'd rather not hand over API credentials, you can import from CSV. Affilync accepts the standard export format from each of the networks above without you having to reshape the columns.
Phase 3: Run both in parallel
This is the phase people skip, and it is the phase that protects your revenue.
Keep your old network live. Its links are still earning. Turning it off does not move that traffic to Affilync — it sends it to a dead link, and your affiliate eats the loss for a placement they already published.
Point only new placements at Affilync. Every new post, email, and video description uses Affilync links from day one. Old placements keep running on the old network.
Ask affiliates to update their highest-traffic links. Not all of them — the top 10 links usually carry most of the revenue, and asking someone to edit 400 old posts is how you lose them to a competitor. Give them their new links and let them prioritise.
Watch the decay. Your old network's click volume will fall as new placements take over. When it is small enough that you would not notice losing it, you are done.
When to actually switch off
Retire the old network when all of these are true:
- Its click volume is under ~5% of your combined total
- No affiliate has earned a meaningful commission there in a full payout cycle
- You have exported the final commission and payout history
- Every affiliate has been paid out their remaining balance on that network
That last one matters. Closing a network account with unpaid balances on it creates a support problem that lands on you, not on them.
Phase 4: Close out
- Export the final reports from your old network.
- Pay out all remaining balances there.
- Disable the integration in Affilync (this keeps the synced history and stops further API calls).
- Close or downgrade the old network account.
Keep your exports. Commission history is a tax record, and it is the one thing you cannot re-derive after the account is gone.
Common questions
Will my affiliates lose their history? Their earnings history stays on the old network — it does not import, so tell them to download their own statements before that account closes. Their Affilync history starts from their first click here. They also do not get a login automatically: they receive an invite, and their account starts when they accept.
Can I migrate without telling my affiliates? No, and you should not want to. They need new links, and a link they did not expect to change is a support ticket at best.
Do I pay two networks during the overlap? Usually yes, for the overlap period. Budget for it. It is cheaper than the revenue you would lose to a hard cutover.
What if the sync pulls in duplicates? Records are keyed on the network's own IDs, so re-running a sync updates existing rows rather than creating new ones. If you do see duplicates, that is a bug — send us the campaign or commission ID.
Next steps
- Getting Started — set up your Affilync account
- For Brands — campaigns, affiliates, payouts
- For Affiliates — links, earnings, analytics