Why WebinarGeek Added an Affiliate Network to Its In-House Program

"We had a working affiliate program, but it only reached our own users. We wanted to know what a network could add. We knew it would take time; once the first sales landed, the curve spoke for itself," says Bryan van Anrooij, Head of Partnerships & PLG at WebinarGeek.

Most SaaS companies with an affiliate program run it the same way: invite your own users, reward them for referrals, and hope it compounds. WebinarGeek did exactly that, and it worked. But it also revealed a ceiling. When your affiliate program only reaches your own network, your ability to scale is capped by the size of that network.

So WebinarGeek tried something different: they kept their in-house program running and added the Reditus network alongside it. Fourteen months in, the network side counts 200+ recruited affiliates, tens of thousands of clicks, and quarterly affiliate revenue that doubled once the first sales landed. This is what they learned, including the honest part about how long it took.

About WebinarGeek

WebinarGeek is easy-to-use webinar software with powerful interactions and marketing tools. Completely browser-based, it lets marketing and sales teams run live, automated and on-demand webinars, stream to thousands of live viewers, and manage their own brand experience from registration to replay.

For affiliates, WebinarGeek is an attractive program to join: 20% lifetime recurring commissions and a 30-day cookie window.

Refer WebinarGeek and earn recurring commissions: see the WebinarGeek affiliate program on the Reditus marketplace.

Why add an affiliate network to a working in-house program?

WebinarGeek's own program did what in-house programs do: it turned happy users into referrers. The limitation is structural, and the WebinarGeek team named it themselves: it's a silo. You can invite your own users, but you can't invite people you've never met. Adding the Reditus network was designed to fix exactly that:

• Reach beyond their own users: get discovered by affiliates who had never heard of WebinarGeek
• Test without disruption: the in-house program kept running, and no affiliates were migrated on day one
• Prove the network first: launch quietly, watch the data, then decide the next step

That last point shaped the whole approach. WebinarGeek deliberately took a laid-back launch: set the program live on the Reditus marketplace and let the network do the discovering.

How long does it take before an affiliate network pays off?

This is the part most case studies skip. WebinarGeek's first affiliate sale landed in month seven. That was expected, and Reditus was upfront about it from the start: a quiet launch takes around six months to convert, because the affiliate pipeline has real stages that each take time.

1. Affiliates discover the program and join
2. They create content: reviews, comparisons, tutorials, listings
3. That content starts driving referrals
4. Referrals move through a typical B2B sales cycle of about two weeks, then convert to paid

Skip the quiet launch and actively recruit, and the ramp gets shorter. But even a laid-back launch gets there, and the numbers after the ice broke prove it.

What happened after the ice broke?

Once the first affiliate sales landed in month seven, the channel changed character. Quarterly affiliate revenue doubled from the first quarter after the ice-break to the next. The peak month reached more than two and a half times the first sales month. And the quality of the traffic stood out: more than 40% of referrals converted into paying customers, the kind of conversion rate you'd expect from warm introductions, not cold traffic.

Key numbers so far

• 200+ affiliates recruited
• Over half actively driving clicks
• 55,000+ clicks from affiliate traffic
• First affiliate sale in month seven, as expected for a quiet launch
• 2× quarterly affiliate revenue growth after the first sale
• 40%+ of referrals convert to paying customers

What other SaaS teams can learn from WebinarGeek

First, your own network is a starting point, not a strategy. An in-house program powered by your own users can work well, and WebinarGeek's did. But it inherits the limits of your existing reach. A network adds the one thing you can't build alone: affiliates you've never met.

Second, set honest timeline expectations. Affiliate marketing is a compounding channel, not a campaign. If a quiet launch takes six months to convert its first customer, that's not failure; that's the pipeline doing its work. Teams that quit in month four never find out.

Third, prove the channel before you commit everything to it. WebinarGeek ran the network alongside their in-house program, watched the data, and only decided to consolidate after the model proved itself. That's a low-risk path any SaaS team can copy.

What's next for WebinarGeek?

The network has proven itself, so WebinarGeek is taking the next step: migrating their in-house affiliate program onto Reditus, bringing every partner into one system with automated payouts and tracking. Alongside that, they're rolling out the in-app referral program, inviting their own users to recommend WebinarGeek from inside the product.

Want to see what an affiliate network could add to your SaaS? Start a free trial or explore the Reditus marketplace.