This article will cover the following:
What Is an Affiliate?
In CAKE, an affiliate is any publisher, partner, or media buyer who drives traffic to your advertisers' offers — coupon sites, email marketers, influencers, or performance agencies. Affiliates receive tracking links, send traffic, and earn payouts when conversions happen.
Affiliates only see the offers and payout rates you explicitly share with them. They cannot view other affiliates' data, advertiser details, or your internal margin.
Signup and Approval
- Self-signup — affiliates complete your public signup form. Applications land in your pending queue for review.
- Manual creation — go to Affiliates → Add Affiliate and fill in their details directly.
- Go to Affiliates and filter by Pending status.
- Click an affiliate's name to review their information.
- To approve, change status to Active. CAKE sends a welcome email automatically.
- To decline, set status to Rejected.
- If you need more info, leave status as Pending and use the messaging tools.
Affiliate Statuses
| Status | What It Means | Can Log In? | Can Generate Links? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Active | Fully approved and participating. | Yes | Yes |
| Pending | Application submitted, not yet reviewed. | No | No |
| Rejected | Application declined. | No | No |
| Inactive | Previously active, now disabled. | No | No |
| Suspended | Temporarily blocked during investigation. | No | No |
Setting an affiliate to Inactive or Suspended does not cancel pending payouts. Review their payment queue separately before restricting access.
Setting Payouts and Offer Access
- Public offers — visible to all active affiliates automatically.
- Private offers — hidden by default; you manually approve each affiliate.
- Apply-to-run offers — affiliates request access; you approve individually.
To set a custom payout: open the affiliate's profile → Offer Access tab → find the offer → click the edit icon → enter the custom payout → save. Custom rates always take priority over the offer's default payout.
Affiliate Tiers
Affiliate tiers let you group affiliates by performance or trust level and apply consistent rules — payout rates, offer visibility — across the entire group at once, instead of configuring each account individually.
API: Affiliate Endpoints
Use the Affiliates API to programmatically manage partner accounts, update statuses, and control offer relationships.
List Affiliates
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| affiliate_id | integer | No | Filter to a single affiliate by ID. |
| affiliate_name | string | No | Partial or full name match. |
| affiliate_status | string | No | Filter by status: active, inactive, or pending. |
| account_manager_id | integer | No | Return only affiliates assigned to this account manager. |
| start_at_row | integer | No | Row offset for pagination. Default: 0. |
| row_limit | integer | No | Max records to return. Default: 25. |
Sample request
GET https://yourdomain.cake.com/api/2/affiliates.json
?api_key=YOUR_API_KEY
&affiliate_status=active
&start_at_row=0
&row_limit=25Sample response
{
"request_status": "Success",
"affiliates": [{
"affiliate_id": 67890,
"affiliate_name": "MediaBridge Partners",
"affiliate_status": "active",
"account_manager_id": 4
}],
"total_rows": 1
}Create Affiliate
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| affiliate_name | string | Yes | Display name for the new affiliate account. |
| account_manager_id | integer | Yes | User ID of the assigned account manager. |
| affiliate_status | string | Yes | Initial status: active, inactive, or pending. |
| website | string | No | Affiliate's primary website URL. |
| payment_type_id | integer | No | Payment method type ID. |
| billing_cycle_id | integer | No | Billing cycle ID. |
| minimum_payment_threshold | decimal | No | Min earnings before payment is issued. |
Sample request
POST https://yourdomain.cake.com/api/2/affiliate.json
{
"api_key": "YOUR_API_KEY",
"affiliate_name": "MediaBridge Partners",
"account_manager_id": 4,
"affiliate_status": "active",
"minimum_payment_threshold": 50.00
}Sample response
{
"request_status": "Success",
"affiliate_id": 67890,
"affiliate_name": "MediaBridge Partners",
"affiliate_status": "active"
}Update Affiliate
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| affiliate_id | integer | Yes | ID of the affiliate to update. |
| affiliate_name | string | No | New display name. |
| affiliate_status | string | No | Updated status: active, inactive, or pending. |
| account_manager_id | integer | No | Reassign to a different account manager. |
Sample request
POST https://yourdomain.cake.com/api/2/update_affiliate.json
{
"api_key": "YOUR_API_KEY",
"affiliate_id": 67890,
"affiliate_status": "inactive"
}Sample response
{
"request_status": "Success",
"affiliate_id": 67890,
"affiliate_status": "inactive"
}If you have any questions, please reach out to your dedicated CAKE Client Success Manager/Account Manager or contact the CAKE Support Team at support@getCAKE.com.