Your growth channel looks fine. Do you actually own it?

A healthy-looking affiliate revenue number sounds like a win. For ScraperAPI, one of our portfolio companies, it turned out to be more complicated than that.

Back in 2022, ScraperAPI ran its affiliate program through an external agency. The topline number looked good: a meaningful share of MRR was coming through affiliate referrals. But as the channel grew, the team realized they didn’t have the day-to-day visibility they needed to really understand what was driving it.

That’s a common pattern with outsourced growth channels. They work well in the early days, when the priority is simply getting a program off the ground. As the channel starts to matter more, the case for owning it directly gets stronger.

The case for bringing it closer

Working through an agency meant ScraperAPI’s team wasn’t in daily contact with affiliates about product updates or new features. The commission structure had grown into several tiers over time, some more useful than others. Attribution on custom packages could be clearer. And when referrals softened in early 2023, it was hard to separate the effect of ScraperAPI’s own pricing and UX changes from broader shifts in the channel.

None of this is a knock on agencies. An agency optimizes for a program as a whole, across many clients. That’s genuinely useful when you’re starting out and don’t have the bandwidth to run a channel yourself. It becomes less useful once the channel is big enough that the details, the specific affiliates, the specific commission logic, the specific brand fit, start to matter.

The fix started with an audit, not a decision

Before changing anything, the team ran a full affiliate audit in June 2023: historical numbers and forecasts, affiliate personas, competing programs, the existing affiliate base, technical attribution, terms and fraud management. Only after that did the real opportunity become clear. The program had real potential. It just needed a more direct hand on the wheel.

This is worth sitting with if your own growth channel feels stuck. The instinct is to jump straight to “let’s change the commission structure” or “let’s switch agencies.” An audit is slower, but it tells you whether you’re solving the right problem.

Bringing it in-house, and what changed

In January 2024, ScraperAPI brought the affiliate channel in-house and hired Paulina Burzawa as a dedicated Partner Marketer to own it directly. Saas.group’s central marketing team supported the handover and helped make sure nothing got lost in the transition. Bringing specialized channels in-house, and giving portfolio companies the operational muscle to run them well, is exactly the kind of work the team specializes in.

Over 2024 and 2025, the program went through a genuine glow-up. The commission structure got simplified. The landing page got refreshed. Terms got tighter, fraud controls improved, and recruitment stopped being something done on ScraperAPI’s behalf and became something the team did themselves, targeting affiliates who actually fit the brand.

The results are smaller, and better

Today, ScraperAPI’s affiliate program contributes a smaller share of MRR than it did in 2022. Part of that is by design. Part of it is a good problem to have: ScraperAPI’s overall MRR has been growing rapidly throughout 2024 and 2025, so even steady affiliate revenue naturally makes up a smaller slice of a much bigger pie.

The affiliate revenue itself now comes from a focused base of genuinely active affiliates, where “active” means making at least one sale a month. It’s a higher-quality base generating consistent, attributable revenue. Full ownership of the relationships, the communication, and the recruitment now sits in-house, where the team can see exactly what’s working and why.

Part of the shift is also just the market changing. AI search is changing how affiliate content gets discovered, and recent algorithm updates have shifted the value of traditional content affiliates. ScraperAPI is already adapting, shifting focus toward consultants and agencies working directly with clients, and paying more attention to YouTube, Reddit, and Stack Overflow as AI assistants increasingly cite them.

What this means if you’re running a growth channel through someone else

A few things carried over from this that apply well beyond affiliate programs.

Owning a channel directly pays off once that channel starts to matter. Agencies are a great way to get a program off the ground. But the closer you get to your affiliates, your customers, or your partners, the more you can actually shape the outcome instead of just watching the number move.

Simplifying is worth doing early, even though it’s uncomfortable. Fewer tiers and clearer terms will take some getting used to for existing partners. Worth it anyway, before the complexity compounds.

Hiring the right in-house owner tends to be the single highest-leverage change you can make in a channel like this. Someone who lives inside your brand every day builds relationships an outside party structurally can’t.

And be patient. ScraperAPI’s program took about a year from decision to real restructure, and the team describes the current, smaller number as healthier than the old one. Most affiliate programs need six months just to gain traction, and one to two years for a stable, meaningful contribution. If you’re not ready to fund that timeline, it’s worth asking whether now is the right time to invest in the channel.

This is the kind of operational work saas.group’s central marketing team specializes in across the portfolio: helping founders bring specialized channels in-house, build the right team around them, and turn a good-looking number into one they can actually rely on.