Social Snowball
How to find affiliates beyond your customers (Social Snowball)
To find affiliates beyond your customers, look at who already writes about your rivals. Then email them your sign-up link. Outside people come to Social Snowball through a sign-up form you promote yourself, or through its paid creator search.
An affiliate is anyone who sends you buyers for a cut of each sale. That cut is the commission. A creator is someone with an audience on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube.
Why does a customer-led programme need more than buyers?
Its customer flow makes an affiliate account for each new buyer, with a link or code (Social Snowball help center, checked 23 October 2026). That is a sensible start, since a buyer already likes you.
It draws on one pool: people who have bought. A buyer list holds only people who bought. Some buyers have an audience, but you can't count on it. One brand wrote "We do have some trouble finding high quality affiliates" (Shopify App Store review, 30 September 2026). It is one view, and it is the gap this page is about.
Who are the people beyond your customers?
They are people who appear to send readers, viewers or listeners to brands like yours. In our scan of 30 public Shopify brands, 64% of people shown had a review or roundup page as their best evidence (our research). Another 20% were blog-style pages and 14% were podcasts. Creators on TikTok and Instagram were far fewer. In a 30-row check, about 30% (likely 17% to 48%) were not promoters, judged from title and address only, so read each one before you email.
| Kind of person | Where you find them | Why they fit |
|---|---|---|
| Review and roundup writers | "Best [your product]" articles | They write for people comparing products |
| Bloggers | Posts that mention your rivals | They write about your kind of product |
| Podcast hosts | Shows that cover your topic | They talk to people who care about the topic |
| Newsletter writers | Issues that recommend products | They reach readers by email (few in our scan) |
| Creators | Instagram, TikTok and YouTube | They can show the product in use |
How do you find and ask them? Five steps
- Write down your five closest rivals. Pick shops a buyer would compare you with.
- Search each rival's name with "review", "best" and "alternative". Open the first two pages of results. Note each site and who runs it.
- Check fit. Does it cover your kind of product? Is it live and recent? Does it suit your price? Drop coupon and deal sites unless you want them.
- Find a contact. Look for an email on the page, in the about section or in the footer. An address on the writer's own site beats a form.
- Send a short email with your sign-up link. Say why you picked them, what you pay and what they get. Follow up once.
By hand this is slow, since each person needs a search, a fit check and an email. We haven't timed it.
What does Social Snowball's own creator search cover?
Its Creator Search and Outreach is on the Blizzard plan, from $899 a month (Shopify App Store, checked 23 October 2026). The help center describes "2M+ META-verified creators" and says your brand must be signed up to Meta's Creator Marketplace first. You can search by keyword or by a handle you enter, and filter by followers and country. Then you enrol people into an email sequence. It goes out from an address you connect (Social Snowball help center, 3 February 2026).
One brand said it let them "easily communicate and discover relevant influencers" (Shopify App Store review, 15 June 2026). It is a search of Meta creators. It doesn't describe finding bloggers, review sites or podcasts. If your buyers come from Instagram creators, it fits. If they come from search, you want the other kinds too. See Social Snowball alternatives and Social Snowball vs UpPromote for how the apps compare.
How does RecruitAffiliates.ai work with Social Snowball?
It works alongside Social Snowball, with no integration. It runs the five steps above for you. You type your website. It finds sites, blogs, newsletters, podcasts, YouTube channels and creators who appear to promote or write about your rivals. It looks for an email address for each person (what each result means) and sends the outreach from your inbox. All you do is reply.
You can put your own Social Snowball sign-up link in every email. People join through that link, and Social Snowball stays your tracker. See our pricing. Launch costs $79 a month, and you can try it free for 7 days with no card. Our scan found far fewer Instagram creators than review sites. If Instagram is your main source, Social Snowball's own search covers ground we don't.
Here is what we found when we ran the find step on public Shopify brands. We sent no emails, so we have no reply or sign-up rate.
We ran this · 22 October 2026
Our scan found people who are not your customers: a median of 92 per brand
- Median 92 people shown per brand, from 35 to 188. The scan used each brand's public site and rivals, not a customer list.
- 64% of 2,924 had a review, roundup or comparison page as their best evidence.
- 916 of 2,924 (31%) had an email address on record, found but not checked.
- Instagram gave 17 people and TikTok 49 across all 30 brands, so creators with an audience on those apps were a small part of what came back.
A first search for a brand, 22 Oct 2026, 30 public Shopify brands in all. It stopped at finding addresses and ran no email checks, which the product runs when a campaign starts (what each result means). In a 30-row check, 9 were not promoters (likely 17% to 48%). Full method and limits.
Questions people ask
How do you get affiliates who aren't your customers?
Find the sites and creators that cover your rivals. Check they fit. Email each your sign-up link. Start with ten and read how many reply before you do more.
Should I stop turning customers into affiliates?
No. It adds people with no extra search. Keep it on and add the outside list on top.
Can you send people your Social Snowball sign-up link yourself?
Its help center offers "an affiliate sign-up form they can embed in their website" (Social Snowball help center, checked 23 October 2026). Link to the page where you embed it, and put that link in your emails.
How many outside affiliates do you need?
We have no data on that. Start small, keep the ones who send sales, and add more of the same kind.
Is RecruitAffiliates.ai a Social Snowball app?
No. It is a web app that works alongside Social Snowball. It finds people and emails them your own sign-up link. It has no Social Snowball integration.
Sources
All checked on 23 October 2026, apart from the dates shown.
- Shopify App Store, Social Snowball, plans and features.
- Shopify App Store, Social Snowball reviews, the two quoted reviews.
- Social Snowball help center, turning customers into affiliates, how it works.
- Social Snowball help center, sign-up form, embed form.
- Social Snowball help center, Creator Search and Automated Outreach, Meta creators, outreach.