A step-by-step guide to creating your Affity network, configuring your workspace, and preparing to onboard advertisers and publishers.

A network is the central hub of an Affity workspace. As a network, you sit between advertisers (who pay for conversions) and publishers (who drive traffic), manage offers, track performance, and handle payouts.

This guide walks you through creating your network account and getting your workspace ready to onboard partners.

If you were invited to Affity as an advertiser or publisher, this is not the guide for you. See the Advertiser Setup or Publisher Setup guide instead.

What You'll Need

Before you start, have these ready:

A business email address you control (personal inboxes work, but a company address is strongly recommended).
Your network's display name and (optionally) a logo.
Your payment details — both how you'll collect from advertisers and how you'll pay publishers.
A custom domain or subdomain you can add DNS records to, if you plan to brand your tracking links (e.g. trk.yournetwork.com).

Assumption: Networks self-sign up through Affity's public signup page. If your deployment uses invite-only provisioning, your account manager will send you a signup link instead — the rest of the steps below still apply.

Creating Your Network

Go to the Affity signup page and choose "Create a Network" as your account type.

Fill in:

Full Name — the primary account owner.
Work Email — this becomes your login and receives the verification email.
Password — minimum 8 characters. Mixed case, numbers, and symbols are recommended.
Network Name — the name publishers and advertisers will see (e.g. "Acme Performance Network").

Click Create Account. Affity will send a verification link to your email.

Step 2: Verify Your Email

Open the email titled "Verify your Affity account" and click the verification link. The link expires after 24 hours.

If the email doesn't arrive within a few minutes, check your spam folder. You can also request a new link from the login screen by clicking "Resend verification email".

Step 3: Complete Your Workspace Profile

After verifying, you'll be taken to the workspace setup screen. Provide:

Company legal name — used on invoices.
Billing country — affects available currencies and tax handling.
Time zone — used for daily stats cutoffs and report scheduling.
Default currency — the currency your reports and payouts default to.

Default currency is not permanent — you can set per-offer and per-publisher currencies later. But changing your network-wide default after offers exist can confuse reports, so pick carefully now.

Step 4: Set Your Tracking Domain (Optional but Recommended)

Navigate to Settings → Tracking Domains and add a subdomain you own (for example trk.yournetwork.com).

Affity will show you a CNAME record to add to your DNS provider. Once the record propagates (usually within an hour), your tracking links will use your branded domain instead of Affity's shared tracking domain.

Assumption: Affity verifies CNAME ownership automatically and provisions an SSL certificate. If verification fails, Affity shows the exact DNS record it expects — double-check for trailing dots or typos.

Step 5: Add Billing & Payout Methods

Go to Finance → Payment Methods.

Receiving payments from advertisers: add the bank account or payment processor where advertisers will send their invoice payments.
Paying publishers: add the method(s) you'll use to pay affiliates — typically bank transfer, PayPal, Wise, or a mass-payout provider.

You can skip this step initially, but you'll need it configured before your first invoice cycle.

Step 6: Invite Your Team

From Settings → Team, invite staff members by email. Affity supports the following default roles:

Owner — full access, including billing. Only one per network.
Admin — everything except billing and ownership transfer.
Manager — manage offers, advertisers, and publishers, but no global settings.
Finance — access to invoices, payouts, and reports only.
Read-Only — view reports and dashboards, cannot edit.

Assumption: Custom roles with granular permissions are available on higher plans. If you don't see role customization, the default roles above are what you get.

Next Steps

Your network is now ready to onboard partners:

Create Your First Offer

Set up the campaign that advertisers run and publishers promote.

Invite an Advertiser

Send an invite so your advertisers can brief offers.

Invite a Publisher

Open your network to affiliates who will drive traffic.

Tips

Use a branded tracking domain from day one. Switching tracking domains later requires updating every live tracking link and postback, which is painful once publishers are running traffic.
Enable two-factor authentication on the Owner account immediately from Profile → Security.
Set up a shared "billing" email alias (e.g. billing@yournetwork.com) and use it on the Owner account so invoicing emails don't get stuck in one person's inbox.

Common Mistakes

Using a personal email for the Owner account. When that person leaves, you lose ownership recovery options. Use a role-based address.
Skipping the tracking domain step. Shared tracking domains are sometimes flagged by ad platforms or browser safe-browsing filters, which quietly tanks publisher performance.
Forgetting to verify email before inviting staff. Invites sent from an unverified account are rejected silently in some email providers.
Setting the wrong default currency. If you're a US network paying publishers in EUR, set your default to EUR — or use per-offer currencies from the start.

Setting Up Your Network Account