Affiliate Partnerships Manager

About Smartly

TrySmartly is building a next-generation consumer lending marketplace for underserved and subprime borrowers. We take in traffic and lead submissions from distribution partners, enrich and evaluate that data, and connect consumers with lenders and financial-services providers through API integrations, intelligent matching and routing, and data-driven decisioning.

We are early-stage, led by our Co-founder that has built and scaled marketplace platforms before, including leadership from Even Financial (now part of MoneyLion / Gen Digital) and Bankrate. The playbook is still being written, decisions get made in days rather than quarters, and the person in this role will have real influence over how the business scales.

About the Role

In under a year, Smartly has gone from zero to a growing lending marketplace, built and run almost entirely by our founder with minimal outside support. We have established real credibility with lenders, top-tier aggregators, and channel partners across the lead-generation space. This is our first dedicated hire on the partnerships side.

We are looking for an Affiliate Partnerships Manager to run the day-to-day of our partner and affiliate business. Our COO and Co-founder will continue to lead deal structure and commercial negotiations; you will own everything that happens after a partner signs — launching campaigns, watching performance daily, spotting what is working and what is not, and being the person our partners actually talk to.

This is a hands-on, high-visibility seat: you will learn consumer-lending marketplace economics from the inside, with a clear path to grow into a senior partnerships role as the function expands.

What You’ll Own

Campaign management and optimization

• Day-to-day management of live affiliate and partner campaigns — placements, offers, creative, traffic caps, and pacing.

• Watching performance daily and acting on it: flagging drops, testing changes, and recommending pricing or volume adjustments to the Co-founder.

• Running structured tests across placements, offers, and landing experiences, and documenting what you learn.

Partner relationships

• Being the responsive, reliable point of contact for a portfolio of affiliate and channel partners — questions, requests, and troubleshooting.

• Running regular partner check-ins and performance reviews, and preparing the materials that go into them.

• Surfacing partner needs and growth opportunities to the Co-founder so they can be turned into commercial conversations.

Reporting and analysis

• Building and maintaining the recurring reporting partners and the internal team rely on — volume, conversion, revenue, and quality by source.

• Turning that reporting into plain-language observations: what changed, why it likely changed, and what to do about it.

Onboarding and quality

• Coordinating new partner launches — kickoff calls, tracking setup, creative and link QA, and testing before traffic goes live.

• Making sure campaigns run inside our compliance requirements (TCPA, CCPA, FCRA, and lender-specific program rules), escalating anything that looks off.

What We’re Looking For

• 3+ years in affiliate marketing, partner or account management, performance marketing, media buying, or a similar role where you were responsible for campaign results.

• Comfort being customer-facing. You respond quickly, communicate clearly in writing, and partners like working with you.

• Genuine comfort with numbers — you can build a report in Excel or Google Sheets, read a dashboard, and explain what a trend means without being walked through it.

• Real attention to detail. In this business a broken tracking link or a misconfigured cap costs money quickly.

• Organized and self-directed. You keep track of many partners and deadlines without someone checking in on you.

• Curiosity about how the business makes money, and interest in learning marketplace and lead-generation economics.

Nice to Have

• Exposure to financial services, fintech lending, consumer credit, or lead generation.

• Familiarity with affiliate and referral economics — CPA, CPL, EPL, EPC — and what moves them.

• Working knowledge of tracking and integration basics: links, pixels, postbacks, redirects, or APIs.

• Experience with Looker, Tableau, or a similar reporting tool.

Why Join Now

This is the first partnerships hire at a company that has gotten real traction with a very small team. You will not be one of thirty account managers running a playbook someone else wrote — you will help write it, with direct access to a co-founder who has built and scaled this kind of marketplace before.

For someone a few years into their career who wants to learn performance-marketing economics properly and own real partner relationships early, this is an unusually direct path.

Compensation

• Base salary: $90,000 – $120,000 annually.

• Bonus: Up to 10% of annual base, tied to company financial performance and individual goals.

Compensation varies based on experience, skills, location, and relevant knowledge.

Location and Travel

• Remote — must reside in the United States.

• Occasional travel for industry events and partner meetings as needed.

Equal Opportunity

TrySmartly is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to any characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. The responsibilities outlined above are not exhaustive, and the employee may be asked to take on additional duties as business needs evolve.