# How to Recruit Affiliates for Your Launch, Part 1: What a JV Manager Does (With Matt Garrett) > JV manager Matt Garrett on recruiting affiliates for WarriorPlus and JVZoo launches: the cost ($2,500 plus 15%), what to have ready, and DIY outreach. Source: https://anthonyhayes.io/recruit-affiliates-jv-manager/ Updated: 2026-10-14 --- LaunchWatch · Recruiting affiliates, part 1 A JV manager does the affiliate outreach for your WarriorPlus or JVZoo launch: they book in your affiliates, chase them during launch week and tighten your funnel. I asked Matt Garrett, one of the top JV managers in the launch scene, to explain what that costs, what you need ready before they start, and how to do the outreach yourself if you can’t afford one yet. **7,000 funnel sales. In the week between Christmas and New Year.** That was one of my launches with a JV manager, years ago. Two weeks before it, another launch drove so much traffic that the server crashed for two hours. It still did 4,000 funnel sales. Now compare that with what Stephanie and I could do on our own: about 150 sales a launch, from the people in my Unshackled group. The difference was a JV manager. And outreach has always been the part I struggle with most, which is exactly why I went that route. So I invited Matt Garrett onto a live session. Matt is one of the top JV managers for WarriorPlus and JVZoo launches, he’s been brokering launches for over 10 years and he’s been in online marketing for 25. I asked him what a JV manager actually does, what it costs, what you need ready, and how to do the outreach yourself if you’re not ready to hire one. This is part 1 of 2. In part 2 I’ll show you how I recruit affiliates myself. **One honest note before we start.** I think there’s less traffic around than in my 4,000 and 7,000 days. Matt agrees big launches take a lot more planning now, but he’s seen recent WarriorPlus launches do $30,000 and $40,000 plus, and one get close to six figures. His point: there are 10 times as many launches as there used to be, so you’ve got to look at it both ways. ## What a JV manager actually does You’ve spent weeks building the product. During launch week you need to be watching the sales pages, tweaking things and keeping an eye on the numbers. Doing that while chasing 100 or 200 affiliates? That’s a lot. **That’s the job a JV manager takes off you.** In Matt’s words, he’s “doing the heavy lifting and getting out there and putting your product in front of people.” Here’s what that covers: - **Outreach to their contacts.** Matt goes to the people he’s known and worked with for years, explains why your offer fits their list and what it gives their audience. - **Chasing during the launch.** Some affiliates won’t commit up front. They come on board once they see the launch doing good numbers, so someone has to keep following up. - **Review access and the details.** Making sure every affiliate who wants a look inside gets one. - **Bundle webinars.** A lot of launches now sell a bundle through a webinar. Matt lines up affiliates to run it, and he can even create the webinar for you as an extra. - **Funnel advice.** He’ll go through your funnel, pricing and sales pages, and tell you whether you should have a bump offer or a bundle. He runs Split Test Monkey, so he makes sure there’s a split test running on the front end and on every sales page through the launch. He can’t promise you Deal of the Day. That’s down to the platform. But he knows what they look for, so he’ll help you tick the boxes. One of his clients got picked twice on his second ever launch, on day two and on the last day, and finished with well over 600 funnel sales. ## Book 4 to 6 weeks ahead, or more Big affiliates plan their mailing calendars a long way out. To get into some of the biggest lists, you need to be looking 5 or 6 weeks ahead, if not more. Talk to a JV manager a week or two before launch and there just isn’t enough run-in. Matt likes to come on board 4 to 6 weeks before launch, as early as possible. And the good ones are booked up. When we spoke, Matt and the JV manager he works with were looking at a two-month run-in at least, and he takes on about two launches a month. **So if you’re planning a launch, the time to sort out affiliates is now.** ## What it costs, and why I call it an investment When we recorded this, Matt’s fee was $2,500 up front plus 15%. That sounds like a lot of money. Here’s the thing… **You’re paying to build a buyers list.** If you ever wondered how product creators make money selling software at $12.95, $17 or $27, that’s how. Come out of a launch with 400 or 500 front-end sales, and you’ve got 400 or 500 buyers on your email list. At that point you’re probably wondering whether you can quit your job and keep the momentum going with more launches. Matt sees it as a mindset change: treat WarriorPlus and JVZoo launches as your paid advertising for getting buyers in. Then, when you’re ready, sell a higher-ticket main offer to that list through a webinar, at $1,000 or $2,000. And the bundle webinar in your funnel is your training ground. You take your front end and upsells, bundle them into a webinar, and learn the whole process. Then you add so much more value that you can charge $500 or $1,000. That’s exactly the step one of Matt’s clients took: he built his buyers list with launches, then ran his first high-ticket webinar. **One thing to check before you hire anyone:** some JV managers take a copy of your buyers list. Matt doesn’t, and he’s never been comfortable with it. As he put it, the people buying your product expect to hear from you, so why would they expect to hear from him? And here’s how it paid off in our family. Stephanie came first or second on Matt’s leaderboard when she promoted one of his launches. So Matt ran the JV management for her next launch for free. It did over 800 sales. If you want to talk to Matt about a launch, he says the easiest way is to find Matt Garrett on Facebook. ## What you need ready before the outreach starts Matt expects the product creator to have the product finished, the sales pages built and everything set up on the platform. Then he checks it for mistakes, suggests tweaks to the funnel and pricing, and starts the outreach. Here’s his launch prep list: ### 1. Sales pages that get you approved Basic HTML pages are enough to get approved on WarriorPlus. Matt uses AI to write the sales copy, has it turn that copy into HTML pages, gets the product approved, and only then hands it to a page designer for the pretty version. ### 2. Your affiliate link, early At this stage the affiliate link matters more than the full funnel. Most affiliates leave it until the last 24 hours, but some want it 3 or 4 weeks ahead, and you want it ready for them. ### 3. A general review account **“The first question I’m going to get asked by people is can I get review access?”** Set up one review login (an email and password) and share it with your JVs. Some bigger affiliates will want their own copy of software to play with, which is fine, but most just need to look around inside and see it’s real and good quality. The sooner it’s live, the easier your JV manager’s life gets. ### 4. A demo video Affiliates who do YouTube reviews will definitely want to show the inside. For software, walk through it. For an info product, show a sneak peek of the membership area, and stop before the bits that aren’t there yet. Matt compares it to buying a car: the salesman wants you sitting in the driving seat so you can picture owning it. Same idea. And reviewers can use your demo instead of recording their own, which makes it more likely they’ll post a video for you. ### 5. A JV page, or just a Google Doc A JV page looks more professional. But one of Matt’s own launches did about $35,000 in seven days with nothing but a Google Doc, and he built the product in about four days with AI. **“Money loves speed.”** If your product fits the market right now, get it out there. ### 6. Two or three exclusive bonuses Big affiliates will ask what you’ve got that’s just for their audience. Create two or three bonuses that aren’t on the sales page. They only need to be PDFs, as long as they fit and add to the offer. Creating the bonuses is your job as the product creator. ### 7. Guard your bonus spots Some affiliates ask for a spot on your download page. That’s premium real estate, because what they’re really after is getting your buyers onto their list. Only give it to names you recognise, and only if they guarantee they’ll mail. If they don’t mail, take them off. Matt keeps his for people who made the leaderboard on his last launch: get on this leaderboard and you can have one next time. ## Doing the outreach yourself No budget for a JV manager yet? You can do it yourself. You just need to plan further ahead, and start connecting with people before you need them. **Start by watching the launches.** Keep an eye on the WarriorPlus and JVZoo leaderboards. Look for products like yours and affiliates with an audience in the same area. If you sell SEO software, ignore the colouring book and PLR launches. Different audience, different market. **Then help them first.** Even with a small list, promote their product. Do a blog review or a YouTube review. Make one or two sales for them, and you’ll get their attention. Then your pitch writes itself. Matt’s version: “Loved your product, sold your product. I’ve got this coming out. I think it’ll be a match for your audience. Here’s a review copy. Would you like to have a look?” **Make a hit list.** Pick your top 10, 15 or 20 affiliates. Follow them on Facebook, X, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube, and pay attention to what they’re doing. Engage in a thought-out way. Matt’s warning: don’t become someone’s friend and then like 30 of their photos in a row. One or two at a time. Reply with something that adds value, or a bit of humour once you know what their humour is like. He told us a good example. On a workshop, the host called him a dinosaur live (he’s been doing this for 25 years). So Matt gave Grok a photo of himself, had it turn him into a dinosaur, and posted the six-second video on Facebook to make the host laugh. Little things like that get you remembered. **Expect silence.** Doing it yourself, Matt reckons 9 out of every 10 people you reach out to won’t reply at all. Even with his contacts, more than half don’t reply the first time. Some say no because it’s not for their audience. Some say yes two or three launches later. **Go to events.** Some of Matt’s best contacts are friends he met at events over a coffee or a beer. If there isn’t one near you, start one. He did. One more place to look: the JV groups on Facebook and on Teams (Skype, as it used to be). The right Teams group can bring in a lot of top affiliates if your product fits. ## Launch week: more touch points, and what to do when it breaks Every extra place an affiliate sees your launch is another touch point. The more they see it, the more likely they are to say yes. - **Launch calendars.** A JV manager will get you listed on Muncheye, JVNotifyPro and Launch Whisper. On Muncheye you only need to pay for the featured yellow bar on launch day itself (about $100 when we spoke), because your listing shows in the run-up anyway. I compared all the calendars in [where product launches get announced](/launch-calendars-2026/). - **Platform ads.** Advertising in the WarriorPlus marketplace was about $49 a day. Matt says it’s hard to measure, but it’s one more way to get in front of affiliates, and if you know the right people you can sometimes get three days for the price of two. Ask. - **Banners.** Matt now makes his launch banners with Gemini in about 15 minutes, and he’s cancelling the graphic designer he paid monthly for years. **When something goes wrong, communicate.** If your page or site goes down, find out why as fast as you can and tell your affiliates what happened and what you’re doing to fix it. Matt’s experience is that 90 to 95% of them will forgive you if you’re honest. Go quiet, and you burn them on one of your early launches. (When my server crashed for two hours, that launch still did 4,000 funnel sales.) **And never use fake testimonials.** If you use AI to write your sales copy, it’ll probably slip fake testimonials in. Take them out. Until you have real ones, use real numbers instead: research what this kind of product does for people in your market (Matt uses Perplexity for this) and check every figure. Then follow up with your first buyers. Ask how they’re finding it and what you could improve, and the testimonials come from those conversations. **My Take:** Getting a JV manager was the biggest difference maker for me. Outreach has always been the thing I’ve had a problem with, and on our own Stephanie and I could drive about 150 sales a launch. Put a JV manager in front of a whole bunch of affiliates who can each drive 40, 50 or 100 sales, and you can 5x or 10x that without doing huge amounts of the work yourself. Yes, it costs money. As far as I’m concerned it’s an investment, because every launch is building your buyers list, and the money is in the list. Even a few hundred buyers makes a hell of a difference. In part 2 I’ll show you how I recruit affiliates myself, for when you’re doing it on your own. Growth Signals ## Get part 2 first Part 2, how I recruit affiliates myself, lands in Growth Signals, the free newsletter, along with LaunchWatch and the playbooks I find worth stealing. 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