Commission campaigns with creators in Saudi Arabia: what actually works

Affiliate marketing with creators is one of the most promising ways for a Saudi brand to grow: you pay for sales, and the creator earns for as long as their followers keep buying. Done right, both sides win. Done wrong, as commission-only, most campaigns struggle to hire anyone. This guide uses a year of campaigns posted on Trendly to show what works.

Why commission is catching on

Commission work with creators is growing in Saudi Arabia, and for good reasons on both sides.

• Creators want income that keeps coming. A fee pays once. A code that keeps selling pays every month the followers keep buying. Big stores already invite creators to earn this way: Amazon.sa runs an associates programme where creators earn on qualifying purchases from their links.
• Brands want to know what sold. A code per creator turns "the campaign went well" into a number per person, so the next budget goes to the creators who actually move product.
• It is still early. In the Saudi brand videos tracked by Trendly Studio, only about 3% show a discount code. A brand that runs codes well now stands out in a feed where most brands do not.

The catch is in how you start. The data below shows why commission alone rarely gets a campaign off the ground.

What we saw in a year of campaigns

We reviewed the campaigns brands posted on Trendly between October 2025 and October 2026: almost 300 campaigns from about 190 brands.

Commission campaigns attracted creators. About a third of applications to them were accepted. The trouble came after that:

• Only about one in five commission campaigns hired anyone.
• Of the creators who were hired, only about one in eight finished the work.

Paid campaigns, where the creator gets a fee for the video, hired and completed far more often. Our operations team’s advice to brands, after watching this for a year, is short: pay first, add commission later.

Why commission-only struggles

From the creator’s side, a commission-only deal asks them to:

• spend a day filming and editing,
• risk their audience’s trust on a product they may not know,
• and wait to see whether anyone buys, often without seeing the orders.

Creators in Saudi Arabia already have work. Many get steady paid collaborations; what they complain about is finding brands that need them, chasing payments, and agencies that pay late. A deal with no fee and no visible tracking looks like more of the same.

What brands offer

Across commission briefs on Trendly:

• 10% of the order was the most common rate, with a range from 4% to 40%.
• Some brands paid a fixed SAR 15 to 50 per order instead of a percentage.
• About 60% of commission briefs included a discount code for the creator’s followers.

Fixed amounts are easier for creators to understand. Percentages scale better when order values vary.

A better structure: fee plus commission

1. Pay a fee for the first video. On Trendly, creators with 10,000 to 100,000 TikTok followers asked a median of SAR 600 for a paid campaign. See influencer ad prices in Saudi Arabia.
2. Give each creator their own code so every order is credited correctly. Our guide to discount codes per creator covers the setup.
3. Add commission on top, paid on orders that were not returned.
4. After a month, look at who sold. Raise the commission for your best sellers and offer them a lower fee or none. By then they have seen orders arrive and trust that they will be paid.

This way, the creators you keep on commission are the ones it already works for.

Writing the commission terms

Creators accept commission when it is clear and paid on time. Put these in the brief:

• The rate, and whether it applies before or after the discount and VAT.
• Which orders count: online only, or also in shops if you can track them.
• How long the code is valid.
• When commission is paid, for example monthly, after the return window.
• What happens on returns and cancellations.
• How the creator can see their orders.

Which products suit commission

Commission works best when people can buy online straight after watching, the price is low enough to buy on impulse, and the margin can pay the creator. Perfume, beauty, fashion, home goods and food delivered at home fit. In Trendly Studio’s data, these are also the categories where creators most often show a discount code.

It works poorly for restaurant visits, clinics and anything bought after weeks of thinking. Pay a fee for those.

Common mistakes

• Hiding the commission terms until after the video. Creators read that as a sign they won’t be paid.
• Paying only on sales the creator can’t see. If they can’t check their orders, they will assume the worst.
• Paying late. One late payment travels fast between creators. Pay on the date you promised, even when the amount is small.
• Changing the rate mid-campaign. If you need to change it, apply the new rate to new orders only.
• Judging after one week. Some videos keep selling for a month. Wait for the full period before deciding who to keep.

Running it at scale

With a handful of creators, a spreadsheet will do. With dozens, you will be issuing and replacing codes, matching orders, subtracting returns, checking IBANs and answering "how much do I have?" every week.

Trendly Affiliate handles that: a code per creator, orders credited to the code that brought them, commission tiers, returns reversed before payment, and one payout run and bank file per period. You can recruit creators from the Trendly marketplace or bring the ones you already work with. Prices for Saudi stores are on the affiliate pricing page.

To start with paid work, post a campaign on Trendly and let creators send their prices.

About the data

The campaign figures come from Trendly’s review of brand-created campaigns from 27 October 2025 to 18 October 2026, excluding imported and test campaigns. Rates are what brands wrote in their briefs, not audited payouts. Studio figures are from the snapshot of 2 November 2026.