Video: How to build an AI agent to qualify your affiliates (and save 70% of your time)

Affiliate managers know the grind: leads streaming in from email, LinkedIn, forms, and more, all needing to be checked, verified, and followed up on. While relationship-building is where the real value lies, most managers spend the bulk of their day in spreadsheets, emails, and CRMs.

That’s where Make AI Agents come in. In this guide, we’ll walk through a real-world use case – the Affiliate Qualifying Agent. We’ll show you how to set it up step by step. The payoff? A streamlined affiliate qualification process that saves 50–70% of your time, while ensuring no opportunity slips through the cracks.

Meet Scout, your AI affiliate manager

Scout was created by Linda, affiliate manager at Loveseat Lagoon, a growing furniture brand. While Linda thrived at nurturing partnerships, she was stuck in hours of manual qualification work.

Scout now handles that for her. It can:

• Qualify new contacts across all channels

• Enrich CRM records with company info

• Manage follow-ups and meetings in her calendar and Trello

As a result, Linda spends more time on strategy and creativity, while Scout quietly runs the back office.

How Scout works: Step-by-step 

Here’s how the Affiliate Qualifying Agent functions in Make.

1. Watch for new leads

Scout continuously monitors a Google Sheet fed by multiple sources:

• Loveseat Lagoon’s affiliate registration form

• LinkedIn messages

• A dedicated Gmail folder

This ensures every potential partner is captured in one place.

2. Apply smart qualification rules

When a new lead appears in the Google Sheets, Scout checks it against pre-defined criteria. For example:

• Does the email domain belong to a real company?

• Is there a minimum annual revenue?

• Does the company have a verified tax ID?

• Is it in the right location?

Unqualified contacts are filtered out automatically, saving hours of wasted outreach.

3. Enrich CRM records

If the lead looks promising, Scout updates the CRM (in our case, HubSpot).

• If the company already exists → Scout updates the record.

• If not → Scout creates a new record, enriched with data from ZoomInfo.

The affiliate is added as a contact, ensuring Linda’s CRM is always fresh.

4. Organize and communicate

At the same time, Scout:

• Creates a new Trello card for the lead

• Sends a personalized welcome email

• Handles replies and common questions about Loveseat Lagoon’s products

5. Book the meeting

Once the lead is ready to talk, Scout:

• Schedules the meeting in Linda’s calendar

• Moves the Trello card to Meeting Organized

• Notifies Linda so she can prepare her strategy

6. Manage delays gracefully

If a lead isn’t ready yet, Scout takes notes:

• “Reach back out in 6 months” → Scout sets the reminder automatically.

No sticky notes, no lost follow-ups — everything runs like clockwork.

What’s the impact? 

The Affiliate Qualifying Agent is more than just automation. It’s a scalable assistant.

• 50–70% time saved on manual qualification

• Consistent, professional communication with every affiliate

• Zero missed opportunities thanks to reminders and organized tracking

• Freedom for managers to focus on relationships and strategy, not admin

For Linda, this means better partnerships and a happier workday. For Loveseat Lagoon, it means faster growth without adding headcount.

Build your own affiliate qualifying agent

With Make and Make AI Agents, you don’t just automate tasks! You build digital teammates. Whether it’s affiliate management, customer support, or internal operations, Make AI Agents can take on the repetitive work so you can focus on what matters most.