Operational Workflow
After partner onboarding is complete (domain, branding, ad pixels, affiliate mode, merchant list), the partner moves into the operational rhythm — publishing products and launching campaigns.
This page covers the per-product workflow. The same shape applies whether the partner is publishing a single-product deal, a curated landing page, or a retail-media placement. Landing pages have a few extra steps for the page itself — see Curated landing pages below.
The four phases
Every product goes through the same four phases. Phases 1 and 2 alternate between the partner and Firmly; phase 3 is the joint review; phase 4 is what happens once the product is live.
Phase 1 — Partner provides inputs
Identify product
Partner selects a product to promote from an agreed merchant.
Owner: Partner — Output: Merchant product URL
Provide affiliate link
Partner provides the affiliate link for this product. In BYO mode, this is the partner’s own affiliate-tagged URL from their network.
Owner: Partner — Output: Affiliate URL
Provide offer details
Partner provides promo code, discount amount, and display copy per product. The coupon, discount value, and copy are saved alongside the product URL and affiliate link as part of the same product configuration.
Owner: Partner — Output: Promo code + discount + copy per product
Provide campaign metadata
Partner provides campaign context: campaign name, ad platform, target launch date, any reporting keys needed for reconciliation.
Owner: Partner — Output: Campaign metadata record
Phase 2 — Firmly configures the product
Resolve product
Firmly resolves the merchant product URL to a product identifier, fetches live catalog data (title, price, variants, images, stock) via the platform adapter.
Owner: Firmly — Output: Product resolved with live data
Resolve affiliate link
Firmly resolves the affiliate URL, identifies the network, extracts merchant ID and affiliate parameters.
Owner: Firmly — Output: Affiliate configuration saved
Configure offer
Firmly configures promo-code auto-application, discount messaging on PDP and checkout, savings callout on the thank-you page.
Owner: Firmly — Output: Offer mechanics configured
Create partner-branded PDP
Firmly creates the PDP on the partner’s domain — product data rendered with partner theme, promo applied, merchant identity displayed per partner preference.
Owner: Firmly — Output: Partner-branded PDP live on staging
Generate launch URL
Firmly generates the final URL the partner will use in their ad creative. Includes the product path and any promo/tracking parameters.
Owner: Firmly — Output: Launch URL ready for ad creative
Phase 3 — Review and launch
Partner reviews on staging
Branding, pricing, promo, discount messaging, merchant identity all reviewed on the staging hostname.
Owner: Partner — Output: Approval or change requests
Go live
Firmly publishes the PDP to production; the launch URL becomes active.
Owner: Firmly — Output: PDP live on production
Partner creates ad
Partner sets up ad creative on their ad platform (Meta, Google, retail-media network, etc.) using the launch URL as the destination.
Owner: Partner — Output: Ad campaign live
Phase 4 — Conversion signals at order completion (automatic)
These fire automatically the moment the order is placed with the merchant. No manual step required — included for workflow completeness.
| Signal | What happens | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| Affiliate conversion | Firmly fires the conversion to the affiliate network using the pre-configured affiliate data | Firmly (automatic) |
| Ad conversion | Firmly fires the conversion event to the partner’s ad platforms using the configured pixels and the click context captured at buyer entry | Firmly (automatic) |
Curated landing pages — additional steps
For curated landing pages, the per-product workflow above repeats for each product on the page. There are additional steps for the landing page itself:
| Step | What happens | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| Curate product list | Partner selects products for the landing page and provides affiliate link + offer details per product. Products can span multiple merchants | Partner |
| Provide page design | Partner provides landing-page design direction — hero image, page title, section layout, editorial copy | Partner |
| Build landing page | Firmly builds the landing page with the partner theme, product grid with live pricing, links to individual PDPs | Firmly |
| Review and approve | Partner reviews the landing page on staging | Partner |
| Go live | Firmly publishes the landing page; the launch URL for the landing page is active | Firmly |
| Partner promotes | Partner uses the landing-page URL in ads, email, social, direct links | Partner |
Multi-merchant landing pages
A landing page can feature products from multiple merchants side by side, each with live pricing from its own merchant, while checkout stays single-merchant per purchase. The mechanics and the single-merchant-checkout constraint are documented once on Curated landing page → Multi-merchant landing pages; the per-product configuration steps above apply to each product on the grid.
What comes next
The per-product publishing workflow above is manual coordination between the partner and Firmly’s ops team. The operational dashboard is already live for reporting; self-service publishing and a public API are the next automation phases:
| Phase | What changes |
|---|---|
| Next — Self-service product submission | Partner submits product URLs and affiliate links through the dashboard. Firmly resolves and configures automatically. Partner reviews and approves in the dashboard |
| After — API | Partner integrates programmatically — product submission, launch-URL generation, and campaign metadata sync. Enables bulk product publishing and CI/CD-style campaign management |
The documentation here will be updated as each phase ships.
Related
- Partner onboarding — must be complete before this workflow begins
- Operations overview
- Single-product deal — what the buyer sees after this workflow runs
- Curated landing page — landing-page variant of the workflow