Requirements · PRD-Activation-Platform.md

Product Requirements Document: tellatribe Partner Activation Platform

Status: Frozen v2 vision — the commercial platform this internal build is shaped to become. Not a requirements document for the current build. Reconciled requirement-by-requirement against PRD.md in build-plan/03-reconciliation-and-surfaces.md §A.1; sequencing in BUILD-PLAN.md.
Author: Manus AI (v1.0); renamed to tellatribe by Jonathan Whistman
Version: 1.1
Date: 2026-09-03
Formerly: "Atlas Partner Activation Platform" v1.0, 2026-09-01
Audience: Product, design, engineering, data, partnership operations, finance, legal/compliance, and go-to-market leaders.

1. Product brief

tellatribe is an ease-of-use-first partner activation platform for merchants, SaaS companies, and agencies that manage affiliates, creators, referral partners, publishers, and resellers. It combines program setup, recruitment, compliant attribution, commission management, payouts, and performance reporting with a partner-facing Enablement Hub. The hub is not a static asset folder: it turns approved marketing collateral into channel-ready, correctly tracked, localized, disclosure-aware promotional packages that partners can use immediately.

Product promise: A brand can go from “I want a partner program” to “my first approved partner has published a compliant, trackable campaign” in one guided flow—without needing affiliate-operations expertise.

The market demonstrates why this needs to exist. Enterprise suites make complex partner programs possible but often create learning and implementation burden; self-serve tools launch quickly but can limit advanced attribution, fraud controls, reporting, and partner enablement. Networks solve publisher access yet generally retain opaque commercial and operating complexity. Existing platforms commonly support asset storage and link generation, but the workflow from a relevant asset to a published, measurable campaign remains fragmented. 1 2 3

2. Problem statement

2.1 Merchant/operator problem

A new program manager must decide tracking rules, commissions, approval policies, payout timing, creative rights, disclosures, integrations, and reporting before they know what matters. Their daily work is fragmented across spreadsheets, asset drives, email, ecommerce/admin tools, accounting, and an affiliate platform. As a result, programs launch slowly, policies are inconsistently applied, and operators cannot separate a low-performing partner from a partner who simply did not receive usable campaign materials.

2.2 Partner problem

Affiliates often receive a dashboard, a link, and a generic “creative assets” folder. To promote a campaign, they must identify the right offer, find approved images/copy, create channel-specific content, generate a deep link, apply disclosure language, check promotional validity, and ask for approval. This creates delay, outdated creative use, compliance risk, poor partner activation, and weak insight into which assets actually work.

2.3 Business opportunity

tellatribe will own the critical activation loop: right partner → right campaign → ready-to-use collateral → tracked publishing action → trusted payment → asset-level learning. This improves partner time-to-first-promotion, operator productivity, and program ROI without making the customer adopt an enterprise administration burden.

3. Vision, scope, and principles

3.1 Vision

Make partnership revenue as simple to operate as a modern email campaign while preserving the data integrity, governance, and economic control expected of a payment-adjacent performance system.

3.2 Product principles

3.3 In scope for the first product

tellatribe will support direct affiliate, creator, ambassador, referral, and basic reseller motions for web and ecommerce conversions. It will provide a self-service partner portal, an optional curated marketplace, a collateral activation system, first-party attribution, coupons/deep links, configurable commission rules, payout workflows, anti-fraud controls, reporting, APIs/webhooks, and targeted onboarding/support.

3.4 Explicitly out of scope for the first product

The first release will not replace a full CRM, influencer social-listening platform, ad-buying platform, digital asset management system, tax filing provider, or cross-border payment processor. It will integrate with those categories where needed. Multi-party account mapping, highly complex offline attribution, custom media buying, and advanced reseller quoting are later-stage capabilities rather than blockers for the activation loop.

4. Target market and personas

tellatribe begins with ecommerce and subscription businesses that have 20–2,000 active partners, annual partner-attributed revenue of roughly $50,000–$20 million, and a small growth/partnerships team. The architecture must nonetheless permit agencies and larger programs to manage multiple merchants and more complex policies.

5. Goals and measurable outcomes

Guardrail metrics

tellatribe must monitor confirmed invalid conversion rate, support contacts per activated partner, error rate in tracking events, time-to-resolution for payout and compliance exceptions, accidental policy violations, conversion reconciliation variance, marketplace abuse reports, and partner churn. Any apparent activation lift that increases invalid commission liability or policy violations is not success.

6. Primary user journeys

6.1 Operator: first program to first activation

The operator selects their business type, connects a supported store or billing system, and chooses a preconfigured program template such as “Shopify affiliate sales,” “SaaS recurring referral,” or “creator coupon campaign.” tellatribe recommends a tracking method, 30-day conversion window, last eligible touch within the program, pending maturity period, basic self-referral controls, standard disclosure language, and a starting commission rule. Every recommendation shows a plain-language “why this default?” explanation.

The operator creates one campaign by selecting the product/category, audience, geography, campaign dates, commission, and approved promotional channels. The operator adds a minimum viable campaign kit through a drag-and-drop builder or brand-kit import. The operator then invites a partner or enables qualified marketplace applications. The partner receives a magic-link invitation and sees a single campaign card with an explicit action: Create my activation pack.

6.2 Partner: campaign card to publishable pack

The partner opens a campaign card, confirms selected channels and audience location, chooses a promotion format, and receives an Activation Pack. For a social post this contains resized visual options, approved short/long copy variants, key claims, mandatory disclosure, a personalized coupon if authorized, a deep link, and posted-date/expiry warnings. For a newsletter it contains a hero image, subject-line suggestions, approved copy blocks, dynamic product tiles where applicable, and a click-tracked CTA. The partner can copy, download, send to an approved external tool, or submit the draft/URL for review depending on campaign policy.

The system records the pack and asset version used, tags the output with the partner, campaign, channel, locale, and link/coupon identifiers, and returns the partner to a simple post-publish checklist. The dashboard updates with clicks, pending conversions, approved commissions, payments, and clear explanations of any hold or reversal.

6.3 Operator: exceptions and optimization

The operator’s daily view is not a broad dashboard by default. It is a prioritized “Today” queue: applications to review, at-risk campaign assets, pending conversion exceptions, payout approvals, and partners who opened but did not activate a campaign. The operator can open a recommendation explaining the next best action, for example: “Nine approved newsletter partners opened Summer Launch but did not create a pack; send an approved activation reminder with the new 15% subscriber coupon.” The operator must approve outbound communications and sensitive economic actions.

7. Functional requirements

7.1 Workspace, onboarding, and program setup

7.2 Partner recruitment, identity, and network access

7.3 Enablement Hub: collateral to activation

This is tellatribe’s differentiating product domain. The asset library is a governed source of truth; the Activation Pack is the partner’s consumable unit of work.

7.4 Tracking and attribution

7.5 Commissioning, payments, and finance operations

7.6 Fraud, policy, and trust

7.7 Reporting and operating cockpit

7.8 Integrations and extensibility

8. Information architecture and UX requirements

8.1 Operator navigation

The primary navigation is Today, Programs, Partners, Campaigns & Collateral, Conversions, Payouts, Insights, and Settings. First-time users see only Today, Programs, Partners, Campaigns & Collateral, and Settings; payments, advanced attribution, APIs, and complex insights emerge after setup or when a role needs them.

8.2 Partner navigation

The partner navigation is My Work, Discover, Campaigns, Earnings, Payments, and Profile. My Work is a prioritized feed of ready campaigns, packs needing update, approval requests, payout tasks, and fresh results. A partner should not open a generic asset library to start work; a campaign should lead directly to the correct activation action.

8.3 Ease-of-use requirements

9. Permissions and authorization model

Authorization must be tenant-scoped, role-based, and resource-aware. Assets, reports, API credentials, and export capabilities require explicit scope checks. High-risk actions require step-up authentication and/or dual approval based on workspace policy.

10. Core data model

11. Non-functional requirements

12. Analytics and event taxonomy

tellatribe must instrument the full activation funnel, not just click and sale totals. Core events are workspace_created, integration_connected, program_draft_created, program_activated, partner_invited, partner_applied, partner_approved, campaign_opened, activation_pack_created, asset_previewed, asset_downloaded, copy_copied, link_generated, coupon_assigned, proof_submitted, proof_approved, touchpoint_recorded, conversion_pending, conversion_approved, commission_held, commission_paid, payout_failed, risk_flagged, and risk_resolved.

Each event must carry workspace, program, campaign where applicable, actor role, partner/enrollment where applicable, locale, channel, event timestamp, source/version, and consent-safe identifiers. Financial and risk metrics should never rely solely on client-side tracking.

13. Delivery plan

14. Dependencies, risks, and mitigations

15. QA and launch-readiness criteria

Before general availability, the team must complete end-to-end tests for a new ecommerce merchant, a recurring-revenue SaaS merchant, a partner with a coupon-only workflow, a partner with a deep-link workflow, a rejected/expired asset, a refund/chargeback, an attribution tie, a duplicate event, a self-referral flag, a payout hold/release, and partner data isolation across two merchants. Each test must verify what is shown to operator, partner, finance, and compliance roles.

Launch readiness requires documented calculation definitions, integration health-monitoring, an incident-response playbook, customer-facing status communication, support playbooks for setup and commission disputes, export/deletion workflow testing, security review, accessibility review, and a controlled beta with instrumented task completion. No release is considered ready merely because the dashboard is complete; the first partner must be able to create a valid campaign Activation Pack and understand the result without human intervention.

16. Open decisions

17. Reference basis

The PRD uses the market study as design input, not as a claim that any one competitor has a deficiency in every account. impact.com documents tiered ecommerce/partner features from Starter through Enterprise, including promo-code/link tracking, marketplace access, API tracking, Data Lab, and fraud/attribution-risk controls. 1 PartnerStack’s public plans describe a B2B-oriented blend of affiliate tracking or lead/deal registration, marketplace, payments, onboarding/training, CRM connections, advanced segmentation, and MDF management. 2 Awin publicly describes a low-commitment access plan, guided integration, partner access, and increasingly complex reporting/commission options. 3 Self-serve benchmarks show both the power and the limitation of fast launch: Rewardful focuses on a five-step setup and Stripe/Paddle integration; Refersion, Tapfiliate, and UpPromote offer asset, tracking, payment, and recruitment functions but use different tiers, fees, usage limits and integration scopes. 4 5 6 7

References

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