As one of the oldest digital marketing channels, affiliate marketing continues to evolve to drive business outcomes for many brands. Affiliate marketing is now responsible for 16% of global ecommerce orders (Post Affiliate Pro); U.S. affiliate spending was $10.72B in 2024, and is expected to increase to $12B in 2025 (Statista).
For Astound’s clients, affiliate has emerged as one of the most cost effective channels. Paid search, social media and display advertising costs continue to rise, spurring more brands to increase investment in affiliate, where the advertiser generally only pays for the lead or sale (vs. the click or impression). This enables advertisers to better attribute their digital investments to bottom line performance, and ensure they’re getting the highest return, especially in times where brands have less digital marketing budget to work with. To illustrate, Shopify notes that the average order value (AOV) for affiliate sales rose 27% Y/Y.
Key Trends
In our experience running managed affiliate marketing programs for best-in-class global brands across all major affiliate networks, we’re seeing some new trends emerge, and savvy advertisers are taking advantage of new opportunities:
- The New Definition of an “Affiliate”: With the rise of influencer marketing alongside social media in the early 2000s, the definition of an “affiliate” deeply broadened, as brands were able to go beyond just traditional publishers to leverage anyone with a social media following (influencers, content creators, YouTubers) to act as affiliate partners. But even with this evolution, affiliate marketing still centered around the partner offering a deal (e.g. referral link or coupon code). Today, the definition of an “affiliate” has evolved beyond just content partners like publishers or influencers, to also include brands themselves. This includes strategies like:
- Brand-to-Brand: Multiple brands collaborating to promote each other’s products
- Card-Linked Offers: Rewards/cashback that consumers receive from a brand when using their credit cards
- Post-Purchase/Loyalty: Rewards for leaving reviews, refer a friend, discounts off future purchases
- Expanding Affiliate Channels: Affiliate is no longer just a “last touch” channel. Brands now have the ability to reach customers at every stage of the end-to-end purchase journey, from leveraging influencers for awareness; to review and comparison for consideration; to conversion rate optimization for purchase; to post-purchase loyalty. This includes reaching new and existing customers across formats, now including connected TV, shoppable video and retail media. Influencers/creators are central to this cross-channel integration, as more brands are working with them to blend video storytelling with product integration and live commerce.
- Unleashing First-Party Data: Brands, agencies, networks and partners are prioritizing the creation of actionable first-party data foundations through evolving AI capabilities. This is enabling advanced affiliate marketers to leverage first-party data to gain a competitive edge by delivering the right message, at the right moment to discrete customer segments. As AI continues to advance, affiliate marketers will be better able to create and deliver compelling content and offers, at massive scale, and across all channels.
Opportunities for Brands
In order to evaluate if your brand is leaving affiliate performance on the table, ask the following questions:
- Is our affiliate program driving at least 10-15% of digital store revenue?
- Do we have a diverse program in terms of partners (publishers, influencers, brands), or are we utilizing only one publisher type?
- Are we paying all partners the same rate, or do we have a tiered commission strategy in place?
- Is our program covering the holistic, end-to-end purchase funnel, or just the last click?
- Is our program compliant; are we respecting various global privacy laws; are our offers transparent?
- Are we regularly checking for fraud and doing reversals on returned/refunded purchases?
Reach out to Astound today and we’ll provide a complimentary review of your existing affiliate program to identify some potential new revenue streams.
