Top Affiliate Marketing Trends to Watch in 2025 | Awin
Written by Robert Davinson on 8 minute read
Influencers, AI, brand partnerships and many more topics emerged in our roundtable discussion with leading industry figures.
With 2024 already disappearing in the rearview mirror, we took the opportunity to invite a panel of affiliate experts onto Awin-Win Marketing Podcast for a special 2025 predictions and trends conversation. Joining us for this two-part episode were:
- Sarah Bundy, Founder of OPM agency All Inclusive Marketing
- Mike Mallazzo, Writer of the Zero Clicks newsletter
- David Lloyd, Chief Customer Officer at Awin
You can listen to the first part of the predictions episode here, but we’ve also rounded up some key highlights to whet your appetite.
1. Increased industry M&A will continue dissolving old affiliate categories
Gone are the days when advertisers, agencies, and affiliates stuck to their own lanes. In a world where it’s increasingly commonplace for brands to act like publishers, and the most successful publishers or creators end up becoming brands in their own right, those labels are beginning to feel somewhat obsolete.
The explosion in retail media is arguably the biggest example of this occurring outside of affiliate marketing, but Sarah predicted that 2025 will see an acceleration in affiliate businesses acquiring other companies that can expand their own affiliate capabilities.
“You’re going to see brands acquiring affiliates, affiliates also acquiring other affiliates, agencies acquiring affiliates. Maybe even brands acquiring affiliate management companies because they want to have the best talent and keep it exclusive to them.”
2. Affiliate to help plug retail media’s mid-funnel gap?
Speaking of retail media, the massive influx of spend into that space has it featuring prominently in many marketers’ planning for 2025. However, as Mike observed, it’s not a full-funnel solution.
“Retail media struggles in mid-funnel because there isn't a lot there in a lot of ways in terms of moving somebody along the purchase funnel,” he commented, subsequently highlighting where affiliates can add value.
By nudging prospective shoppers with a general interest in a product onto retail media platforms where they can then be converted, affiliates can bridge a crucial gap in the customer journey.
3. Brand partnerships grow as advertisers realise value of their own audiences
Another offshoot of the retail media explosion is brand partnerships. The affiliate channel has pioneered one-to-one collaborations between non-competing brands over the last couple of years, and they’re now beginning to establish themselves as a key strategy for advertisers seeking new growth opportunities that offer mutual value.
David described the opportunities that emerge for brands that think beyond the simple goal of selling their own products.
“I've just sold you a huge fridge. You want to put some stuff in your fridge. So let's go and find a brand who sells you things that you can put in your fridge. And that's a brand marketing opportunity as much as it's a performance marketing opportunity.”
More than thinking about brand partnerships as a tactic, this represents an evolution in how we might think about marketing strategy, as David later observed: “Whereas everything used to be about brand, everything used to be about audience, and that's still very important, marketing over the last couple of decades has also moved through to individual moments and intent... I am in this particular moment. I'm ready to buy this. Show it to me. And brands have this great opportunity either post-purchase or during the purchase process to delightfully interrupt consumers if they get it right.”
Awin CCO David Lloyd explains how marketing is evolving on Awin-Win Marketing Podcast.
4. AI search will force affiliates to focus on building their own brands and loyal audiences
The implications of AI for affiliate marketers was naturally a hot topic of conversation for the podcast guests. With Google’s roll-out of AI Overviews adding to the increasing adoption of ChatGPT, Perplexity and other large language models (LLMs) for search purposes, the days of competing for organic traffic appear to be numbered.
If that’s the case, as David described, it will be more vital than ever to find ways of insulating your business from that risk.
“Affiliates are going to want to build an ever-stronger relationship to their customer base. Give people a reason to go direct to them. Give people a reason to Google them rather than Googling a term which they show up for.”
For Sarah, the big lesson from the last couple of years of seeing affiliates turn to AI for content creation was that it’s a gamble, commenting: “I think they risk losing the authentic connection they have with their audience because customers can see that a robot has written that.”
5. Influencers to the fore as affiliate partnerships add new monetisation layer
Sarah’s observation that video content would be key for publishers in 2025 prompted a discussion as to how that would inevitably spur more growth in affiliate’s thriving influencer and creator space.
David cited some of the activity he was seeing at Awin: “When we look at the influencer work we do with brands, there are those massive influencers who command a lot of space and attention, but they’re often there to build brand connections. And then you have the micro influencers, those people with authority in a specific area who can build incredible performance for brands.”
The incentive for these influencers to embrace affiliate is that it offers yet another avenue for monetisation. As Mike stated, of the big commercial deals many influencers often broker directly with brands “affiliate can be a nice monetisation layer underneath where you can reserve 50-75% of your content to be organic and still make something back with affiliate links.”
6. Affiliate longtail to lengthen as organic traffic declines and converges on the top 1%
Last year, Google laid siege to a host of affiliate websites with a mix of search updates and penalties, causing havoc in the SERPS. There are no guarantees 2025 will fare any better.
Mike suggested the implications of these big platform changes could lead to a massive bifurcation in the industry between the haves and have-nots, with two specific segments destined to thrive in this new environment.
“The first is if you’re the 99th percentile at creating content I think you're in a beautiful spot. Companies that deeply review products, that have diversified businesses and that have a ton of direct traffic and brand ethos, I think those companies are going to grow immensely.”
Mike picked out traffic arbitrage experts as well placed, too: “ The people that are absolutely exceptional at buying search and social traffic are also in a really good spot. As organic declines, that skillset is going to drive just a tremendous amount of volume.”
Beyond this minority though, the future doesn’t look pretty. For affiliates that haven’t mastered traffic arbitrage or content production, who are still heavily reliant on organic SEO for traffic, Mike is a lot less optimistic: “That's a really hard spot to be in. And unfortunately, I think that comprises a decent amount of, if not the, the GMV of our industry, a decent amount of the players in the industry.”
7. B2B affiliate marketing on the rise in 2025
Affiliate marketing, traditionally associated with consumer-facing brands, is experiencing a notable expansion into the B2B sector. Sarah highlighted how the pandemic accelerated this trend, as businesses sought innovative ways to drive leads in a disrupted market.
"When COVID hit, the B2B industry pivoted to affiliate marketing for lead generation - demos, trials, and inquiries - and it's a model that has proven its worth," she shared.
Brands like Oracle, Unbounce, and Asana have successfully used affiliate programmmes to attract high-quality leads, generating measurable ROI. In 2025, their growth is expected to continue as B2B companies adopt more sophisticated affiliate strategies, using partnerships to fill sales pipelines and complement traditional methods like direct outreach and paid advertising.
8. Challenges in tracking and attribution will require new solutions
All the while, tracking and attribution remain two of the most pressing challenges in the affiliate marketing industry, especially as privacy regulations tighten and technologies evolve.
David emphasised the importance of new solutions to the problem like Awin’s Conversion Protection Initiative (CPI), designed to ensure fair compensation for affiliates and more accurate insights for advertisers.
“We need to close the gaps in tracking by adopting server-to-server methods and introducing probabilistic tracking to account for missing data,” he explained.
The initiative is aimed at overcoming common obstacles such as browser and device-level tracking limitations, app versus web inconsistencies, and the complexities of cross-platform attribution. By encouraging best-in-class tracking methods and fostering transparency, the industry can maintain trust among senior stakeholders while delivering measurable results.
There are also performance benefits to making that switch. In 2025, companies that prioritise accurate tracking will gain a competitive edge, enabling them to better understand what’s working versus what’s not, ensuring they can invest their next marketing dollars in affiliate campaigns with real confidence.
To hear more from the discussion with Sarah, David, and Mike, listen to the first half of our 2025 affiliate predictions podcast episode.
