In a world of fewer clicks, every conversion matters more.

One year ago, we launched the Conversion Protection Initiative (CPI) with a simple belief: if you can't measure something accurately, you can't truly value it.

That belief now feels less like a principle and more like a necessity.

Over the past year, we've seen a clear shift in how performance works. Across the Awin platform, our affiliates drove more than eight billion clicks globally. It’s a huge sum but one that's actually down 15% year on year.

And yet performance hasn't followed the same trajectory. Conversion rates are rising. Revenues are growing. The value of each interaction is increasing.

We're moving into a world of fewer, more meaningful interactions. And when that happens, the cost of getting measurement wrong goes up.

What Awin’s CPI set out to fix

For a long time, affiliate tracking has worked well enough. But "well enough" was built for a different environment, with more predictable journeys and fewer technical constraints.

Today, conversions can be lost between devices, missed in apps, or blocked entirely by changes in browsers and privacy standards. Not because they didn't happen, but because we couldn't see them.

That creates a problem on both sides of the affiliate ecosystem. Advertisers don't get a complete picture of performance, and affiliates don't always get rewarded for the role they've played.

CPI was designed to plug those gaps. Not by changing what affiliate marketing is, but by strengthening the foundations of how it's measured.

Since we launched CPI in April last year, we have seen:

• Over 2,300 advertisers upgrading their tracking through CPI
• The recapturing of $578 million in advertiser revenue that would previously have been lost to the channel or underreported
• The recovery of more than $37 million in affiliate commissions

Growth that's being uncovered

The more interesting signal sits beneath those impressive headline numbers.

When advertisers upgrade their tracking, we don't see inflated performance. While traffic stays flat or even declines, and order values remain broadly stable, it’s the conversion rates that improve up to 6-10% on average. In other words, the growth isn't being created by these upgrades, it's being uncovered.

Amy Hockin, Head of Paid Traffic Acquisition at one of our biggest telecom customers, Virgin Media O2, illustrated this point well when she said:

"CPI provided the fuel needed for us to prioritize tracking upgrades... This has led to better measurability across our digital channels and a clearer understanding of the value each channel drives, aiding smarter investment decisions."

There's also a human side to this. When performance is measured more accurately, affiliate partners are rewarded more consistently. That in turn allows them to invest with greater confidence.

James Little, Commercial Director at TopCashback, described the impact this way:

"Awin's probabilistic payments have been a welcome recognition that publishers shouldn't lose out due to tracking gaps beyond their control... these payments have supported continued investment in our growth and ultimately helped us deliver a better experience for our members."

Better measurement leads to fairer outcomes. Fairer outcomes drive more investment. And that investment improves the experience for everyone involved.

It’s a flywheel for collective growth that embodies the win-win nature of our industry.

A milestone, not a finish line

It's been wonderful to see CPI recognized by the industry, with the initiative awarded Gold for Excellence in Transparency & Compliance at the Global Performance Marketing Awards last year. But recognition isn't really the point. Progress is.

While we've made a strong start, there's still much more to do. Not every advertiser has upgraded their tracking to the standards we now demand. Not every conversion is captured. And as online shopping habits continue to evolve, the challenge of measurement will only become more important.

The last year has shown that we don't necessarily need more traffic to drive growth. But we do need to be better at understanding and capturing the value that's already there.

CPI doesn't create new demand. It ensures we don't lose sight of the demand we were already creating. And right now, that might be one of the most important things we can do as an industry to demonstrate our value.

Find out more about Awin’s Conversion Protection Initiative.