2026 Affiliate Industry Predictions: Part 2

ROB: [00:00:00] Kelli. Hi. Happy new Year.

KELLI: Happy New Year to you too.

ROB: I wanted to ask you, outside of work, are you a resolutions kind of person? Do you make resolutions? Have you got any for 2026?

KELLI: Not specifically, but I would like to remind. I was just reading about some habits and, and the way we think and maybe some, uh, flaws in our way of thinking to remind of the sunk cost fallacy.

So that can obviously be applied to your personal life, but also to the business, is that we sometimes tend to follow through a decision, an investment, some kind of plan or campaign, even though it's not reasonable anymore. So really challenge what we do at every point and have the audacity to stop or evaluate or optimize.

ROB: To say no.

KELLI: To say no or to say: stop.

ROB: Yeah.

KELLI: Let's do it again. Or let's restart. What about you?

ROB: I kind of shambolically ramble along I [00:01:00] think and just kind of try to make the best of the situation.

Welcome to the second part of our annual Affiliate Trends episode, where we're going to take a look at how things are likely to shape up in Western Europe in 2026.

My name's Rob and I head up content here at Awin, as well as hosting our podcast. And I am delighted to welcome a special guest co-host on with me today, all the way from Paris, France. We have my colleague Kelli joining. Welcome, Kelli.

KELLI: Hello and thank you for having me.

ROB: You are not actually originally from France, are you?

Whereabouts are you from?

KELLI: I am from Estonia.

ROB: And how long have you lived in France?

KELLI: It's uh, 15 plus years now.

ROB: Okay, so a good chunk of time there.

KELLI: Oh yes.

ROB: Tell me, what is one thing that you've learned about French culture, would you say, since living there that you, you didn't know before?

KELLI: I would say besides the berets and the baguettes and the mutual hatred of the Eiffel Tower, which are all cliches, obviously. It is interesting to experience that for [00:02:00] French people often, uh, disagreement is a form of respect.

So they like to disagree with you to create a debate, uh, with the goal of arriving towards mutual respect, trust, and making better decisions. Which we see often in business, but sometimes also in, in real life. It can go a bit too far debating, debating, debating, but, um, I find that interesting and useful.

ROB: Yeah.

KELLI: Very often.

ROB: I think that would explain a lot of my experiences in France then, so that's good to know. I've earned a lot of respect there.

KELLI: Ah, that's a good sign.

ROB: Now, Kelli, we're gonna be tapping into your expertise as our resident French market expert today, but alongside yourself, who are our two guest experts joining us?

KELLI: We're very lucky to have Bill Fisher from eMarketer, a senior analyst who covers the western European market on all things digital marketing and media.

And from Germany, we have Julian Weiss from the online marketing [00:03:00] agency Xpose 360.

BILL: Yeah, I, I, I think it's difficult to talk about 2025 trends without mentioning AI.

ROB: With us is Bill Fisher, senior Analyst at eMarketer.

BILL: And I'm sure we'll dig into this a lot, uh, uh, as we look further ahead into 2026. But it, it, it it's had a massive impact on the wider digital marketing space in the past year, uh, not least in the search space.

There's some interesting data that I came across lately from SimilarWeb. It was about Gen AI search citations versus traditional organic Google search. And I think what they did, they looked at Gen AI searches and they looked at what proportion of those citations that came back in Gen AI were also present in Google's top 10 search returns and the figure was 10%.

So, you know, if you are optimizing for SEO, you are essentially gonna be invisible in GEO or, or generative AI search [00:04:00] 90% of the time. So, you know, that's one fundamental shift I think, uh, that AI is contributing to. But, but there are many more, of course.

KELLI: What about you, Julian?

JULIAN: First of all, I totally agree, um, on what Bill just said about AI.

ROB: Also with us is Julian Weiss, Head of Affiliate Marketing and Cooperations at Xpose 360.

JULIAN: I looked at the predictions in January when we published the Affiliate Trend Report 2025. And I picked four trends, looked if they were fulfilled or if they actually occurred. And one is of course AI. Um, I would say there are two major part when it comes to AI.

One is the visibility, um, in terms of AI overviews, um, Google rankings, like Bill just mentioned, if you optimize for SEO there will be a decrease in traffic. The other one is about, um, optimization, process optimization, and, uh, well, the way that our daily doings will get easier from time to time. So those are the two major parts where AI has the biggest impact from my point [00:05:00] of view.

ROB: You both obviously referenced AI there, which is natural. It feels like it's the biggest topic at large in the industry. Do you feel like it's on the cusp still of big seismic profound change or that that impact is already being felt in a significant way within both affiliate and the wider digital marketing space?

BILL: It's probably not like hit the home run. I'm not sure that's the right metaphor, but what I don't think we're quite there in terms of it fundamentally having changed everything yet. Did you say, are we on the cusp? I think that is a good way of putting it. I think we're on the cusp of something significant really happening.

Uh, because if we, if we drill down into usage of AI for search, uh, Gen AI is still somewhere behind.

ROB: Mm-hmm.

BILL: Um, people still go to Google first, even though Google is embedding AI into its search and it, I think it wants AI to be the primary way that you search or get the results. But for now, AI is a, a trend that is still brewing.

ROB: Yeah. I mean, what do you think, Julian? Do you feel like it's more a [00:06:00] kind of potential disruptor than an actual disruptor?

JULIAN: Yes, I would, I would say so. That is a potential and there has to be a lot of development, um, also for 2026.

What I also have to emphasize that affiliate marketing, it is about partnership marketing. So it is about, um, the connection between publisher agencies and networks. So there's still a bigger proportion where I don't think that AI will make that much of an impact because it's still about the people behind the affiliate marketing.

KELLI: What is your feeling or what is your interpretation of- we say, we talk about digital trend- but then is it more like following what is happening, observing, and trying to learn or really acting in 2025?

JULIAN: Well, I think it's a lot about testing in 2025 actually. What is working, what is not working, especially in terms of, um, workflow optimization. Um, where as actually an impact being made with AI there and which, uh, well might be obsolete in the next year then.

BILL: Yeah. And we, we [00:07:00] always, the, the old adage is dollars follow eyeballs, right? So we're always waiting to see what consumers do first, and as uptake increases, we won't have any choice in the matter. We'll have to adapt.

KELLI: So, uh, the UK, Germany, and, uh, France are the dominant digital ad economies in Europe. What would you say, how have these countries performed relative to each other?

Do we have any comparison that we can bring out that is significant and interesting and, uh, we compare the countries between each other, but it would also be very interesting to know, uh, how does Europe compare to the United States? For example.

BILL: We, we always like, uh, a Europe versus United States comparison.

Um, look, the UK is a standout market. Uh, I'll say that first of all, it challenges some of the biggest digital economies by various measures. Two of the biggest digital maturity measures that we track at eMarketer is digital ad spend as a proportion of [00:08:00] total media ad spend and retail e-commerce sales as a proportion of total retail sales.

And by both of those measures, so proportionally, I think the UK only trails behind China, so even ahead of the US. So look, it's a digital leader and we, I actually published a piece of research earlier in 2025 with my colleague Corina Lamb. She's our, uh, retail analyst. And we were essentially looking at the digital maturity of countries across the wider European region. And we created categories and the UK was in its own category called digital leader. We actually then had just, I'm not gonna disagree with what you said in the question, but then we had the EU four essentially. So France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. They had their own category that we called digital sleeping giants. And so what we meant by that was... These are countries where digital penetration rates were a little bit lower than the UK and these, uh, digitally leading countries, but huge economies. So the potential for growth is huge, and [00:09:00] that growth is beginning to happen. So that that's where the countries side by side sit next to each other when we talk about Western Europe compared to, to the US or the rest of the world.

I think, and, and we kind of alluded to this in the first question, I think to a degree that there's a degree of cynicism in Western Europe, uh, when it comes to digital, that the UK's the outlier of course. But if you take the UK out of the equation, certainly in Germany and France, not necessarily the first to jump into certain digital trends, and, and that stands for pretty much all the trends that we track at eMarketer.

So I write a lot about Western Europe and the trend's always the same. The UK is ahead by pretty much every measure, but then France and Germany coming behind, uh, not, not so much a wait and see, but it's like they're just a little bit later to the trends. But the potential for growth? It's huge, and I think that growth will happen.

ROB: And do you think that that, um, you described it as a, a, a degree of cynicism, I guess, in some of those markets. Is that just part and parcel of the kinda macroeconomic context right now where there is sustained pressure on [00:10:00] businesses at large, but marketing teams specifically, around budgets and justifying budgets?

BILL: I'll revert back to my ad dollars chasing eyeballs again.

ROB: Yeah.

BILL: Because advertisers have to adapt to what consumers are doing. So a lot of the consumer behaviors in these countries, the traditional behaviors are just a little bit more entrenched.

ROB: Mm-hmm.

BILL: So the obvious one is, is TV and digital video. So we track time spent.

The UK - the, the balance has tipped. So people spend more time with digital video in the UK than they do with traditional linear TV. In France and Germany, that hasn't happened yet.

ROB: Mm.

BILL: Linear TV still accounts for more time and so it, it continues to attract a good proportion of ad spend.

ROB: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was gonna ask you about what you're seeing in terms of how budgets are shifting going into 2026 and some of these regions, and I assume that is your answer effectively. You know, where the eyeballs are, is where the ad budgets are gonna go, and whilst they are - there's a maybe a slower adoption of new, more nascent, um, technologies. The ad spend shift is gonna be a little bit slower too.

BILL: Absolutely. Yeah.

ROB: Yeah.[00:11:00]

Julian, from your side then, you've got the annual survey that you guys do every year.

Are there any signs from that that indicate how advertisers and agencies are really thinking about their budget allocation towards certain specific performance channels? Obviously, you know, we're talking from an affiliate perspective, but more broadly, maybe you can give us some, some previews of what's emerged there.

JULIAN: Yeah, of course. Yeah. There are actually some signs that we can see when we look at 2026. So what we see is that advertiser, they expect, especially affiliate marketing to become one of the strongest revenue channels in 2026. So it's actually 71%, uh, mentioned that affiliate marketing is in second place right after paid search.

So it's the second most valuable performance channel for the advertiser. And also with a, um, time perspective of the next five years, affiliate marketing is going to gain an importance for them.

So what's also very interesting that we see is that when we talk about [00:12:00] recession - what we have in Germany - so the economy is shrinking. Um, actually one of two advertisers, they see affiliate marketing as a winning performance channel in terms of recession. So 27% of them will actually invest more budget in 2026 and 24% they are thinking about shifting budget towards affiliate marketing.

ROB: Is your kind of interpretation of that, that it's, um, seen - the perception is this is a, a kind of resilient channel. It's an efficient one. I'm guaranteed fairly reliable ROIs on my investments and therefore it's a safe harbor for my investment?

JULIAN: I'd say so yes. We have this strong performance based model. We have a efficiency in budget allocation, and I mean, there are obstacles, but still it's a very solid channel where you can, um, grow, where we have growth in revenue and also a lot of a, a big variety of publishers that you can get access on in traffic sources.

BILL: Just one thing I would add, um, when we are in these kind of [00:13:00] conditions where there's a lot of cost pressures, and I think Julian alluded to it there, spend gets drawn down as close to the consumer as possible. So again, following the consumer, I'm gonna sound like a broken record. Um, but when conditions get tough, a lot more spend gets drawn towards search, closer to the consumer.

ROB: Mm-hmm.

BILL: And, and you can see exactly what's happening. And what we've seen recently in the past couple of years is that retail media ad spend has had a huge boost in interest and in spending because that's as close to the consumer as you can get, and it's as close to the purchase intent that you can get as well. So again, just stepping back from affiliate for a moment.

ROB: Mm-hmm.

BILL: That's, that's one area where we've seen a lot of growth recently.

ROB: Yeah. Yeah. And if I can kind of step back to it for a second as well, there is like a contradictory tension I think, in our industry around we love the perception of being a, a reliable channel for your investments.

I think that's great. You know, this idea of you spend a dollar and you get maybe 7, 8, 10 back. Um, that's fantastic as a, as a kind of story to tell to, to marketers. At the same time, however, we also wanna tell them that you can do lots [00:14:00] more than just the, the kind of conversion closing tactics.

KELLI: Yes.

ROB: And we want to build this story around, like, look at the diversity of options, at the brand building opportunities you have.

Um, and I think that it's hard to have it both ways. And I think that sometimes we struggle maybe to tell that story more effectively as, as, as well as we can tell the, the kind of ROI one.

KELLI: I want to comment on that because I had another question. Bill to you. What we see every day in France, we get the, sort of the good news with the economic pressure from the marketing team that good news, your budget is spared, so to say, or our investments continue going strong, whereas our colleagues in the branding team, they have really kind of almost closed it up, right?

So this is kind of a short term good news that states again that we are the performance focused lever, but at the same time the effects of closing completely off all branding activities will then have at some point a very direct effect on our activities as well. So it's kind of a dangerous, uh, [00:15:00] assumption.

And then again pointing to Rob's, uh, comment on at the same time we, uh, from affiliation, there are lots of different interesting discussions ongoing that we are looking into where is our role in the tunnel that doesn't exist anymore, right? In a fragmented user journey. So do you have anything you can comment on the branding activities side?

How are advertisers looking at this? Uh, are they protecting their branding budgets and how is this affecting the overall marketing mix?

BILL: I'm sorry to concentrate on the UK, but that's just where I'm based. I, I did see some data from ISBA talking about how branding budgets were expected to see a, a significant increase in investment this year.

It probably signals a bit of optimism about the economy in the UK going into 2026. But I think also, going back to the retail media piece again. I think that's a really interesting area because retail media, as I mentioned, close to the consumer, close to the purchase intent, but this category is also being increasingly seen as having [00:16:00] branding potential. So there are lots of, and this isn't just the UK, there are lots of partnerships happening between retail media, exponents and CTV players for example. And that is a big piece where it's becoming not just performance but it is about branding. 'cause it, it's kind of crossing that divide and especially in France and Germany where traditional linear TV is still so predominant making that switch into CTV.

Consumers still see that as just tv and so the branding element is very strong there.

KELLI: Bill, you have mentioned UK several times, but we would like to hear a bit about Germany as well! So coming, uh, coming back to Germany and to one of your recent reports where you talked about and described a two speed market with growth primarily concentrated in just a few spaces. Could you comment on that? What do you mean by this?

BILL: Yeah, so this, this relates to ad spending patterns [00:17:00] by industry. So we, we do every year a, a digital ad spending by industry report for France, Germany, and the UK. And we, we did see similar trends in France and the UK, but it was particularly accentuated in Germany.

And the trend was for much stronger growth in digital ad spending in particular industries while others lagged behind. We track ad spending or digital spending across a bunch of different industries in these countries. It's not the same for each, but broadly we, we track retail, CPG or FMCG, travel, financial services, healthcare and pharma. Just making sure I've got them all. Um, automotive. And consumer electronics. I think that's it. And what we saw particularly in Germany, was that those industries that were most heavily regulated or most attuned to economic conditions were the industries that saw the least amount of growth in digital ad investment.

So healthcare and financial services, for example. Both incredibly highly regulated industries, particularly when it comes to advertising. So digital ad spend didn't dry up, but the [00:18:00] growth slowed down significantly. At the other end of the scale, we expect CPG and retail in particular to see incredibly strong growth. Competition in, in the digital retail sector is fueling a lot of this growth.

So in Germany, Amazon, uh, Amazon, share of retail eCommerce is significantly bigger than in most of the other countries we track around the world actually. So that obviously accentuates the digital ad investment already. We have lots of Chinese retailers making a strong play in Germany, so Temu is more popular in Germany than anywhere else in the EU, uh, for example, I didn't know that until I started researching this. And you know, it, it's forcing domestic retailers to up their game and CPG brands to get involved as well. So we've seen, uh, Zalando plotting a course based on technological advancement and innovation in the grocery sector. We've got Lidl, Aldi, uh, leaning into their digital advertising strategies.

So yeah, that's what I mean by the two speed. We've got those industries that are maybe not moving so quickly, but then at the other end of the scale, retail and CPG growing incredibly quickly.

KELLI: [00:19:00] And, uh, Julian, what about you? Do you share this view, would you say from a more generic digital marketing perspective, do, do we see the same growth in these two specific area sectors?

And then do you see this in affiliate translating into affiliate, or is it a more balanced, uh, division between different sectors in affiliate marketing specifically?

JULIAN: So, to be honest, it's quite hard for me to tell whether there is, uh, one industry or a single sector, um, significantly, significantly growing faster than the others.

From the affiliate perspective I can say, and by this looking at our clients, which are from different industries, it seems to be actually balanced. There is no significantly sector growing face than the others. I can totally understand what Bill mentioned, uh, when we look at ad spend in total for the affiliate marketing, I don't see that maybe you at Awin have a better overview about this.

ROB: I wanted to, um, ask a question actually as a follow up, [00:20:00] um, probably primarily for you, Bill. But there were a couple of things that I thought were interesting about your kind of analysis there. One is around the popularity of marketplaces in Germany. Uh, you mentioned Amazon, you mentioned Temu, for instance, and is there something about Germany as a market that seems to be more hospitable to those marketplace type environments than in other European countries?

BILL: It's a good question. It may be part of that slightly laggard behavior again.

ROB: Mm-hmm.

BILL: Uh, so what tends to happen, and if I can use a, uh, an example that's not quite related, but speaks to how trends develop. In the UK when it comes to digital payments, we had contactless payments embedded into our, uh, bank cards, right?

So in the mobile payment space, the UK lagged well behind, uh, lots of economies. China particularly, but even the US, because we had that entrenched behavior. I think when it comes to retail e-commerce, where Germany has been a, a little bit reluctant to jump in [00:21:00] feet first, it's these big established, maybe not traditional shopping, like that's not the word I'm, I'm looking for, but you know what I mean.

ROB: Mm-hmm.

BILL: One big, reliable, trusted brand like Amazon gets a lot of the love from the consumers because they trust it. It's more like going to a big department store.

ROB: Mm.

BILL: Um, so that's, that's probably how I'd explain that.

ROB: Yeah. Yeah.

KELLI: What do you think Julian and Bill, about the digital spaces, so the digital ad spaces, and ad models that advertisers are putting their trust in, where is the growth?

Where is the largest growth? And considering this for 2025, uh, but also thinking about 2026, where are we going? Where's the growth going?

JULIAN: What we see, again, looking at the affiliate channel, it's uh, influencer marketing. So there we see a lot of growth. Um, and I think that makes sense in a time of AI generated content, people wanna buy from people and, um, [00:22:00] affiliate marketing is like, uh, the perfect match for influencer marketing in terms of measurement. Um, so there I see a good proportion of growth. But also in content, um, partners and what we see from the data that also like the classic verticals, cashback, comparison sites, they are still, um, important for the advertiser for the German market. Especially when we have a economy which is in recession.

I think that makes even more sense that we rely on incentive partners, um, where we get like the best offer for our product that we wanna consume.

BILL: Uh, yeah, from my perspective, I've, I've already mentioned retail media that's been growing quickly. I expect it to grow quickly next year. CTV is by our categorization, the second fastest growing category that we forecast.

Uh, but I think Julian made a really interesting point. I think influencer marketing or the creator economy is another really booming area at the moment.

KELLI: Definitely.

BILL: [00:23:00] Um, social media generally always performs incredibly well, but I think the creator economy is giving it a little bit of an extra boost. So I'd probably pick those three.

ROB: Um, well, we're gonna leave Germany now and we're gonna land in France.

KELLI: Bonjour!

ROB: France seems to be, you know, you, you talked a little bit about Germany struggling a little bit economically, I guess, and France also is suffering from a bit of instability there as well. There's like changes to its political leadership, for instance, um, which is compounding an economy where the GDP is, growth has been muted, um, for, for, for want of a better phrase.

So do you think these struggles are affected in the digital ad market there as well? No.

BILL: No, no. So what we see is that, I mean this is true in France, it's been true in Germany as well, and in the UK and across most of Western Europe. When the economy is struggling, the digital ad market tends to be quite resilient actually.

And the reason for that, um, we've kind of alluded to some of this already. You can measure everything. So when there's instability or uncertainty, marketers wanna get right down the funnel. They want to be able to measure [00:24:00] and prove the efficacy of their spend. They want to get the ROI, the ROAs. Uh, so what we tend to see is overall ad spending can struggle.

Uh, so for France, total media ad spend is still buoyant, but it's being driven exclusively by digital.

ROB: Mm-hmm.

BILL: So traditional media ad spend actually declined in 2025 by a couple of percentage points.

ROB: Mm.

BILL: At the same time, digital grew by 15%, uh, to, you know, more than offset that. So we had total media ad spend of 8%.

ROB: Mm-hmm.

BILL: So as we spoke about how search performs well in difficult conditions, digital is the next layer up. It performs incredibly well when you put it next to something like traditional.

ROB: Yeah. And you may not have this, um, specific insight to hand, but, um, I'm gonna ask anyway. Um, which is just what are you seeing is driving most of that growth within digital in France? Is it search, is it, um, that, that's kind of propping up that growth largely?

BILL: Well, interestingly in France and I, I do have some, uh, stats off the top of my head, although I don't have the exact numbers. But I do know that in France, [00:25:00] retail media will jump ahead proportionally of the UK.

ROB: Mm-hmm.

BILL: So retail media as a proportion of total digital ad spend will surpass the UK, which is, is pretty significant.

And I think this is another of those examples where a slightly less mature digital market means there's been slightly less competition in the digital space. So these, um, areas where there's great potential, there's great potential for proving growth, for measurement. All the other stuff kind of gets surpassed.

There's less competition and so something like retail media sees a lot of growth.

ROB: Yeah, and I guess you've got a company like Criteo based in France, which has pioneered a lot of the retail media. They've made the pivot obviously to that a few years back, so that's obviously been very successful. Kelli.

KELLI: Yes.

ROB: This is your moment to shine.

What are you actually seeing on the ground in the affiliate industry in, in France? Um, and, and do advertisers there see affiliate as a safe space for that ad investment versus maybe more traditional ad channels?

KELLI: Yes, well. The advertises that to know about affiliate at the, that they understand about affiliate. They [00:26:00] see it as a sure and safe place to put their investments and get a very nice return on their investment. But however, as I already mentioned beforehand, the, the other question is that if we are seen as the most performing choice and then, uh, others, uh, other parts like branding are being, uh, diminished or shut down completely, the effect will arrive to affiliate at one point or another. So, um, there is a lot of education to do here on the market, I would say, because unfortunately affiliate is still not completely understood or not looked at. Coming from advertisers side, from previous position, and having been in the market for years now also working at agencies, from a media perspective, but also from a holistic marketing mix perspective.

Affiliate has still a lot to show and, [00:27:00] uh, a lot to prove and to take the stage. I would say there's a lot of groundwork to be done in France on affiliate marketing, on the education.

ROB: Yeah. And I would say that actually that really chimes with, um, some research that we commissioned Forrester to do for us, probably about 18 months ago now so.

And we asked senior marketers around the world, well, we asked them in France, Germany, the UK, the US, um, about their perceptions of affiliate marketing. You know, how do you view affiliates as part of your broader marketing strategy? And the one really resonant thing that came out of that data was the fact that whilst more than 90% of them, I think it was, valued it as one of the most, I think it was only behind possibly organic, kind of like search or something for its value to them as a form of marketing. When it came to budget allocation, affiliate just came dead last against every other channel. And so there was this real contradiction between we value it for impact and effectiveness.

KELLI: Yes.

ROB: But we don't back that up in terms of our decisions around where we [00:28:00] put our budgets.

KELLI: Yes, it's a tricky thing, but from now, from the platform perspective, what we see is that often the discussions around affiliates, so -

Affiliate is the good pupil. We are performing. Everything is fine. So depending on the structure of the advertiser and the understanding and who we are facing every day, the discussions might just, uh, stay at a level where everything is fine, it's working, but then we don't know that we can look for more growth, right? So it's kind of limited. So this, this is one, one thing, uh, and this is obviously something that, uh, we can tackle and that we are doing every day trying to bring the conversation to the upper levels in the hierarchy.

But, um, unfortunately it's not only about the senior marketers, but we in France, we did an independent study with Digital Marketers Association.

And, uh, we see that even with the emerging workforce, [00:29:00] so, uh, students and university goers, they don't know much about affiliate either.

ROB: Mm-hmm.

KELLI: So that, that's an issue that we should find ways to address. They learn about digital marketing. There are so many business schools, we talk about digital, but for some reason, affiliation is not really represented.

ROB: Mm-hmm.

KELLI: And it is not learned, let's say at university, at a business school. So then we cannot expect to, to have much knowledge about it either or curiosity or interest.

ROB: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

JULIAN: I think that's pretty much the same for the German market actually. As you mentioned, Kelli, we are always based at the performance guys and uh, we are KPI driven, but on the same side it's very hard because we are measured with the same KPIs for the upper funnel.

And so this, this won't work if we have no real attribution, uh, in place where we actually see the value of the upper funnel activities that the affiliate marketing channel can provide. [00:30:00] So this is a big issue and I think not only is there an education lack, but it's also like old patterns that we are always compared to in the affiliate marketing.

Like only incentive voucher code. Which is totally fine because those are very important verticals, but there is more to it.

KELLI: Yes.

JULIAN: So this is important and also like quality issues that has, uh, been in the past. It's always like, uh, the ghost that is following us in the affiliate marketing.

KELLI: Absolutely. Yeah, it is the stories that still resonates, some really old stories or the understanding what is cashback. It's a very developed, intricate solution today. Whereas the kind of the understanding or the, the perception around this typology, affiliates or affiliation marketing in general kind of lingers, right?

So we have a bigger, uh, communication and education challenge to, to tackle here.

JULIAN: Yeah, totally agree.

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KELLI: Let's talk about AI again. Can we have, Bill, a comparison or maybe some numbers against, uh, who is better the United States or, or Europe on AI adoption?

BILL: I, I'm just gonna step back from adoption for a [00:32:00] moment and talk about attitudes to AI because I think the, the biggest difference that we, that we see is between, not, not between Western Europe and the US, but between Western developed countries and the rest.

Uh, so there was a, a brilliant study from Ipsos. It, it runs an AI monitor and sort of mid 2025, it ran this, it's a, it's a consumer sentiment study essentially. And they asked people around the world a bunch of questions about their attitudes to AI. And there was one question that related directly to advertising.

They asked something along the lines of: if you knew that a company was using AI to produce its advertising, would you be likely to trust that company more or trust that company less? And the global proportions were actually quite even. It was about 30% said they trust it more. 30% said they trust it less.

When you come into Western Europe, though, those proportions were far, far further apart. And in France in particular, there was a massive gulf. So 16% said they trust it more. Um, [00:33:00] 46% said they trust it less. And the numbers were along the same lines in the UK and Germany, uh, Italy and France. Not to quite the same extent, but that was the sentiment.

And it, it comes back again, I think to this fact that we're a little bit cynical in Western Europe. It's not just amongst the marketing community, but consumers generally. You know, we use it a lot. So when, when we talk about adoption, in fact, I, I would say the overall uptake is strong across the US and Western Europe.

It's the same story. US is ahead UK not far behind, and then Germany and, and France a little bit behind again. But there's not a lot in it. We're using it, but I don't think any of us really trust it just yet. Um, I know I certainly don't. Um, but it, it's, it's like magic. But it, it's not, it's not able to do things to the level of trust that I think we want it to do just yet.

KELLI: Indeed. Uh, what do you think, Julian, do you trust AI? Do the affiliate marketers in Germany see AI as a threat or an [00:34:00] opportunity?

JULIAN: It's very interesting because I can totally relate to that was, what Bill was saying. The majority of affiliates say that one of the biggest risk is that the quality in content is getting less, so that we don't trust in companies and we know that they're using AI content.

So yeah, the quality in content is, uh, decreasing. And also there's a fear of having fewer touch points in the customer journey, especially in the upper funnel when it comes to, um, AI overviews and, uh, being not visible on the search engine result page at all. But on the other hand, what I want to emphasize is that there is still a, a strong indication that there is an increase in efficiency when it comes to publisher scouting to reporting to forecast.

So this is the other side of AI where we see that, yeah, it, it improves the processes, the, the workflows that we are using in our daily doings.

KELLI: Yeah, right. It's more like how we take, we have the AI, we have [00:35:00] the AI adoption, but then what, what does it mean? How do we use it in the right place, right, in the right way?

And so that it brings value rather than mixed messages and doubt and, uh, reduces, uh, transparency or authenticity of what we as humans do and contribute to our marketing, uh, actions and to our clients as, as experts.

JULIAN: Yeah, I mean, it takes a long time to build a brand and build trust and I think it's pretty easy to destroy this trust, uh, with bad content, with bad creative.

KELLI: Yes.

JULIAN: So it is a very hard decision to make when to actually use AI, uh, in terms of advertisement and where to rather go, uh, the old way there.

KELLI: Exactly.

ROB: Just looking beyond that, um, Julian, and, and, and dig a bit deeper, again, you've got the insights from the survey, but you've also got a lot of exposure in terms of conversations with the brands that you manage programs for right? And I wonder what is it that they're telling you about how they want to see AI implemented across the industry, [00:36:00] whether that's from networks like our own, or from agencies like yourselves or even publishers?

JULIAN: I'd say there are two big things. One is publisher matching and publisher vetting. So that we can ensure the quality of publisher that we acquire for the partner programs. This would be one thing.

Then of course, forecasting. Seeing, um, if we increase commissions for publishers, um, do we have a benchmark and can see, um, that we have, uh, also an uplift in terms of revenue, like the performance, uh, proof channel that we are?

And, uh, one more thing, which I find very interesting is that we see pattern, if any product is going to be trending on social networks. Um, so from product data feeds and we have social signals that we get highlighted those products and can use them to actually drive, uh, revenue growth.

ROB: Mm.

JULIAN: So those would be like three important things I say brands want to see for AI.

ROB: Yeah. Is that something you see mirrored in your own conversations [00:37:00] Kelli?

KELLI: Uh, I definitely join you Julian with the, with the publisher part. So really helping, again, make sense of what publisher to use, why, to what extent, how to create the perfect portfolio, how to diversify. But also I would add, um, well if we step back a bit then the conversations that we are seeing is, uh, rather around what is AI having an impact on, in a bigger way on the whole marketing mix. Obviously the GEO, so S-E-O-G-O. But, um, if we think about our focus, so all the affiliate marketing actions and what, what do we do every day? How we like to present it to the client is, what is the value added first? So where we, we can have everyday optimizations in their everyday work. So talking about working with our platform, and then we say, this is thanks to the AI, right?

Because if we just, again, bring the AI as the argument, this is not the argument. The argument needs to be how we practically bring value and then [00:38:00] change the everyday ways of working or optimize their time through applying AI. So at, at the scale, I would say.

And I'm very interested in the, as you said, Julian, in the signals of products. So we go a bit further in the digital marketing and consumption space, and then how can we help and guide our clients. Uh, this is something, uh, I will take for, for us to consider. We, we haven't noticed that as a specific stronger demand, but we would like to propose that proactively to the clients so thank you.

JULIAN: No worries. Happy to.

KELLI: We know that Geo and LLMs are helping kind of do top line comparison, but then I would argue at least what we see from our statistics now is that comparison sites, they still stay relevant because why? Because traditionally they do have more information and traditionally users are used to consulting them.

So we can say that, uh, we look at the top line reviews that we get from the LLMs or Google [00:39:00] AI overviews, but then we still need this assurance or we trust the comparison sites to have the full picture. So with all these changing blocks and, and again the fragmented user journey, is there some additional growth to look for affiliation from this impact of, uh, of search changing?

ROB: There was a really interesting study, like you mentioned the SimilarWeb, um, insights earlier Bill, and I think that, um, yeah, that was, that was really interesting to see a follow up to that, that kind of contradicted the, um, the data. And I think they were using slightly different methodologies, but the University of Hamburg published a piece not too long ago where, um, the academics there were looking at the performance of various different channels and they're including LLMs in that the referral traffic coming from there and how it was converting. And actually, like whilst growth and adoption, um, of their use had, uh, grown a lot and conversion had grown a lot from, you know, where it was, which was pretty flat.

Affiliates still came out on top across a whole bunch of financial metrics including [00:40:00] conversion rate, average order values, revenue possession, et cetera. And, that was kind of validating a lot of ways, uh, because I think there's been quite a sense of existential crisis in the industry right now.

Understandably. You know, massive adoption of a new technology that in theory has the potential to change the whole nature of click traffic and referral traffic and what it means to kind of get information that you want and then going on to make a, a purchase decision. And so I'm not stating by any measure that everything's fine, you know, we don't have to worry about this because I do think there is a big challenge on the horizon here. But, um, there's still a long way to go and I think that there's a, there's gonna be a lot of kind of swerves in the journey on, on the way there as we see. You know, Chat GPT, they're still trying to figure out how does advertising, you know, get embedded into this new experience?

KELLI: Exactly.

ROB: Um, in a, in a way that doesn't undermine the value that people are getting from it right now, which is largely, you know, motivated, I think by that whole notion of the inshitification of [00:41:00] Google search, you know, and the wider web experience.

KELLI: And I just want to add, because one of the things I recently read is that Google search, they did their best quarter ever.

ROB: Mm.

KELLI: So what does that tell us? They performed super well. It means that advertisers boot the money still, they invest in this activity. So as to your point, Bill, earlier you say we need to go where the eyeballs are. Are the advertisers still kind of directing the users to go there, or are they not reassured at all and then they just stick even more stronger to, let's say, always working or to the good old search that was also cited in one of your results as the second or the first, uh, investment channel?

BILL: Yeah, I, I think this might be part of the fact that Google is now just beginning to perform much better in the AI space as well. So whereas Chat GPT had that big head start, Google has invested a lot of time and money in its AI [00:42:00] search returns. I think it wants to make AI the primary search return, but whilst it isn't, Google is still seeing loads and loads of traffic.

And so spend on Google search is still gonna be there because people, I mean, it's very difficult to un entrench, that's not a word, but un entrench entrenched behavior. Right. And you know, we still Google stuff. I still haven't heard people saying, I'll go and chat GPT it, you know, we, we still-

ROB: People try to say it, it just doesn't quite work.

BILL: It doesn't roll off the tongue. People still Google stuff, right?

ROB: Yeah.

KELLI: Yes.

BILL: And, and as you said, Kelli, it's, it's had a good quarter Google, because people are still going to Google for search.

KELLI: Yes. It's had the best quarter ever. Again, I need to underline. With all this uncertainty, everybody talking about, no more search, zero click, et cetera.

We already mentioned the creator economy and influence and, and this huge space, or let's say lots of potential and what we can do there. Bill, how do you see [00:43:00] this commerce evolving? You already mentioned that it'll be big. It, it's already big, it'll be big. Do you have some numbers to support or some predictions for 2026?

BILL: A, across the board, the creator commerce space is, is booming.

So we actually did a global creator commerce study with impact.com earlier in 2025. Unfortunately, Germany wasn't in the polling for this one. UK and France was, and other countries around the world as well. The US was one of them. But what we saw at the very base level, engagement with creators, so not even commerce related, but engagement with creators was incredibly high.

And, and that's the same across all the countries that we tracked. It was like just percentage point differences between each. There, there's just a huge degree of trust in these creators that consumers have built relationships with and shopping via creators was also becoming more mainstream, as you know, or as you may have guessed, there was a slight lag in France to then the UK and then to the US.

But [00:44:00] again, we, we're talking just percentage points here and, and there's just increasing comfort in creator commerce. So the proportion of people transacting on social platforms has increased. So staying in platform with those creators, and I think the proportion in the UK was 50%, which is quite high, right?

In France, it was somewhere in the forties, US a little bit higher. Where there's a delay in decision making though. So interacting with influencers on social sites, but then stepping away- the purchases then would happen elsewhere. So interacting with an influencer, not making a purchase, not clicking through, not clicking the affiliate link, uh, then going away and purchasing somewhere else.

KELLI: So we can track that back to the influencer then?

BILL: You can, it can still be tracked. Yeah.

KELLI: Do you also have a segmentation of the size of these creators? So when we talk about size, we mean the size of the followers to segment them, because on Awin's side, we definitely correlate in terms of the size of the followers and the [00:45:00] engagement number that is smaller versus micro and nano influencers, which is kind of a logical, statistically and mathematically. Do you have any comments on that to understand who are better performers?

BILL: Yeah, and, and I agree with everything you've said. I don't have any numbers on that, but we see sort of just generally it's the, and this is the beauty of the creator and influencer economy, right? Is that it's a much lower entry point for smaller brands, that don't have these massive ad budgets, can reach a very engaged, very targeted audience by partnering with these micro influencers. So to your point, we absolutely see better engagement with the micro influencers, uh, but you don't get the reach. If you want reach, go with the Mr. Beasts of this world, you know?

Uh, but they're gonna cost a lot of money.

KELLI: Yes.

BILL: So this is one of the reasons why I think the creator economy, the influencer economy, is booming so much because it cuts a sway across all brands in terms of if you want reach or engagement or a bit of both.

KELLI: [00:46:00] Yes. And logically, again, we bring, if we bring influence and now everything that's happening in AI together, and again, you mentioned that Bill before, that maybe why the smaller influencers, these nano and micro influencers are really performing well, is that they are really the closest to the audience. They're the most authentic people can relate to them versus a Mr. Beast.

ROB: That's a really good point that you've made. And that's an angle I think that is particularly resonant for our channel is around the accessibility, um, and authenticity of these micro and nano influencers, which has been, we've seen massive growth within our industry over the last few years.

And there is a great stat actually from, uh, Dr. Grace Kite who works at Magic Numbers, they do a lot of, um, analysis around kinda marketing figures and that. There was a, a really interesting thing that she was looking at, which was like the ROI that you get based on the size of the influencer. And so they found that on average influencers with about 160,000 followers [00:47:00] or more, you were on average expecting a, a kind of ROI of about five pounds, but when you bring it down to 5,000 followers or less, that ballooned up to like 18 pounds.

So the bang for your buck with those smaller micro influencers was much, much higher with the interpretation being that because they have this really tight proximity with their followers and their audiences, they are far more trusted. It's not a, a brand play as much as, you know, it's almost like when one of your friends recommend you something and it's like, okay, I trust them, I'm gonna buy it.

And so the ROI then obviously just, um, really, really amplifies, which is I think a really good story to tell about the channel.

BILL: Yeah, and you often see that in survey questions where they say, who do you trust most for brand recommendations? Sometimes friends rank below influencers.

ROB: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Depends on your friends I guess, but.

KELLI: It depends on their selling skills right? Um, Julian, you what do you, obviously you see growth in Germany in the creator economy, that's not even a question, but [00:48:00] do you have any nuances on that and affiliation? So in affiliation and influence, how are you mixing and matching this?

JULIAN: Yeah. So first of all, when we look at the data of our trend report, what's interesting is that advertiser, they are looking for niche audiences. They are looking for new traffic sources. And when we look at the behavior of target audiences, it's all shifting towards social media platforms. So it only makes sense for me that there is the new, um, niche content that advertiser are looking for.

So, and um, besides that, I totally agree with everything that you just said about micro um, nano influencers. What we do is we, of course, we use influencer platforms like Metapick, Stylink within, um, networks like Awin. But we also like scout creators based on, um, the strategy that we create for our clients and specifically, um, [00:49:00] reach out to individual micro or nano creators and actually, um, invite them to the affiliate programs.

So this would be like the approach that we are following up on.

ROB: Just before we kind of get into your final predictions for where, um, what 2026 is gonna look like. Attribution and measurement. It's a major topic within, not just affiliate, but the wider digital space. It feels like there's been massive fragmentation and challenges in being able to implement that properly these days.

Kelli and Julian, just for that affiliate perspective, what is the appetite right now in your respective locations for more flexible or incremental measurement approaches?

JULIAN: On the one side advertiser, they are seeking for incremental revenue. They wanna work with specialized niche publisher. They want to have long lasting partnerships.

But on the other hand, we see that the majority of the advertisers, at least in Germany, they're still on our last click attribution. So it's quite hard if what we've just mentioned that we actually have this full funnel approach within the [00:50:00] affiliate marketing. If we don't have like the customer journey tracking that we measure each touch point and can actually drive value there and also incentivize publishers, which are actually on the awareness part or on the upper funnel, it's quite hard for those publishers to, well, drive quality traffic in the future.

So I think this is the biggest appetite to say that if you want those quality content, those, those publishers that we actually value, and not only the incentive and cashback driven publishers, we need to rethink our attribution model and well yeah, lift it up to the next level I'd say.

KELLI: I echo what you said, Julian. So, mostly we are looking at last click, but obviously again, if we think of the big picture, we think of the macroeconomic situation, then we come down to sectors and then we come down to our specific clients in the sector. They are being pressured to get more growth and then they are looking for more answers.

[00:51:00] So these discussions are ongoing about developing the way we look at attribution, which is very good. We on our side are also proactively helping our clients, uh, look at things in a more nuanced way. That is to bring a very practical example, we have introduced into our reports, uh, signals like initiator ratio, basket boost, conversion lift, which means that we are looking at the same data but we are adding some framework to really understand in a more granular way, the impact that publishers have in the overall journey. So for example, just again to talk about the initiation ratio, we want to see the impact of the publisher, uh, in terms of starting the user journey. So the first touch point, how and if the publisher, a specific publisher in question is initiating the [00:52:00] consumer journey.

And also another example, the basket boost. How a specific publisher is having an impact on the basket, on the average order value of the client. So we are trying to solve this attribution overall question with, again, not changing anything on the client side, but helping them to look further, to look in a more granular way.

And then obviously on a more strategic level, we are having this discussions of, okay, how do we break this attribution apart and really add value to the whole network? As you said, Julian, there is so much value coming from not the actions not close to conversion, but other signals. And we know in all this fragmentation, sometimes it doesn't even make sense anymore.

And that's why we really need to have the big picture, the whole map. Map it. But then how do we technically also add the tracking to really prove it?

Julian and Bill, looking ahead, let's think about the future now, let's project ourselves. [00:53:00] Where do you expect the biggest sources of growth emerging in 2026?

Is it new advertiser categories, new regions, new partner types? Obviously we have mentioned creator economy. We have mentioned retail media, so we kind of have the big picture, right? Is there something more to add to this, some other trend or, or aspect that we have not touched upon yet during this discussion?

JULIAN: The only thing that I would add that we should not leave out all the established publisher verticals within the affiliate marketing, because they do drive value, they need a strategic approach. But also for 2026, again, next to all what you've just mentioned creator community, uh, retail media, um, those verticals are still of high value for the advertisers in 2026.

BILL: Uh, it's difficult to add anything more than we've already spoken about, but I, I, I guess one thing I would say is it's interesting to see how there's kind of cross pollination [00:54:00] across some of these areas. So the creator space and CTV for example, or even traditional tv, you know, we're seeing creators cross the chasm.

Lots of traditional media folks are crossing over into the creator space as well. Retail media we've spoken about in CTV as well. Lots of partnerships between those two areas that are leading to, um, more measurability, better tracking and brand building, you know, from both ends.

ROB: Okay. I wanted to, um, close off things by getting a couple of predictions from you guys so, you know, be as, be as bold as you can.

And, uh, Bill, we'll start off with you, but what is one bold prediction you're confident will come true by the end of 2026?

BILL: Uh, I knew this question was coming, but given everything we've spoken about, I dunno if I agree with this anymore, but what I was gonna say was that I, I do think that it has to be AI related.

ROB: Mm.

BILL: I think AI, as we said right at the start of this discussion, a lot happened in 2025, but things could really take off in 2026. And given everything we've just spoken about and Google still [00:55:00] being important, I do think that Google is gonna continue to invest in AI. So I think that the role of SEO in the affiliate space will begin to diminish in 2026.

ROB: Mm-hmm.

BILL: I can't see a future where GEO won't become the center of the affiliate universe. I'm not sure it will, well, it won't happen in 2026, but it will certainly head in that direction.

ROB: Which makes kind of, you know, your ability to not rely on search for your traffic, your engagement with your audiences, you know, whether it's to do with, you know, your own databases of audience newsletters and loyalty programs and all of those types of more ring fenced opportunities to speak to your audience, maybe much more valuable.

Julian, what would be your bold prediction for 2026?

JULIAN: Well, of course there has to be something AI related as Bill already mentioned, so I'm not going to dive into that. But for Germany, what I find, or what I'm confident is we've just started, um, also a trade body one that you have also in the UK or it's similar to the [00:56:00] UK, like the APMA.

ROB: APMA.

JULIAN: Yes. That's something that we've started in Germany. It's all what we've talked about earlier. So the idea is that we have a strong voice in the industry that we start educating about the channel. And my boldest prediction would be that at the end of the year, we can. Well, we changed the image of affiliate marketing, um, when it comes to decision makers and they see us as the, as strategic full funnel channel that we are in fact, actually.

KELLI: I love it.

ROB: The kind of flip side to that coin, Julian, is what's one thing you hope doesn't come true for the industry next year?

JULIAN: That we are not being seen by decision makers.

But it actually won't happen and all the work is, um, yeah. Uh, yeah, it doesn't add to actually create value for the channel. Because if, if it's not going to happen, I think in the future we will see that payouts for a publisher, they're going to be reduced, um, and then that relates to, uh, fewer traffic sources.

The [00:57:00] quality of traffic is going to, going down and well, we cannot lift up to the potential that the channel actually can offer for advertisers.

ROB: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

JULIAN: But I'm confident that it's not going to happen. So yeah.

ROB: Yeah. Yeah. That's good. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Commit to your, commit to your bold, hopeful production.

Um, Bill, I'll put the same question to you.

BILL: I'm just concerned about the whole agentic shopping thing, and it could cause a, an existential problem for the whole affiliate, uh, space. The whole shopping journey will be just left to AI and, and AI won't credit affiliate content and we'll be just edged out.

But I actually have faith in humanity and this isn't gonna happen. People like to shop.

ROB: That's a, that's a positive, uh, place to finish, I think.

Thanks so much to Julian and Bill there for joining us and sharing their thoughts on how 2026 is looking from a European perspective. And thanks to you too, Kelli, for a French perspective on it all. Now, did [00:58:00] anything stand out to you from what was discussed?

KELLI: Yes, uh, definitely. There were a lot of similarities between the countries in Western Europe, but also some differences. So the interesting things I would like to underline again, uh, was the consideration of, uh, affiliate marketing as a strong revenue channel against the overall macroeconomic situation. Uh, so really this resonated strongly in Germany, as Julian pointed out.

ROB: Mm-hmm.

KELLI: And this is absolutely true as well for France. Other things to underline, um, it was interesting to hear about the results of the surveys and studies, uh, regarding using AI in, uh, creation of advertising. So the overall percentage, I believe, was 30 in terms of trusting this kind of advertising. And this was overall similar in countries, but in France it was [00:59:00] rather different.

So it was around 16% of the respondents who trusted advertising created with AI. So something to keep in mind with all the AI craze and considering how we use AI in our business every day, and also from a strategic point of view.

ROB: Yeah.

KELLI: And the third thing I would like to point out again, was some of the results of the research and surveys that said that the efforts one needs to put into GEO are quite different from, uh, the work done in SEO. So again, thinking strategically, companies, advertisers, but also everybody doing affiliate marketing, need to understand the differences and set up some long-term goals in terms of really following, uh, where this is going. And, uh, being strategic, but also tactical about that.

ROB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for your insights today and for sharing the, uh, co-hosting [01:00:00] duties on this particular episode. And to you, our listener, thanks for joining us today. And do stay tuned for new episodes of Awin-Win Marketing Podcast featuring a wide selection of our customers sharing how they get more out of their affiliate partnerships.

For now, that's all we have time for, so thanks again, Kelli, and we'll see you again soon.

KELLI: Thank you. See you soon.