Watch Forrester and Awin Summarise CMOs’ Perceptions of the Affiliate Channel
Written by Richard Towey on 5 minute read
View our webinar with Forrester, which offers new data on marketing leaders’ key challenges and objectives for 2025.
What do senior marketers really think about affiliate marketing?
Awin and Forrester recently brought data-backed analysis to answer this very question on a special webinar co-hosted by Nikhil Lai (Senior Analyst, Performance Marketing - Forrester) and Rob Davinson (Global Head of Content - Awin).
Supported by findings from our research with Forrester, and a fresh release of new data from the same survey on 650+ marketing leaders, our webinar rounded up the key challenges faced by performance marketers in 2025 and how the affiliate channel can solve them.
We also explored perceptions of affiliate by region and business size, assessing whether opinions were consistent when factoring in budgets and market maturity.
If you were unable to make the webinar, the full recording is now available.
You can also download Awin’s survey with Forrester for a more detailed look at perceptions of the channel from the very top of the marketing chain.
In the meantime, here are a few highlights from the webinar:
Measurement is performance marketers’ top challenge
With more and more channels parading as ‘performance-based’, measurement is a growing concern.
Even TV campaigns - historically measured through impression-based metrics - are increasingly being remunerated on performance models like cost per acquisition (CPA).
Marketers are now being asked to think differently about the shape of their funnels and the role each channel performs. As a result, when asked to name their top challenges for 2025 in separate research from Forrester, measuring the ROI of marketing efforts (33%) was the marketers’ top choice.
The same survey respondents named the key areas impacting that challenge, citing:
- Inconsistent level of quality among data sources
- Lack of internal talent
- Increasing privacy regulations
- Increasing restrictions on use of third-party data
- Too many unconnected data sources
Increasing privacy regulations, restrictions on third-party data, and data quality are three topics that have certainly passed over to the affiliate world. Awin is particularly close to each challenge, having recently announced our Conversion Protection Initiative partly in response to all three.
Collaboration provides clarity
Based on stories from brands that have made progress with performance measurement, the solution appears to lie with tight internal relations.
According to Nikhil’s conversations with two recent investors in Superbowl advertising, improving connections between brand and performance can justify even the biggest marketing investments by quantifying the halo effect of the former on the latter over an extended period.
The top marketing objectives are…
Onto marketing goals, and Awin’s survey with Forrester shows a clear demand for personalising communications (52%) and improving customer experiences (50%).
Investing in emerging technologies (38%) and retaining customers (41%) were part of the same picture, but the overarching theme is centred on personalisation, experiences, and measurable ROI.
How many of these goals can affiliate marketing support? When whittled down to a top five, it’s an average of 2.4, according to the survey group.
That’s a positive reading, but with only 8% of the group believing it can support four or five, there is definitely scope for further education on the impact affiliates can have on different organisational priorities.
Affiliate’s commercial value is widely appreciated
When ranking affiliate marketing’s unique strengths, the group’s choices revealed a clear theme.
- It provides clear incremental value (2nd)
- It is a transparent ad channel and is tied to sales (4th)
- It is a reliable source of revenue (5th)
- It is an efficient sales driver (12th)
Affiliates have clearly proven themselves in a commercial capacity. At a time where marketers are struggling to measure the effectiveness of other performance-based channels, it’s a quality that could lead to higher investment later down the line.
That verdict is unanimous, too. When assessing the global consensus on these strengths, ‘incremental value’ made the top three in three of the four markets we surveyed (UK, US, Germany, and France). The same quality was also consistently cited across all business sizes.
Cashback and coupon are top partners, but marketers opt for one or the other
When marketers were asked to name the affiliates considered ‘important’ to their business, 95% chose either cashback or coupon partners. However, just 13% used both, potentially to safeguard their margins and brand image.
A more popular combination was cashback, influencers, tech partners, and buy now, pay later services – a hugely positive finding that demonstrates the variety of partners found on modern-day affiliate programmes.
Five is the average number of partner types considered ‘important to a business, and there was plenty of uptake for non-traditional affiliates like influencers and content creators (50%), brand partnerships (50%), and technology partners (48%).
By working with a healthy mix of partners, marketers can drive measurable outcomes across all stages of their funnel. But there is a catch.
Affiliate’s new era brings new challenges
In terms of the challenges relating specifically to affiliate marketing, rather than marketing on the whole, the respondents’ top three provided plenty of discussion points:
- Relationship management: Finding and maintaining affiliate partnerships.
- Brand consistency: Ensuring alignment with brand values
- Fraudulent activities: Preventing fraud and ensuring transparency.
Many recognise affiliate as a relationship-driven channel – something that is usually viewed as a strength but can present challenges when trying to manage relationships with so many different types of partners.
Brand alignment is another challenge of the modern era. Marketers no longer spend their days sharing links with coupon partners. They’re now collaborating with influencers on bespoke content and building on-site solutions with tech partners. These new arrangements require third parties to act on the behalf of their brand, making it harder to align everything with their values and image.
Still, there is no doubt that partner diversification is a net positive, and there are plenty of success stories that prove as much.
Take the example of drinkware brand Stanley working with social influencers in Brazil to turn the viral buzz surrounding its Quencher cup into a +105% increase in revenue. Look at pet supplies retailer VioVet adding an extra 1.2 products to each order by building a customised product-bundling tool through the help of Increasingly.
New partners are putting the affiliate channel in places where it previously did not exist and carrying over its high incremental value. New challenges will always arise, and brands are evidently getting around them.
