Influencers continue to pile into affiliate marketing

Influencers remain affiliate’s flavor of the month. As creators and influencers continue to climb marketers’ list of strategic priorities, affiliate networks, platforms, and agencies have stepped up their courtship of influencers. And in some respects, influencers have shown themselves to be quite receptive: For example, 58% of the publishers Awin added to its network in H1 2023 were influencers, according to Awin Americas president Alexandra Forsch.

But influencers are hurting affiliate’s scale problem, not solving it. The sheer number of influencers now open to affiliate partnerships with brands and agencies makes it even harder to find the right kinds of relationships. And for the most part, A-list influencers, the ones who are most coveted by brands and agencies, are not amenable to the commission-based deal structures that gird most affiliate marketing relationships. The resulting dynamic is one that may leave some advertisers wondering whether the juice is worth the squeeze: For example, more than two-thirds of the affiliates using Amazon aggregator Perch’s affiliate program are influencers, but eight of Perch’s 10 most valuable affiliates are media companies.