The digital landscape in 2026 is moving faster than ever, and for many brands, the pressure to scale revenue often leads to a common dilemma: how do you grow your affiliate programme without burning your PPC efforts or diluting your brand equity?
To kick off our webinar series this year, our Head of Affiliates and Partner Marketing, Rachel Said, sat down with an incredible panel of industry experts to tackle this exact challenge.
Our lineup included:
Here’s our top takeaways from the webinar.
One of the most common fears in the affiliate channel is that partners are simply bidding on brand terms, driving up costs, and claiming credit for sales that would have happened anyway. This is where a brand's PPC team might be flagging non-compliant activity and pushing back on optimisations in the channel as non-incremental. The reality is that if you work with an open mix of partners, especially in the code site realm, brand bidding and ad hijacking are a real threat.
Our first panel was clear: compliance is not a one-off task. It is an ongoing, evolving process. Gaining visibility into traffic sources and understanding exactly where clicks originate enables brands to make informed investment decisions. More importantly, it empowers partners to focus on reaching new audiences rather than competing for existing demand.
Third-party tools, such as Marcode, can support this process by consolidating complex data and providing clear evidence when addressing non-compliant behaviour. For larger programmes, these platforms enable scalable and confident compliance management.
That said, brands can also apply practical checks internally. Monitoring unusual spikes in activity, analysing click-to-sale ratios, reviewing revenue-driving publishers where you brand is not visibly featured, and conducting regular brand and voucher searches - particularly outside standard working hours - can reveal potential issues. A key warning sign is high-volume activity from a partner without a clear explanation of how that traffic is being driven. When visibility is lacking, deeper investigation is essential.
Comparison Shopping Services (CSS) are often viewed cautiously, with concerns around inflated CPCs. However, when implemented correctly, CSS can be a powerful tool for capturing upper-funnel intent.
The effectiveness lies in the technical set up. By leveraging CSS models, brands can secure additional presence within Google Shopping results, often reaching customers who have not yet committed to a specific brand. This can drive incremental revenue without increasing internal PPC costs.
As highlighted by Jérémy, understanding how the auction operates is critical. When CSS is structured with a CPA below your internal PPC shopping cost-of-sale target, it cannot directly compete with your existing campaigns.
For brands facing internal resistance to test affiliate CSS, try the following framework:
One of the most anticipated discussions of the webinar centred on large language model (LLM) optimisation. As consumers increasingly rely on AI-driven search tools, visibility is no longer confined to traditional SEO performance.
In 2026, brands must be consistently referenced across credible, high-quality content sources. This is where SEO, digital PR, and affiliate marketing converge. Affiliate-led content partnerships can help supply the signals that AI models use when recommending brands. Success is no longer solely about keyword rankings - it’s about authority, relevance, and sustained presence across the digital ecosystem.
This strategy extends beyond occasional paid placements. It requires strong on-site optimisation combined with meaningful investment in editorial partnerships that prioritise quality and relevance. Social platforms such as YouTube and Reddit also play a role, as LLMs draw from a wide range of sources. Providing clear, consistent signposts for your product categories and securing citations in trusted environments increases the likelihood of AI-driven visibility.
The affiliate channel presents a significant opportunity here. Partners such as Linkby enable brands to access high-value editorial placements on a performance-led basis, aligning costs with outcomes.
The key unknown remains tracking and attribution. As traditional click-based models evolve, measurement frameworks must adapt to ensure fair reward and transparency. While this area is still developing, it is clear that change is accelerating.
Affiliate marketing is no longer a peripheral growth lever. For brands focused on sustainable expansion, it is a channel that demands strategic attention.
Platform diversification defined 2025 for many organisations, and affiliates emerged as a serious growth driver. The Diamond Store offers a compelling example. Rather than continuing with underperforming voucher partnerships, the brand chose to reset its programme entirely - removing code sites that did not sign with brand objectives and rebuilding within closed user groups, CSS and content partnerships.
The guiding principle is simple: brands must meet customers where they shop. Closed user group platforms, with their owned and highly defined audiences, now enable precise alignment between brand and partner databases.
Looking ahead in 2026, success in affiliate marketing will depend on intentional partnership building and a willingness to look beyond channel silos. Affiliates now intersect with multiple stages of the customer journey and interact with other marketing channels in increasingly integrated ways. The ability to understand and articulate this interconnected impact is where meaningful growth lies.
Underpinning all of this is a rigorous and continuous approach to compliance. Combined with strategic diversification and data-led optimisation, it forms a robust framework for sustainable growth.
If you would like to explore how to scale your affiliate programme effectively, or would value a comprehensive programme audit, please do get in touch.
