Affiliate Outperforms Macro Conditions – APMA State of the Nation

Economic pressure, tighter budgets, and cautious consumers have defined the past year. Across industries, marketing spend has been under scrutiny - with a clear shift toward channels that can prove their value.

And yet, affiliate marketing is not just holding steady, it’s growing.

The latest APMA State of the Nation Report shows the channel reaching new highs, with £1.78bn in advertiser spend, £20.7bn in revenue generated, and 357 million transactions. In a challenging economic climate, those numbers stand out.

This reflects a broader shift: in a constrained market, advertisers are actively prioritising channels that can prove their value - and affiliate is increasingly at the centre of that shift.

Why This Is Happening: A Shift Toward Measurable ROI

In uncertain market conditions, one pattern tends to repeat: budgets move toward channels that can clearly demonstrate their return.

Affiliate marketing fits that requirement by design. Its performance-based model gives advertisers a direct link between spend and outcome. At a time when every pound is under scrutiny, that level of accountability matters more than ever.

The APMA’s report puts concrete numbers behind this. On average, affiliate marketing delivers £15–£16 in return for every £1 spent, significantly outperforming many other digital channels. By comparison:

• Paid search typically delivers £4–£8 per £1

• Paid social sits around £2–£5 per £1

• Display and programmatic often range between £2–£4 per £1

This gap is hard to ignore, especially in a climate where efficiency is critical. This is why affiliate is increasingly being prioritised. It offers something marketers are actively looking for right now: predictable, measurable ROI in an unpredictable environment.

More Than ROI: The Channel’s Adaptability Drives Growth

Strong ROI is one of the channel’s core strengths, but it’s not the only driver behind affiliate marketing’s growth over the past year. Another key factor is its adaptability. As the report shows, the channel is evolving.

Affiliate is no longer built around a single dominant model. Instead, investment is spread across a diverse mix of partner types, each playing a different role in the customer journey. Cashback and loyalty partners still account for a significant share - around 30% of total spend - but content publishers alone now attract roughly one in five pounds (21%) of affiliate investment.

Growth in 2025 has been driven by content-led, comparison-based and social models. In fact, content publishers, CSS and influencer-driven activity are among the fastest-growing segments.

That shift points to a broader change in how affiliate is being used.

The channel is increasingly operating across two roles:

• Conversion, which remains the foundation

• Consideration and discovery, which is expanding rapidly

This is also visible in how performance is evolving. While investment grew by 8% and revenue by 7.8%, transaction growth was lower at 3.5% - a signal that spend is not just driving more volume, but higher-value outcomes and broader funnel impact.

In other words, affiliate is helping to create demand instead of only capturing it.

Beyond Last-Click: Rethinking How Affiliate Is Measured

As affiliate expands beyond pure conversion, the way it is measured is starting to shift as well.

Cost-per-acquisition (CPA) remains the backbone of the channel, accounting for 81% of total investment. But that dominance is no longer absolute. Almost one in five pounds (around 19%) of affiliate spend now sits outside pure CPA models, with growing investment in tenancy, visibility and hybrid approaches.

The report shows that tenancy is the fastest-growing payment model, up 18% year-on-year, while CPA itself is growing in line with the market rather than gaining share. At the same time, a significant proportion of publishers are already generating meaningful revenue beyond last-click models, with many reporting that more than 20% of their income comes from non-CPA payments.

Taken together, this points to a clear shift: affiliate is no longer just a conversion channel - it’s increasingly being valued for its role across the full customer journey.

And that has implications for how performance is measured.

As the report highlights, fewer interactions are directly trackable, while more decisions happen before the final click. As discovery shifts into content, comparison and AI-driven environments, affiliate influence increasingly occurs before a click ever takes place - and is not fully captured in traditional attribution models.

For advertisers, this creates a gap. If affiliate is influencing decisions earlier in the journey, but only rewarded at the point of conversion, a significant part of its contribution remains undervalued.

That’s why we’re seeing a gradual shift toward more flexible commercial models - not as a replacement for CPA, but as a necessary extension of it. Models that reward visibility, influence and placement alongside conversion are becoming increasingly important to reflect how the channel actually works today.

Conclusion: Why This Shift Calls For A New Approach

Affiliate marketing is outperforming in a difficult market. What was once primarily a conversion driver is now shaping decisions much earlier in the customer journey. At the same time, the channel continues to evolve - with new publisher models, broader sector adoption and more flexible commercial structures expanding its role.

Affiliate is no longer just a channel to optimise at the margins, but one to invest in more strategically - both in terms of budget and measurement. Those who adapt their measurement models to reflect this broader role will be best positioned to unlock its full value.