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Affiliate Marketing Survey 2024: Key Insights, Challenges, and Trends
An Affiliate Summit Executive Insights Study, conducted in collaboration with FMTC, carried out an affiliate marketing survey to uncover challenges and trends in the industry.
The survey targeted brand marketers with existing business relationships with Affiliate Summit and FMTC. A total of 110 respondents completed the email survey. The results were compiled into the report titled Follow The Money, which highlights industry pain points, partner trends, and growth opportunities.
Understanding the findings of this survey helps marketers make informed decisions, optimize their programs, and adapt to the evolving affiliate marketing landscape.
What is an Affiliate Marketing Survey?
An affiliate marketing survey collects data from brands, affiliates, and marketing professionals to identify trends, challenges, and strategies in partnership programs. It serves as a benchmark to guide decision-making, track industry shifts, and compare program performance over time.
Survey Methodology
The study included respondents from a variety of sectors. Key points of the methodology:
- Respondents: Brand marketers with active affiliate programs.
- Number of participants: 110 completed the survey.
- Sectors covered: E-commerce, tech, retail, media, and services.
Respondents were asked to identify their biggest affiliate marketing challenges and share details about their partner mix and program structure. Multiple selections were allowed to capture the complexity of their programs.
Key Findings
Top Challenges
The survey revealed several top challenges faced by affiliate marketers:
- Optimization: 22%
- Scalability and automation: 16%
- Attribution: 14%
- Content creation: 12%
- Finding the right network: 9%
- Ad fraud: 8%
- Compliance: 6%
- Ad-blocking: 4%
- Payments: 4%
- Creative fatigue: 3%
- Other: 3%
Partner Mix Trends
Brands are working with larger and more diverse affiliate networks. The survey found:
- 55% of brands work with at least 100 affiliate partners.
- 11% have 50-100 affiliates.
Preferred Partner Types
When ranking affiliate partner types by value, respondents prioritized:
- Content Publishers
- Cashback & Loyalty
- Paid Search
- Media Buyers
- Tech Affiliates
- Influencers
- Vouchers & Deals
- Browser Extensions
Year-over-Year Insights
Compared to previous years, programs are increasingly adding new partner types such as influencers and tech affiliates. Automation and AI tools are becoming more common for scaling campaigns efficiently.
Affiliate Marketing Challenges in 2025
Recruitment & Retention
Finding the right affiliates and maintaining long-term relationships remains difficult. A VP of Merchandising commented, “Finding and connecting with the right partner relationships to match our products and then maintain a consistent revenue stream from those partnerships has been difficult over the long term.”
Network Alignment
Ensuring affiliate partners align closely with program goals is crucial for performance. Misaligned partners can lead to wasted spend, lower ROI, and campaigns that fail to meet brand objectives, making ongoing monitoring essential.
Fraud & Compliance
Ad fraud, regulatory compliance, and transparency issues continue to challenge programs. Marketers must adopt advanced tracking, monitoring, and verification strategies to protect budgets and maintain trust with affiliates and customers.
Affiliate Marketing Trends
Growing Partner Types
Brands are increasingly collaborating with emerging affiliate types such as influencers, tech affiliates, and media buyers. These partners allow marketers to reach specialized audiences, diversify revenue streams, and explore new growth opportunities.
Impact of Automation & AI
Automation now manages tasks like reporting, optimization, and partner communications. AI further enhances decision-making by predicting partner performance, streamlining operations, and helping marketers focus on strategic growth instead of repetitive tasks.
Industry Benchmarks
Survey findings show top-performing programs maintain large partner networks, focusing primarily on content publishers and cashback or loyalty partners. This combination consistently drives performance, engagement, and measurable revenue growth across campaigns.
Visual Survey Results
Graphs, pie charts, and infographics illustrate:
- Top challenges by percentage
- Partner mix trends
- Year-over-year adoption of new affiliate types
These visuals make it easier to understand trends at a glance and benchmark your program.
Expert Commentary
Executives and affiliate experts shared insights on the current state of affiliate marketing:
- A VP of Merchandising emphasized the struggle of maintaining high-value affiliate relationships.
- Advertise Purple highlighted how performance-driven program management and proprietary tools like Bloom can streamline affiliate operations.
FAQs
What is an affiliate marketing survey?
It collects data from brands, marketers, and affiliates to uncover program challenges, partner trends, and industry benchmarks. Surveys help businesses make data-driven decisions.
Why are surveys important for affiliate managers?
Surveys identify pain points, track trends, and benchmark programs. They help managers understand what works, where to optimize, and how to stay competitive.
How many partners do most programs have?
The survey showed over half of brands work with at least 100 affiliate partners. Smaller programs commonly have 50-100 partners.
What are the biggest affiliate marketing challenges in 2025?
Recruitment and retention, network alignment, optimization, and fraud prevention remain top challenges for affiliate programs.
The Follow The Money report paints a clear picture of the affiliate marketing landscape. As programs grow, the focus remains on optimization, scalability, and aligning with the right partners. Brands that adapt to new partner types and leverage automation tools are positioned to achieve stronger performance and revenue growth.
Work With Advertise Purple
With over a decade of experience, Advertise Purple has generated $4.6B in affiliate revenue for more than 5,000 brands across 23 verticals, establishing its spot as a leader in partnership marketing management.
Combining extensive experience with exclusive proprietary affiliate partnership technology Bloom, Advertise Purple delivers award-winning affiliate program management for Enterprise, SMB, and international e-commerce brands aiming to drive performance-based online customer acquisition. Contact our team to learn more.
