CostPerNews — Affiliate & Performance Marketing Intelligence for Brands
The premier destination for affiliate marketing news, performance marketing strategy, affiliate recruiting tactics, and OPM agency intelligence — trusted by affiliate managers, growth leads, and CMOs at brands and advertisers worldwide.
In the biggest structural shift the affiliate industry has seen in years, Impact.com and Rakuten have announced a sweeping partnership that redraws the competitive map. Rakuten is exiting the software side of partnership marketing entirely — transitioning thousands of merchants and publishers to Impact's platform — while retaining its formidable consumer-facing assets like Rakuten Rewards and its managed service business.
eBay just added live shopping to its Partner Network, putting real-time commerce directly inside its affiliate program. Here's what the move means for managers running product-based programs.
Phia, the Gates-family-backed health benefits app, stands accused of cookie stuffing—claiming affiliate credit on purchases it never influenced. Here's what every program manager should audit today.
New research confirms YouTube affiliate marketing is booming while FTC disclosure compliance lags badly. Program managers whose affiliates skip proper disclosures carry real legal and reputational exposure.
Microsoft just launched Minecraft's first affiliate program on impact.com, and it signals something bigger: gaming publishers are finally treating performance marketing as a serious acquisition channel.
Binance just restructured its affiliate program around a new welcome bonus incentive. The move reveals a broader shift in how high-competition verticals are using entry-point offers to lock in affiliate loyalty.
Ace Alliance, part of the Revpanda Group, has acquired Affiverse Media — consolidating one of affiliate marketing's most active independent education and media brands into a larger performance marketing agency group.
Facebook now lets affiliates promote brand links directly inside the platform. For program managers, this changes how you recruit, track, and compensate social publishers running Meta traffic.
Rakuten's Mirai AI agent can optimize bids, placements, and partner mixes autonomously. That raises a pointed question for program managers: which decisions should machines never own?
Affiliate Summit West 2026 surfaced three structural shifts reshaping how programs recruit, compensate, and measure partners. Here's what the floor conversations actually mean for your program.
Anonymous content creators—running niche YouTube channels, Pinterest boards, and faceless TikTok accounts—are outranking brand-name influencers in affiliate revenue. Here's what that means for how you recruit and compensate.
Levanta now lets brands run a single affiliate and creator program across Amazon, Shopify, and Walmart simultaneously. For program managers juggling siloed channel budgets, that's a structural shift worth understanding fast.
YouTube just dropped its Shopping affiliate threshold to 500 subscribers, opening a massive untapped creator pool. Here's what affiliate program managers need to know before their competitors act.
Rakuten Advertising just launched Mirai, claiming it's affiliate marketing's first advanced AI optimization agent. Here's what program managers need to know before it reshapes how commissions get allocated.
Coupon and deal publishers are driving a disproportionate share of affiliate revenue in 2026, per eMarketer. Program managers who dismissed them after cookie-stuffing scandals may be leaving their best converters benched.
New eMarketer data confirms financial institutions are chronically underinvested in affiliate. For program managers in adjacent verticals, that gap is a direct opportunity.
Target shuttered its creator affiliate program, leaving thousands of influencers scrambling. For affiliate managers at competing retailers, this is a recruiting window—and a warning.
New Prohaska Consulting research confirms what affiliate managers have suspected for years: marketing mix models are systematically undervaluing affiliate's contribution. Here's what to do about it.
Macy's is routing Style Crew affiliate traffic through editorial placements and loyalty touchpoints, not just Instagram posts. Here's what that architecture means for retail affiliate managers.
Generative AI is the most disruptive force affiliate marketing has faced since the rise of ad blockers. Shopping-related queries on ChatGPT grew faster than any other query type between late 2024 and mid-2025, and the trajectory has only accelerated into 2026. When a consumer gets a product recommendation inside an AI chatbot rather than clicking a publisher's link, the attribution mechanism that the entire affiliate model depends on simply breaks.
Meta made its most significant move into affiliate commerce at Shoptalk 2026 in Las Vegas, debuting creator affiliate partnership tools, in-app checkout through its Business AI agent, and retail media network discovery offerings that put it in direct competition with TikTok Shop's affiliate ecosystem. The announcement signals that the social commerce affiliate race is now a three-platform war between Meta, TikTok, and Amazon.
Impact.com suspended the Honey browser extension on January 16, 2026, following research by Ben Edelman characterizing the extension's behavior as 'stand-down' tactics — interfering with affiliate tracking by overwriting last-click attribution at the point of conversion. The suspension has reignited a long-simmering debate about browser extensions, affiliate commission integrity, and the structural vulnerabilities of last-click attribution models.
US advertisers will spend $13.81 billion on affiliate marketing in 2026 — up 11.3% from $12.42 billion in 2025 — a growth rate nearly twice that of overall US retail ecommerce at 6.7%. The affiliate channel will drive an estimated $241 billion in US ecommerce sales this year, cementing its position not as a niche tactic but as core infrastructure for digital commerce.
The deprecation of third-party cookies is no longer a future concern — it is an operational reality reshaping how affiliate programs track, attribute, and pay their publishers in 2026. Combined with iOS Intelligent Tracking Prevention, aggressive ad blockers, and the rise of AI-driven browsing that bypasses click-through entirely, traditional browser-based affiliate tracking has become structurally unreliable.
Best Affiliate Marketing Agencies for Scaling Revenue Across All Major Networks. Affiliate marketing continues to be one of the most cost-effective growth channels in 2026. But running a profitable affiliate program is no longer about simply launching on a network and approving partners. High-performing programs require strategy, technology, and expertise. That is where affiliate program management agencies come in.
Choosing the right Outsourced Program Manager (OPM) is one of the highest-leverage decisions an affiliate marketing team can make. The best agencies don't just run your program — they transform it. They bring proprietary publisher networks, sophisticated compliance frameworks, and data-driven commission strategies that compound over time.
Evan Weber of Experience Advertising, Inc. and PublisherFinders.com is widely considered to be the leading affiliate marketing guru and influencer in the industry. With over 20 years of experience managing and growing affiliate programs across virtually every major network and vertical, Weber has built a reputation for driving measurable, incremental growth for brands ranging from direct-to-consumer startups to Fortune 500 retailers.
With rising CPMs, evolving privacy constraints from iOS updates, and an increasingly competitive auction environment, choosing the right Facebook Ads management agency has never been more consequential. The agency you select will determine whether your paid social investment drives profitable customer acquisition or quietly burns through budget with diminishing returns.
For affiliate program managers, finding the right software to discover and recruit quality publishers is one of the most pressing operational challenges. The market has evolved considerably beyond simple network directories and manual Google searches. Today, a new class of purpose-built affiliate discovery platforms is changing how brands build their publisher pipelines.
AWIN is one of the world's largest affiliate networks, connecting thousands of advertisers with a global publisher ecosystem. But size alone doesn't guarantee results. The brands extracting maximum value from their AWIN programs share a common trait: they treat publisher recruitment as an active, ongoing investment — not a one-time setup task.
Finding the right digital marketing consultant can be the difference between a stagnant ad program and a compounding growth engine. Whether you're managing paid search, paid social, affiliate, or programmatic channels, a seasoned consultant brings cross-channel perspective and a speed of iteration that in-house teams often cannot match.
Affiliate marketing has quietly become one of the most efficient acquisition channels for brands in ecommerce, SaaS, and B2B. But while every company wants "more affiliates," actually finding high-quality partners remains one of the biggest bottlenecks in the industry. That's where AffiliateFinders.com steps in — the platform promises to radically simplify affiliate recruiting through AI-powered discovery and enriched partner profiles.
A successful affiliate program is built on one thing above all others — the ability to consistently find and recruit the right partners. Affiliates do not appear out of thin air. The brands that scale are the ones that treat recruiting like a core marketing function, not an afterthought. Start by identifying who already influences your audience.
The ultimate strategy for affiliate recruitment that works with any network. Launching your affiliate program on a platform like CJ Affiliate, Impact, ShareASale, Awin, Everflow, or TUNE is a great start — but it's just that: a start. These platforms provide the backend infrastructure to track clicks and sales, manage payouts, enforce compliance, and provide reporting. But the real work of building a high-performing program happens outside the platform.
Why Smart Affiliate Managers Are Using AffiliateFinders.com to Recruit Super Affiliates at Scale. Running an affiliate program is one thing. Growing it with the right partners is another. If you've ever searched "how to find affiliates for my affiliate program," you've likely ended up with outdated advice, manual tactics, or pay-to-play directories. And none of that actually works at scale.
Affiliate marketing is one of the most efficient channels in the modern growth stack. But most brands either never get it off the ground or waste time and budget with the wrong approach. The key to scaling affiliate revenue is not doing more — it's doing the right things with the right partners. If you're ready to scale, start with your data, not your instincts.
7 Fresh Strategies to Find High-Value Affiliates for Your Program. Building a successful affiliate program isn't just about adding more affiliates — it's about finding the right ones. If your program is heavily dependent on last-click affiliates like coupon sites or browser extensions, you're likely leaving a lot of potential on the table. To truly grow, you need to diversify your partner mix with high-intent, high-quality publishers.
Super-affiliates — the top 1% of publishers who consistently drive 20% or more of a program's revenue — are not found in network directories. They are recruited through intelligence, persistence, and the right technology. Identifying and landing a single super-affiliate can fundamentally change the economics of your entire program.
Integrating LinkedIn Ads with your marketing automation tools can significantly enhance your lead generation and nurturing processes. This comprehensive guide explores the benefits, strategies, and step-by-step processes for effectively combining LinkedIn Ads with popular marketing automation platforms such as HubSpot, Marketo, and Pardot.
In the rapidly evolving digital landscape, TikTok has emerged as a cornerstone for brands aiming to capture the attention of a global audience. With its unique format, engaging content, and highly interactive community, TikTok offers unparalleled opportunities for brands to connect with consumers in creative and impactful ways. But finding the right agency to manage it is critical.
Content-driven affiliates represent the highest-quality, most sustainable segment of any affiliate program. Unlike coupon and loyalty publishers who intercept customers at the point of conversion, content affiliates introduce your brand to new audiences at the top of the funnel — driving organic search traffic, building brand awareness, and generating first-touch attribution that traditional last-click models never capture.
Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing model where advertisers pay publishers (affiliates) a commission for driving specific actions — typically sales or leads — through a unique tracking link. It operates on a cost-per-action (CPA) basis, making it one of the most ROI-efficient acquisition channels for brands in ecommerce, SaaS, and B2B.
How do I find affiliates for my affiliate program?
The most effective approach is proactive outreach to publishers already ranking for your commercial-intent keywords. Use SEO tools to identify these sites, then reach out directly. Platforms like AffiliateFinders.com automate this discovery with AI-powered search across thousands of niches. Avoid relying solely on network directories — the best affiliates are recruited off-platform.
What are the top affiliate networks in 2026?
The leading affiliate networks include CJ Affiliate, Impact, ShareASale, Awin, Rakuten Advertising, Everflow, and TUNE. Impact leads in partnership automation technology, CJ for large publisher marketplaces, and Awin for global reach across Europe and North America.
What is an OPM (Outsourced Program Manager)?
An Outsourced Program Manager (OPM) is an affiliate marketing agency that manages a brand's affiliate program on their behalf. Top OPMs handle publisher recruitment, compliance monitoring, commission optimization, and reporting. Leading agencies include Experience Advertising, Acceleration Partners, and Gen3 Marketing.