Affiliate marketing continues to grow rapidly, with eMarketer projecting that affiliate marketing would drive more than $210 billion in U.S. e-commerce sales in 2025, expected to reach over $287 billion by 2028 (Modern Retail). Brands are increasingly focused on authenticity when selecting affiliate partners, with emphasis on finding creators who are already genuine fans of the brand rather than inauthentic partnerships that younger audiences can easily detect.
AI is fundamentally reshaping affiliate discovery and customer journeys. LLMs pull from organic voices on Reddit, Instagram, social platforms, and forums rather than brand-owned content, prioritizing authentic recommendations over brand self-promotion (Modern Retail). However, AI has compressed the customer journey—collapsing experimentation and discovery into a single prompt—which shrinks the opportunities for affiliates to influence purchase decisions across multiple touchpoints. Meanwhile, Substack is emerging as a promising affiliate channel, with approximately 35 million users and higher open rates than traditional marketing emails, creating new partnership opportunities for brands willing to work with newsletter creators (Modern Retail).