The TB Team was back at it in NYC for Affiliate Summit East. The week was jam-packed with great meetings connecting with current affiliate partners, long-time contacts, and some exciting new and up-and-coming players. As always, we got the inside scoop on what’s happening in the industry, and we’re excited to share it with you. Let’s dive into the main takeaways.
ASE 2025 Takeaways
- Search Is Changing!
- Google AI Overviews and AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity are reducing the amount of affiliate clicks coming from traditional partners. Big publishers are losing traffic and actively looking to diversify their traffic sources.
- The Revshare Model Is Dying
- With changing search traffic, fewer clicks, and attribution becoming more difficult due to cookie restrictions, content publishers are moving away from pure revshare models. To protect their assets and cover costs, they’re leaning toward paid deals, hybrid models, or cost-per-click partnerships. Especially as they invest more in social, podcasts, and other top-of-funnel channels.
- Investing in Brand is Increasing and Working
- Even with results appearing weaker on paper, publishers report that brands are still spending more. Instead of chasing only direct ROI, brands are prioritizing content that builds awareness, knowing it leads to long-term gains like a stronger email list, more followers, and higher sales over time. Plus, with AI pulling answers directly from publisher content, having high-quality placements is more important than ever for visibility in AI-driven search.
Notable ASE 2025 Meetings
New York Post
One of our favorite people to meet with at Affiliate Summit is always Ryan Murphy from the New York Post. He always has great insights to share about what’s working for them and how we can best collaborate. Deals content will definitely be a theme this year.
OSEA
We love meeting with brands at ASE, and OSEA is an awesome one. They’re running a lot of affiliate and creator partnerships, and we’re excited to introduce some of the women’s creators in our network to this amazing brand.
Skimlinks
One of the best sub-affiliate partners in the game, Skimlinks is a powerhouse used by mass media everywhere. Our chat covered some of our current brands, new brands coming on board, and ways to optimize. We also learned about some of their exclusive partnerships, like the one with AfterPay.
Disney
Disney is making big waves in the space and plans to push their bundles hard this year. We’re excited to explore ways to help them sell more bundles.
Linkby
We were really excited about this one. The team has been looking to run more campaigns on Linkby because of the great exposure you can get with top media sites while still having an action-based cost-per-click model. Hoping to do a lot with them in Q4 this year.
AWIN
Joe attended the AWIN Agency Board meeting and got inside access to their product roadmap. He also provided feedback on how to improve their tech.
Impact
We had a great meeting with Impact to learn more about their packages, which now bundle their Advocate and Creator tools into the performance affiliate platform.
Everflow
Everflow has great tech. We’re active in some programs there and looking to expand our footprint. We discussed strategic ways to grow together.
Daily Drop
A publisher we hadn’t met before, Daily Drop crushes it in travel content. Lots of opportunities for our brands that make quality travel apparel.
Partnerize
Had a great time at the Partnerize happy hour. Looking forward to doing more work with our long-time friend Erin.
Future Media
Met with our long-time friend Brent at Future. He gave us the lowdown on what’s going on in the space and how they operate. Interesting note, some of their properties are cited by AI more than anyone else. Another reason to keep investing in content!
Everyday Health
Learned about their current offerings and discussed ways to get our brands featured more, as well as opportunities for new brands we’re in talks with.
Daily Beast
Learned more about their content offerings and discussed future collaboration opportunities.
Levanta
Got an update on their new connections with Walmart and others. Also learned what works well on the platform and how they’ve overcome challenges.
Hearst
One of the biggest media outlets out there. We met a new contact and discussed the brands we work with and where we could collaborate.