Last night, the biggest and brightest stars of affiliate and performance marketing gathered at the iconic Grosvenor House Hotel for the 20th edition of the Performance Marketing Awards.
With stand-out tech launches, incredible team performances and overflowing creativity, the gold winners demonstrated the industry’s tenacity of spirit and commitment to raising the bar.
Matthew Wood, Founder of Hello Partner, opened the night with a reflection on the past 20 years of the awards, its evolution and impact, and spelled out the industry’s superpower: “In a world full of impressions and awareness and brand sentiment scores, you are the people who can look a CFO in the eye and say: here is exactly what happened, here is exactly what it cost, and here is exactly what it made.”
Comedy legend Jimmy Carr had the Great Room giggling all night long, and even christened Awin with a new name.
Who grabbed the gold?
This year, the quality of entries was incredible, with multiple gold wins for a lucky few: impact.com, Vodafone/VOXI and Silverbean all realised truly impactful campaigns that saw them stacking gold, including first place for impact.com in the Affiliate Network or SaaS of the Year award.
Easyfundraising stood out for its performance with purpose, bagging Publisher of the Year by showing that excellent commercial results can be balanced with meaningful impact for consumers and communities.
Awin — or A-win, according to Jimmy Carr — was dubbed Game Changer of the Year, recognised for playing a key role in restoring trust in the affiliate ecosystem, while Mony Group PLC won Partnership of the Year for its strategic alliance with HSBC UK, which dazzled the judges with both its resilience and scale.
The 20th edition also introduced exciting new categories reflecting the ever-evolving nature of the industry, with Caledonian MacBrayne clinching gold for its inventive approach to storytelling in the Best Use of UGC in Performance category; VodafoneThree winning Best Peak Trading Campaign for redefining 'Black Friday Readiness'
In the Best Retail Media Campaign category, PHD UK stole the show with Andrex, in a campaign that demonstrated the power of retail media, while Go Places impressed with its category-defining campaign in the Best Social Commerce Campaign category.
The One to Watch was won by Sophia Perronet Miller, who, in under three years, has established herself as an important player within the industry with a strategic approach to performance marketing and a knack for innovation.
