It’s been a big week for breaking down the seismic shifts shaking the industry. At IPX London, experts interrogated attribution models, the transformation of the partnership economy and how affiliate and performance navigate transparency and measurement.
In a panel on the intent evolution this week, featuring Heidi Currid, Founder of Hide Marketing, Nicholas Yates, Commercial Director at Silverbean, Aneira Henery, Head of Partner Marketing at loveholidays, and moderator Lee Ann Johnstone of KonverJ, panellists began by ruminating on the challenges of attribution.
A mindset shift
“I think that the channel has been evolving to multi-attribution for years. Obviously, the technology has been there for many, many years, being able to pay out commission higher up in the journey. But, at the moment, what we're doing is paying out on last click because it's basically a bit easier,” said Currid.
Here, there was a call for a “mindset shift.”
The question that remains is how the industry gets there, Currid said.
“I'd add to that we need to zoom out from thinking about affiliate as a siloed channel and we need to think more full-funnel and more converged growth engine,” added Henery. “That's what this new age of AI is demanding.”
The evolution of the partnership economy
This was echoed by Yates, who reflected on the continual evolution of the partnership economy.
“We've been working over the last five years to move traditional affiliates into content into influencers into brand partnerships, and now we're talking about GEO,” Yates said.
The panellist noted that the aim of the game is to get access to larger budgets by working alongside other channels, and here, raised the question of how success is measured.
“Success doesn't have to be based just on that conversion. It could be based on reach, impression or citations as well.”
But at the same time, the room heard that the industry is now in a “golden age” of affiliate marketing where tracking is expected to become “truly transparent.”
Indeed, here, Henery said that the click has historically underserved the industry and doesn’t capture the full story, adding that tools are coming into the picture to close the loop and provide a clearer lens to understand the customer journey and how the industry navigates attribution and reward.
But Henery noted that tools providing full visibility have not yet “landed on the plates and in the hands of affiliate managers and teams.”
Publisher anxiety and plane building
And publisher anxiety is a reality many in the ecosystem are facing, too, the panel shared, with the commercial models they’ve historically relied on collapsing.
Although amidst the rise of LLMs, publishers should be “demanding more budget than ever,” Henery said.
“LLMs feed off their authority, off their originality, off their trust, off their credibility, off their recency, and without them, the LLMs are going to start hallucinating. So we do need to fund publishers. We need to make sure that we are including them in our publisher mix.”
The panellist noted, however, that there is a gulf between brands’ and publishers' needs.
“We're also building a plane and flying it at the same time,” said Johnstone. “Nobody here actually has a concrete answer yet because the best practices haven't even been established. It's all happening really, really quickly.”
Here, the question of content partners’ decision-making across content access, control, and monetisation came into the conversation, a topic debated at length at OpenAttribution’s recent AI and content event.
But looking ahead, panellists noted the importance of effective measurement structures and frameworks, and standardised data reporting, forecasting more collaboration and convergence across channels and teams, with a greater focus on full funnel.
“I think we need to think more full funnel. We need to think about demand capture, demand validation, and demand conversion. So, that's how the budget should be cut,” said Henery. “And that will dictate the ROAS targets for each layer of that funnel as well.”
Although until the “sophisticated tools” needed to implement that strategy arrive, the industry remains in what Henery called the “messy middle.”
For Currid, the challenge is also an opportunity for change.
“I think we'll see more of a merge between search teams, affiliates, and maybe even a bit of PR as well,” Currid concluded. “I think we just have to embrace the change and pivot. I think it's a really exciting time in affiliate.”
