For years, publishers helped shape affiliate marketing into a durable revenue stream. By pairing product recommendations with SEO expertise, they turned commerce content into conversion engines. That model still drives meaningful revenue, but it is now facing severe structural headwinds, according to interviews with eight affiliate marketing experts.
The rise of AI-powered answer engines threatens publishers’ visibility in search results—long the lifeblood of their affiliate programs—and marketers are testing new affiliate channels alongside them.
As publishers grapple with changes in how audiences discover products, creators are capturing a growing share of incremental budget, according to Jamie Hamerly, marketplace director at Levanta.
“Spend is not being pulled from publishers,” she said, “but new budget is going to creators.”
Publishers face platform and pricing pressure
Publishers’ affiliate businesses have long relied on search visibility, according to Alison Rinaldi, affiliate group director at Assembly Global.
But as platforms like Google experiment with AI summaries and zero-click results, the pipeline of traffic to commerce articles is beginning to erode.
“The threat is that AI will summarize information directly and link out to purchase, bypassing the publisher entirely,” Rinaldi said.
Commission rates have also fallen. Amazon, still the largest player in the space, now offers most publishers just 2–3% commission, down from double-digit rates in earlier years, according to Rinaldi.
Amazon’s rate changes go beyond rate cuts, according to Nilla Ali, cofounder of the agency GAAN Creative.
For one, Amazon has shifted toward “seller-funded” affiliate models, where brands, rather than the platform, pay additional commissions. Amazon is also paying a higher baseline rate to creators than publishers. Creators get 10% to 15% baseline rates compared to publishers’ 2% to 3%, Ali said. Tools like Amazon’s Creator Connections program make it easier for brands to bonus influencers directly, accelerating creator adoption.
The publisher affiliate space is also crowded with “best of” lists and redundant recommendations, Rinaldi said, creating diminishing returns for marketers. Many publishers now expect flat fees or minimum spends, which don’t always align with the pay-for-performance standard of affiliate.
