Affiliate marketing is experiencing explosive growth, with eMarketer projecting it will drive more than $210 billion in U.S. e-commerce sales, rising to over $287 billion by 2028. However, this expansion is forcing brands to rethink how they partner with creators and publishers as consumer behavior and media consumption shift.
AI is fundamentally reshaping affiliate discovery. Large language models prioritize organic voices from Reddit, Instagram, social platforms, and forums over brand self-promotion, which ranks low in LLM priority lists. Simultaneously, AI has compressed the customer journey—collapsing experimentation, discovery, and decision-making into a single prompt—which shrinks the traditional affiliate touchpoints. Meanwhile, Substack, with around 35 million users and higher open rates than traditional email, is emerging as a high-trust platform for affiliate partnerships. The footwear brand Memphisto exemplified this by partnering with popular Substacker Jake Woolf and selling out of a promoted shoe color through affiliate links.
For commerce teams, success depends on authenticity and focus. Brands should prioritize creators already aligned with their products and consider dedicating separate resources or agencies to manage creator, publisher, and deals channels independently, rather than consolidating them under a single person or team.