Everyone is talking about how AI is destroying affiliate.
Visitors arriving from AI search engines convert at approximately 14%. Visitors from traditional Google search convert at 2.8%. Nearly a 5x conversion premium.
The panic is misplaced.
Traffic is shifting. The traffic that remains converts significantly better.
Google's AI Overviews have reduced referral clicks to publisher content. That is real. But users who click through from AI arrive with far more intent. They are not browsing. They are buying.
Getting your partners ranked on Google and capturing the traffic was the old model. That model is under pressure.
Getting your brand and your partners cited by AI is the model that works now. When ChatGPT or Perplexity recommends a product, the traffic that follows is highly qualified.
Publishers producing genuinely useful, specific, authoritative content are more likely to be cited by AI models. Thin content and generic listicles are not.
Your most valuable partners going forward are not the ones with the most traffic. They are the ones with the most trusted, specific content in your category.
Want to scale your affiliate program? Book a free strategy call here.
Talk soon,
Fred