Media Inflation in Affiliate Marketing: Why Everyone Wants Partnerships, but No One Knows How to Calculate Them

For those who don’t know me, here’s a little bit about myself. I entered the affiliate marketing industry in 2019. At first, I worked on building event infrastructure at Affhub, then on building YouTube and Media units within the same team, but this time as Head. At the end of 2023, I went on maternity leave, and it’s been two months since I returned to the industry with renewed passion and energy to drive this sector forward. 

As someone who has returned to the industry after a two-and-a-half-year hiatus, I can clearly see the transformation the market has undergone during this time. I’m interested in documenting these observations and sharing them with the industry. 

Over the past two years, the number of arbitrage media projects has grown exponentially. Along with it, the demand for media partnerships—announcements, integrations, collaborations—has also grown. However, a culture of evaluating these partnerships has yet to take shape. The market has learned to negotiate, but it hasn’t learned to measure. And this is a systemic problem we face from event to event.

Quantitative growth without qualitative

The oversaturation of the media market in the affiliate marketing sector is not so much about the number of projects as it is about the gap between their ambitions and their actual clout. Channels and publications pop up quickly: the first 100 subscribers come from their professional circles, and reach stays limited to their personal networks. And that’s where quality, organic growth stops, and subscriber inflation begins—a common pattern. Yet claims to partnership status keep coming. 

As a conference organizer, I want to note a consistent trend: requests for media partnerships come in by the dozens, while actual media kits—with reach, engagement, and case studies of previous placements—are provided by only a handful. The rest rely on phrases like “active coverage” and “loyal audience,” which amount to 80 post views and three link clicks—this is a real-life example from a conference in Kyiv in May.

This is not a media partnership. It is a request for privileges without the corresponding assets. Am I saying we were lied to? No, we didn’t even ask. Because it’s customary for us to just accept partners, lest they take offense and accuse us of being arrogant. Will there be changes? Read on.

The Lack of a Measurement Culture

Media partnerships in the affiliate industry still operate on the logic of mutual favors, rather than as a commercial tool with measurable results. The parties agree based on gut feelings, not data—and both are left unable to assess effectiveness.

A typical example: a brand places native integration in a niche media outlet without agreed-upon KPIs. After the content is published, the fact of publication is recorded—and that’s where the analytics end. How many target users saw the content, what action they took, and how this relates to costs—these are questions that no one asked at the outset and cannot answer at the end.

Until the parties formalize minimum requirements for the partnership—reach, engagement, conversion metrics, reporting format—media collaborations will remain a PR gesture devoid of economic substance. 100 subscribers and three clicks do not constitute an audience. It is merely a group centered around a single subscriber’s interests. 

When brand weight is perceived as personal capital

A behavioral pattern that is becoming increasingly evident in internal market communication deserves special attention. PR managers of major brands—companies with real clout, media presence, and budgets—often project the brand’s status as their own. This manifests not in their professional stance, but in their communication style: unjustified secrecy, ignoring requests, and a condescending tone in negotiations with players who are objectively smaller in scale but present in the market as full-fledged participants.

A telling example: a market participant takes offense that we didn’t provide free placement on Affhub.Media. We, for our part, explained that we don’t have such a practice for sponsored articles; we provide a service—you purchase it. The PR manager of this brand aggressively responds that, in that case, they won’t cooperate with us. 

This relationship could have ended before it even began. But because I’m on good terms with the affiliate program owner, I went to him and asked what these changes in the Terms of Service regarding communication with partners were all about, and what the strategy was. It turned out that this person was shocked by the manager’s behavior. As a result, after some time, we posted an ad looking for a new PRD at this company (for free, by the way). 

Conclusion: A company’s reputation is an operational resource that a manager uses within the scope of their role. It does not automatically translate into personal status.

The affiliate marketing market is small, staff turnover is high, and behavioral patterns are noted by the professional community more closely than is commonly thought.

What Needs to Change in the Industry and What Changes Lie Ahead for Affhub

Media projects need to track metrics and improve their statistics: reach, engagement, and CTR. Entering negotiations with brands and organizers without verified metrics not only discredits a specific project but also fosters persistent skepticism in the market regarding niche media in general. This is the real picture of what is currently happening in the affiliate market. A media kit is not an option; it is the entry point. This approach will also be implemented in Affhub.Media’s operations. I don’t want to simply provide placement to partners; Affhub.Media offers benefits that can be quantified.

For brands and event organizers—formalize the criteria for media partnerships. Transparent thresholds for reach and engagement are a standard that protects the value of partner status and sets benchmarks for growth across the entire industry. For the next event, we will establish clear requirements for media partnerships. Barter isn’t free; it’s a win-win situation. 

PR specialists should distinguish between the company’s reputation and their own professional standing. The former is provided for use during the employment period. The latter is built over years through the quality of communication, consistency, and respect for the market, of which every participant is a part. Mutual respect is the key to long-term cooperation with the market, independent of any current brand. 

The media market will mature to a professional standard in arbitration when both parties to the negotiations begin to operate based on data, not status. A partnership is an agreement. Agreements have terms, metrics, and responsibilities. Reputation works by the same logic.

Will Affhub take on the role of a trendsetter in this matter? We are already on this path, and the changes will be noticeable.