Why Auto-Approving Affiliates in 2026 Is Like Leaving Your Front Door Wide Open

If you're still auto-approving affiliate applications or letting every partner type into your program without a clear strategy, this episode explains exactly why that approach will cost you this year. Ishtvan Torpoi, known industry-wide as "that affiliate guy," joins Lee-Ann to unpack the MegaLag controversy, distinguish between coupon browser extensions and cashback models, and reveal why the vast majority of affiliate management work happens after launch, not before. This conversation delivers the strategic framework you need to build programs that actually drive incremental value rather than just revenue on paper.

Talking Points Include:

• The browser extension distinction that most managers miss including why cashback browser extensions operate fundamentally differently than coupon extensions and how to set different commission structures for each
• Why more affiliates doesn't equal more conversions and how one wellness brand caught an 800-install fraud farm within 24 hours by watching data like a hawk during new partner launches
• The three non-negotiables for 2026 from monitoring performance data properly to changing default payout models based on customer lifetime value to implementing compliance monitoring before problems emerge

Listen to Find Out More About:

• Why European brands lag behind US brands in customer lifetime value thinking and how that affects willingness to pay higher initial commissions for quality partners
• The exact process for testing whether browser extensions actually improve cart abandonment rates or any other claimed metric before committing to partnerships
• How to structure commission differences between browser extension triggers and website-initiated traffic to reward genuine customer journey starts
• Why reading affiliate sales pitches isn't enough and how to test partners as actual users to understand their real impact on your funnel
• The data infrastructure investments that separate £30 million brands still doing manual analysis from brands with five data scientists building proper warehouses
• How to spot bot farms and fraud attempts within 24 hours of new partner launches by monitoring specific conversion ratio patterns

Key Segments of This Podcast and Where You Can Tune In to Go Direct:

[12:10] How to determine which of the 18-19 affiliate types make sense for new program launches based on internal marketing capabilities and desired speed to revenue

[22:00] Why brands at every size from startups to £30 million operations struggle with data aggregation and proper tooling investments

[27:45] The three non-negotiables for 2026: watching data like a hawk, changing default payout models, and implementing compliance monitoring

[30:50] Quality control processes that prevent fraud, including conversion validation checks and why auto-approval creates cleanup work rather than preventing problems

Call to Action

Huge thanks to Ishtvan Torpoi for sharing the frameworks he implements across diverse client programs at every stage of maturity. If this episode clarified where your program strategy needs adjustment, subscribe to the Affiliate Marketing Podcast so you catch every tactical insight that helps you build programs delivering genuine incremental value. Join us at the ELEVATE Summit in July 2026 in London, where strategic conversations happen between sessions and partnerships form that transform programs. Early bird tickets launch in January.

Send me a text with your questions

The Year Affiliate Marketing Proved Its Power While Rewriting All the Rules

If you thought affiliate marketing was mature, predictable, or figured out, this year proved you spectacularly wrong. Lee-Ann Johnstone takes you inside the most transformative year our industry has ever experienced, where UK brands delivered £16 for every £1 invested while simultaneously watching 60% of searches end without a single click. This isn't just a recap of what happened. It's a master class in how the smartest operators adapted when zero-click search, AI integration, and algorithm chaos threatened to upend everything we thought we knew about performance marketing.

Talking Points Include:

• The shocking numbers that prove affiliate marketing dominates digital marketing with £19 billion in UK basket revenue, $113 billion in US e-commerce sales, and ROI figures that make other channels look obsolete
• Why 60% of searches now end without clicks and what the smartest publishers did differently when AI Overviews decimated traffic by up to 89%

The three business lessons that changed how Lee-Ann runs Affiverse including why saying no to clients actually increased demand and how community building became the antidote to algorithm dependency.

Listen to Find Out More About:

• Why independent bloggers overtook major media outlets in content affiliate spend for the first time, and what this shift reveals about authentic voices versus corporate content farms
• The exact community building strategies that made some programs resilient when algorithm changes devastated others, and why owning your audience relationships transcends platform dependency
• How Affiverse reached nearly a million podcast downloads, trained over 3,000 practitioners globally, and launched the ELEVATE Summit and RAV Awards while doubling agency clients
• The innovation that genuinely worked this year, from community-led programs building true partnerships to video-first publishers seeing engagement rates that dwarfed traditional content
• Why data privacy will define winners and losers, and what first-party data strategies look like for brands that excel at collection and leverage
• The specific metrics proving affiliate marketing delivers ROI other channels can't match, with sector-by-sector breakdowns showing 11:1 to 21:1 returns

Key Segments of This Podcast and Where You Can Tune In to Go Direct:

[10:30] The UK and US industry numbers that prove affiliate marketing delivers ROI other channels can't match, with specific sector breakdowns

[35:45] The three business lessons that changed how Lee-Ann approaches agency work, event planning, and community building

[56:00] What's coming in 2026 and 2027, including specialized roles, attribution evolution, and data privacy defining winners

[1:02:15] Affiverse milestones across media, agency, and community impact, plus what's launching in 2026

Call to Action

This episode captures the year that separated operators who adapt from those who wait for best practices to emerge. If these insights sparked ideas for how you'll approach affiliate marketing differently in 2026, subscribe to the Affiliate Marketing Podcast so you never miss the strategic frameworks that help you stay ahead. Join us at the ELEVATE Summit in July 2026 in London, where the industry comes together not just to learn, but to actually move forward. Early bird tickets launch in January.

Send me a text with your questions

A Christmas Day Special Celebrating the Insights, Breakthroughs, and Bold Conversations That Defined Our Season

Welcome to this very special Christmas Day edition of the Affiliate Marketing Podcast. Throughout Season 23, we dug deep into the engines behind impactful content, questioned the role of SEO and AI algorithms in a world that still craves human connection, and spotlighted the evolution of affiliate marketing from community-driven growth to loyalty-first strategies and consumer discovery beyond the usual channels. Today's episode is a moment to look back on all we shared this season, appreciate how far we've come together, and celebrate the insights we gathered along the way. Grab a cup of something warm, settle in, and enjoy this Christmas Day Special as we wind up the season that's past and get ready for an even bigger one ahead.

What You'll Hear in This Episode:

• The 6:1 content ratio that's reshaping digital marketing as Saurabh Singh reveals why educational content consistently outperforms promotional posts and how trust has become the new currency in affiliate marketing
• Why most affiliate programs stall before they ever hit momentum with Florin Simovici's operational insights from 15 years of hands-on experience building scalable, sustainable programs
• The harsh reality of building a content-first publisher from scratch as George Sullivan opens up about facing rejection after rejection and what affiliate managers misunderstand about the publisher's journey
• Why user-generated content is now the most powerful lever in affiliate growth from Dennis Yu's billion-dollar ad spend experience with brands like Nike and Starbucks
• How AI-powered answer engines are capturing a quarter of global queries and what Colin Jeavons says this disruption really means for affiliate managers navigating an uncertain future
• The loyalty-building principles that turn silent affiliates into thriving communities as Alex Hitt shares why genuine connection, not higher commissions, truly drives retention
• Why most organisations stall on AI adoption with Katie King's roadmap for building strategic frameworks and embedding responsible governance before regulation arrives
• How daily payouts became the most powerful micro trust signal as the Exness team reveals their journey scaling from 18 to more than 100 countries with human-centric logic
• Why platforms like Reddit are suddenly outranking traditional reviews and how Ewen Finser steered more than 100 websites through Google's volatility into the AI-driven landscape
• How to run your affiliate program ethically in the age of AI as Leanna Klyne and Lee-Ann discuss automation that stays human and what regulation might mean for your partner management.

Call to Action

Season 23 gave you the frameworks, now it's time to implement them. Whether you're rebuilding your onboarding process using Alex's white-glove approach, restructuring your content strategy around Saurabh's 6:1 ratio, or preparing your team for AI adoption using Katie's governance roadmap, the insights from this season only create value when you put them into action. Subscribe to the Affiliate Marketing Podcast so you're ready when Season 24 launches on New Year's Day with bold predictions for 2026 and conversations that push the boundaries of where affiliate and performance marketing are headed. DM Lee-Ann on LinkedIn and share what you're struggling with or want to know more about, and she'll find the right expert to get on the mic and talk us through it.

Send me a text with your questions

When Automation Becomes Dehumanisation (And How to Stop It Before You Lose Your Best Partners)

If you're using AI to manage your affiliate program but wondering why engagement keeps dropping, this episode explains exactly what's going wrong. Leanna Klyne, Affiverse's Agency Director with 18 years in the trenches, joins Lee-Ann to dissect the hidden cost of over-automation. They explore why AI-approved partners sometimes include your competitors, how content creators are being misrepresented by tools that don't understand context, and why the human touch still drives the partnerships that actually convert. This conversation offers practical guardrails for using AI responsibly without sacrificing the relationships that make affiliate marketing work.

Talking Points Include:

• The approval automation trap that declined a top publisher because AI couldn't distinguish between a media buyer and a content site, costing the program a valuable winter sports partner during summer dormancy
• Why segmented outreach beats mass emails every time and how investing four extra hours monthly to tailor content by partner type builds the micro-trust relationships that drive long-term revenue
• The compliance blind spot that could make you legally liable when faceless accounts and user-generated content creators slip through automated vetting without legitimate contact details

Listen to Find Out More About:

• Why being transparent about AI use in outreach emails actually increases response rates and adds humor that builds rapport instead of destroying trust
• The specific data you should never put into public AI tools like ChatGPT because it becomes open source and violates client confidentiality
• How to write program terms that clearly define acceptable AI usage for partners while protecting your brand from deepfakes and unauthorised voice replication
• The exact compliance risks that emerge when automated approvals let unverifiable partners into regulated verticals without legitimate contact information
• Why boring consistency often outperforms fancy AI implementation, and how simple calendar reminders maintain partner relationships better than sophisticated automation
• Lee-Ann's personal policy on LinkedIn messages and why every response comes from her, not a chatbot pretending to be her

Key Segments of This Podcast and Where You Can Tune In to Go Direct:

[18:08] The segmentation strategy that achieves industry-leading open rates by speaking directly to six or seven partner types instead of mass-blasting generic content

[27:00] How to use AI for trend spotting within partner data to identify optimal booking windows that increase performance 7% above industry mean while cutting wasted spend

[37:09] The essential ethical guardrails that preserve humanity while enabling innovation, including the perspective shift that changes how you evaluate every AI decision

Call to Action

Huge thanks to Leanna Klyne for sharing the real-world AI frameworks she implements daily across Affiverse's agency clients. If this episode helped you see where automation enhances relationships versus where it destroys them, subscribe to the Affiliate Marketing Podcast so you catch every practical insight that helps you build programs partners actually want to join. Share this with another affiliate manager wrestling with AI adoption, and let's raise the standard for ethical partnership management across the entire industry.

Send me a text with your questions

Why Your Clicks Are Down But Your Impact Might Be Up

If your affiliate traffic feels fragmented and you're wondering whether to panic about AI search, this episode cuts through the noise. Ewen Finser, CEO of ScaleVisible, shares battle-tested insights from managing over 100 websites through Google's algorithm upheavals and into the AI era. Lee-Ann and Ewen discuss why Reddit threads now outrank traditional reviews, how zero-click searches create hidden value for brands, and why YouTube might be your smartest investment right now. This conversation reveals a counterintuitive truth: the scariest disruptions often create the biggest opportunities for those willing to adapt strategically.

Talking Points Include:

• The payment partnership that signals where AI search is heading and why PayPal's integration with Perplexity matters more than most affiliate managers realise for the future of attribution
• Why your editorial placements are already providing AI value and the exact framework for describing citation impact to justify budgets when traditional clicks decline
• The three-platform strategy that influences multiple AI engines simultaneously from YouTube rankings in ChatGPT to Reddit dominance in Google's AI Overviews

Listen to Find Out More About:

• Why some de-indexed spam blogs are suddenly ranking in ChatGPT and what that means for content strategy in the short term versus long term
• The exact correlation overlap between top 10 Google rankings and ChatGPT citations (hint: it's shockingly low at around 15 percent)
• How ReddVisible pivoted from affiliate publishing to Reddit reputation management to AI visibility strategy through three distinct market disruptions
• Why query fan-out matters more than individual keywords when optimizing for AI search engines that personalize every response
• The specific metrics Ewen tracks to demonstrate AI visibility impact when traditional attribution falls short
• How trust signals accumulate across Reddit, YouTube, and third-party blogs to influence AI recommendations without generating direct clicks

Key Segments of This Podcast and Where You Can Tune In to Go Direct:

[16:03] The real-world shopping journey example that illustrates search fragmentation across Which, Google, YouTube, ChatGPT, and Amazon

[20:43] Why PayPal's Perplexity partnership signals the zero-click future and what affiliate managers should watch for next

[32:39] Original content versus AI-generated spam: what works now versus what will work as AI engines develop their own web spam teams

Rate, Review & Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

"I love the Affiliate Marketing Podcast." <-- If that sounds like you, please give us a 5 Star rating here! Taking the time to do that helps us support more people in our community to access affiliate marketing insights, expert-led learnings, and allows us to share the latest tactics that help affiliate programs and businesses grow.

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select "Write a Review."

Send me a text with your questions

Why Trading Programs That Move Fast Break Everything (And How Slow Growth Built a 115-Country Empire)

If your affiliate program chases explosive growth with aggressive spend and flashy campaigns, this episode reveals why you might be building on sand. Yana Ivanova and Nir Iter from Exness share how they scaled from 18 to 115 countries not through brute force marketing, but through something radical in trading: patience. Lee-Ann and her guests discuss why daily payouts matter more than commission rates, how localisation means hiring humans who actually understand regional nuances, and why the Latin American market demands emotional connection before transactional relationships. This conversation reveals a counterintuitive truth: sometimes slow and steady really does win the race.

Talking Points Include:

• The payment infrastructure breakthrough that built trust faster than any marketing campaign and why waiting until month-end to pay affiliates destroys credibility in emerging markets
• Why treating LATAM as a single homogeneous market is the fastest path to failure and the exact localisation strategy that transformed passive content into community engagement across culturally distinct countries
• The team structure that prevents cannibalisation when 11 account managers chase global traffic and how individual KPIs combined with team goals create collaboration instead of internal competition

Listen to Find Out More About:

• How Exness structures team KPIs to prevent account managers from fighting over global affiliates while maintaining healthy competition
• The buddy program that integrates new team members without creating hierarchical friction in an 11-person global team
• Why the company prioritises quality over quantity now, deliberately slowing growth to ensure sustainable partnerships
• The specific data points Exness analyses constantly to identify which markets deserve localised attention versus broad global treatment
• How mobile measurement platforms become essential tools for LATAM affiliates where phone traffic dominates
• The real reason trading affiliate programs traditionally used CPA models and how Exness diversified beyond that constraint

Key Segments of This Podcast and Where You Can Tune In to Go Direct:

[08:17] The long-term mindset explained through hotel guest analogies and why three-year plans beat quarterly targets

[16:29] Daily payment implementation and the risk mitigation strategy that made it viable without enabling fraud

[20:34] Team scaling from a handful to 11 professionals and how specialisation by region prevents global chaos

[33:03] Honest advice for newcomers: pick your niche, build community, trust your data

Latin America: The Opportunity Ahead

For affiliates considering Latin America in 2026, both guests offered clear direction. Yana's focus centres on local communities, as the region values authentic, community-driven marketing over impersonal automation. Nir emphasised mobile optimisation, noting that with young, mobile-first audiences, ensuring your tracking, creatives, and user experience are optimised for phones is non-negotiable. Tools like AppsFlyer or other mobile measurement platforms are essential.

Send me a text with your questions

Guest: Katie King, Author of AI Strategy for Sales and Marketing: Connecting Marketing, Sales and Customer Experience

If you've been treating AI like a search engine or worrying you're falling behind, this episode cuts through the noise. Katie King, who's been tracking AI developments since 2019 and advises major brands like O2, Arsenal, and Virgin, joins Lee-Ann Johnstone to reveal why 80% of AI success depends on people, not tools. She shares the strategic frameworks that turn scattered experiments into measurable business impact, explains why board-level resistance creates organizational AI imposter syndrome, and demonstrates how affiliate marketers can build competitive advantage through ethical implementation and agile adoption.

Talking Points Include:

Why AI projects fail without frameworks – how creating AI champion groups, weekly strategy meetings, and clear codes of conduct transforms random tool adoption into systematic competitive advantage

The ethics gap that threatens customer trust – why transparency, attribution clarity, and responsible governance must be designed into affiliate programs before regulation forces it

Strategic agility over early adoption – how building continuous learning and due diligence into your operations prepares you for agentic AI and quantum computing without burning out your team

Listen to Find Out More About:

• The exact prompt engineering techniques that teach AI your brand voice without requiring technical skills or expensive custom models
• Why Circle and Mighty Networks platforms fail for community building while simple weekly Zoom calls succeed, and how this same principle applies to AI tool selection
• The six-month AI implementation roadmap Katie uses with clients that balances quick wins with sustainable capability building
• How affiliate marketers should approach AI differently than other marketing channels because of the trust dynamics and partnership relationships at stake
• Why China leads in AI patents, Europe leads in ethical frameworks, and what that geopolitical split means for international affiliate programs
• The specific metrics beyond sales that reveal whether your AI adoption creates genuine business value or just impressive-looking dashboards

Key Segments of This Podcast and Where You Can Tune In to Go Direct:

[12:35] Why you don't need technical skills for AI success, and the hospitality management principles that make AI adoption feel natural instead of overwhelming

[18:51] The reality check on organizational AI maturity: why even brands with impressive case studies struggle with board-level adoption and what that reveals about implementation gaps

[27:42] Ethical AI requirements for affiliate marketing specifically, including transparency obligations, attribution clarity, and avoiding black-box decisioning that erodes partner trust

[34:20] Katie's final advice for marketers who haven't started their AI journey: why strategic agility matters more than early adoption, and how to build frameworks that prepare you for what comes next

Send me a text with your questions

If your affiliate program has hundreds of inactive partners gathering dust, this episode reveals exactly how to bring them back. Alex Hitt, an affiliate marketer who built thriving communities of hundreds of active members, shares the hotel management principles he uses to create loyalty that goes far beyond commission payments. Lee-Ann and Alex discuss why most programs accidentally kill engagement, how to scale personalisation without burning out, and why one 30-minute weekly call does more for retention than any email campaign.

Talking Points Include:

• The hospitality industry secret that made one hotel number one in the world – and how offering affiliates something valuable for free at exactly the right moment transforms transactional relationships into genuine partnerships
• Why community platforms often fail but weekly Zoom calls succeed – where real engagement actually happens and how to structure drop-in events that affiliates want to attend
• The white-glove onboarding process that keeps new affiliates active – from putting the calendar invite directly in their hand to following up before their first event

Listen to Find Out More About:

• Why Alex refuses most one-on-one meeting requests and what he offers instead that closes more deals with less pressure
• The exact metrics Alex tracks to identify super-inviters versus super-producers in his community (and why these are two different people)
• How to enforce group chat boundaries without alienating members when conversations drift into birthday wishes and grocery shopping updates
• The six critical mistakes that kill affiliate communities before they launch, and how to plan strategically before investing time and resources
• Why getting each affiliate to refer just 1.1 other people creates exponential program growth over time
• How to scale personalization by using mass email for announcements while reserving WhatsApp, LinkedIn, and Facebook for genuine relationship building

Key Segments of This Podcast and Where You Can Tune In to Go Direct:

[01:15] How getting laid off from a dream hotel job in Hawaii on day one forced Alex into entrepreneurship and eventually affiliate marketing

[18:55] The efficiency math explained: one 30-minute Zoom call with 50 people versus trying to schedule 50 separate one-on-one meetings

[27:00] What Alex tracks to measure community health beyond sales: last login time, external business growth, and engagement patterns

Huge thanks to Alex Hitt for sharing his community-building strategies with us. If this episode sparked ideas for transforming your own affiliate program, subscribe to the Affiliate Marketing Podcast so you never miss practical insights like these. Share this episode with another affiliate manager struggling with retention, and let's raise the standard for how we treat our partners.

Rate, Review & Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

"I love the Affiliate Marketing Podcast." <– If that sounds like you, please give us a 5 Star rating here! Taking the time to do that helps us support more people in our community to access affiliate marketing insights, expert-led learnings, and allows us to share the latest tactics that help affiliate programs and businesses grow.

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select "Write a Review."

Send me a text with your questions

In this episode of the Affiliate Marketing Podcast, Lee-Ann Johnstone sits down with search industry veteran Colin Jeavons to unpack one of the most significant shifts in digital commerce since Google's CPC revolution. 

With 25% of global search queries now bypassing Google in favour of AI-powered answer engines, affiliate managers and publishers face a crossroads: adapt to emerging channels or risk becoming obsolete. Colin, whose career spans from the Yellow Pages era through to building semantic search technology for defence and intelligence, brings rare historical perspective on what's actually changing—and what isn't. 

This episode is essential listening for affiliate managers questioning their channel strategy, publishers wondering if SEO is dead, and any e-commerce brand trying to understand where consumer discovery is headed.

Talking points include:

• From Yellow Pages to Answer Engines: How search has evolved from browser distribution monopolies to AI-driven discovery, and why Google's 2002 business model is facing its BlackBerry moment.
• The 75/25 Rule: Why traditional search still commands three-quarters of queries despite rapid AI adoption, and how to balance legacy channels with emerging opportunities.

Beyond Traditional Affiliates: How CPA models are expanding into apps, creators, influencers, and AI search—creating entirely new verticals for performance marketing.

Listen to find out more about: 

• How browser distribution, not search quality, created Google's monopoly—and why that same moat is now crumbling.
• The specific verticals where CPA commerce is experiencing explosive growth: apps, creators, influencers, and AI search.
• The "fail fast" philosophy that's kept Colin relevant through 25 years of continuous technological disruption.

Key segments of this podcast and where you can tune in to go direct: 

[11:45] The case for not abandoning traditional search.

[13:57] The 10-month revolution: how AI answer engines captured 25% of search volume at unprecedented speed.

[29:13] Colin's advice for publishers and affiliate managers: always ask for help and don't fear failure.

Would you like to talk about sponsoring our podcast, or gaining a brand mention? Take a look here.

Never miss out on FREE insights and training! Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

Send me a text with your questions

In this episode, Lee-Ann Johnstone sits down with Dennis Yu, CEO of BlitzMetrics and co-author of bestselling books on Facebook and TikTok advertising. With a billion dollars spent on social ads and clients including: Nike, Starbucks, and the Golden State Warriors, Dennis brings battle-tested insights on what actually works when technology threatens to commoditise every tactic. 

This conversation is essential listening for affiliate managers navigating the tension between bringing capabilities in-house and maintaining profitable partnerships, as well as performance marketers seeking sustainable competitive advantages in an AI-saturated marketplace.

Talking points include:

• User-Generated Content as Affiliate Strategy: Why authentic customer content outperforms professional creative and how to activate non-traditional affiliates
• The Conversion API Advantage: How brands controlling conversion data can outperform traditional affiliates in paid social campaigns
• Relationship-Driven Marketing in an AI World: Why genuine connections represent the only defensible moat against algorithmic competition

Listen to find out more about:

• How to identify and activate non-traditional affiliates from your existing customer base who create more authentic content than professional marketers
• Why controlling conversion data through proper API implementation gives brands a decisive advantage over traditional affiliates in paid social campaigns
• What Dennis learned spending a billion dollars on social advertising for brands like Nike, Starbucks, and the Golden State Warriors

Key segments of this podcast and where you can tune in to go direct:

• [01:30] Dennis Yu's background: From Yahoo! search engine engineer to spending a billion dollars on Facebook ads
• [06:38] Why user-generated content from actual customers outperforms traditional influencer marketing
• [14:00] The uncomfortable truth about affiliate margins as AI and algorithms become more sophisticated

Would you like to talk about sponsoring our podcast, or gaining a brand mention? Take a look here.

Send me a text with your questions