How affiliate marketing will evolve in the next decade

Just as with any other business, the world of affiliate marketing is constantly evolving. New trends emerge, old tactics become obsolete, and new opportunities are discovered at a rapid pace. A recent study revealed that affiliate marketing was one of the fastest growing segments of digital advertising in 2018. Furthermore, it’s expected to grow by another 30% this year.

We’ve reached peak digital, and marketers need to adapt quickly if they want to stay ahead of the curve in this new landscape. Here are some ways we think affiliate marketing will change over the next decade – for better or for worse.

Video will become a crucial part of marketing strategy

Video has been growing in importance as a marketing tool for years now. It’s a tried and tested format that works well across a wide range of industries and niches.
In fact, one survey found that nearly 90% of marketers plan to increase their video marketing budgets in the next year.
We can definitely expect video to keep growing in importance over the coming decade.
As marketers have increased their video production, they’ve discovered the many benefits of hosting their videos on their own sites, rather than just using social media.
The hosting allows for better branding, more control over the user experience, and more data collection.
As such, we expect to see a lot more video marketing in the next decade.

Artificial intelligence will play a bigger role

As marketers rush to embrace new technologies, AI is one that seems to be growing in importance.
As with video, brands are using AI to host their content on their own sites. This allows them to collect more data and better target their customers.
As we begin to see the benefits of AI, we can expect to see more brands embrace it in the coming years.
AI is already being used to optimize digital marketing strategies and improve customer experience. Plus, it can easily scale to support high volumes of content, whether that be product recommendations or optimized landing pages.
And while AI will certainly have a wider impact across all industries, we can expect to see it playing a bigger role in affiliate marketing specifically.

Native advertising will be the go-to ad format

Native advertising has quickly become the go-to format for digital advertising. It is expected to account for over 70% of all digital ad spend by 2020.
And as native ads continue to grow in popularity, we can expect to see affiliate marketing shift to reflect this.
With the rise of programmatic advertising, we’ve seen the rise of programmatic affiliate marketing. This has made it easier than ever to automate the process of promoting affiliate offers and scale quickly.
As native ads become an even bigger part of the digital landscape, we can expect affiliate marketers to shift their focus to native ads.
This will allow them to take advantage of the targeting, analytics, and other benefits that native ads have to offer.
In fact, we’re already starting to see the shift towards native ads in affiliate marketing.

Marketing automation will see increased adoption

Marketing automation has been around for a long time. It’s proven to be a hugely effective way for brands to reach their audiences and drive ROI.
However, it has primarily been used by large organizations that can dedicate significant resources to its implementation and maintenance.
This has left smaller businesses behind, who have been unable to reap the same benefits.
But in recent years, we’ve seen more solutions emerge that make marketing automation accessible to smaller brands.
This has led to a rise in its adoption, particularly in the affiliate marketing space.
As more marketers begin to see the benefits of marketing automation, they will look to implement it across their businesses. This will make it even more important in affiliate marketing.

Virtual reality and AR Marketing will take off

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are already starting to see some adoption in marketing. We’ve seen VR used to sell VR headsets and to host VR conferences. AR has been used to decorate a hotel lobby, and one brand even used it to track product origin.
But as the technologies continue to develop, we can expect to see them become even more important in marketing.
VR and AR have the potential to become an important part of customer engagement. They can help brands create more immersive experiences that allow their customers to interact with their products in new and exciting ways.
VR and AR are still relatively new technologies and are expected to grow significantly over the next decade. As such, we can expect to see them become more common in marketing.

As technology continues to advance and digital marketing grows, we can expect to see affiliate marketing change and evolve over the next decade. New technologies will emerge, and existing ones will be significantly more powerful. We will see new methodologies and strategies take hold, and existing ones will be retired. Overall, the shift to digital has been a positive one, and we expect that to continue over the next 10 years and beyond.