Affiliate marketing – yes, affiliate marketing – is a large and rapidly growing market. Over $20 billion per year is spent by brands and retailers globally on what are effectively commissions paid to publishers – content and review sites, influencers and creators who discuss and promote products on their own digital channels in return for a percentage (typically 5-20%) of the sale. In the United States alone, brands spent $10B on affiliate marketing in 2023.

In parallel, the category of influencer marketing and brands connecting directly to creators via a platform or through an agency is growing as a share of brand’s marketing spend because it works. It’s authentic. It meets consumers where they are (increasingly on platforms like TikTok, Instagram and Discord) and those brand endorsements by brand creators convert really well.

In fact, today’s businesses generate $6.50 in revenue for each $1 invested in influencer marketing, on average. A notable 22% of marketers say influencer marketing is their most cost-effective customer acquisition channel. Additionally, nearly 90% of marketers find ROI from influencer marketing comparable to (or better than) other marketing channels.

As we move into 2025, I expect a surge of marketing spend will be pushed into these modern affiliate channels with creators playing a leading role in driving measurable results for brands.

ShopMy is Leading a Generational Shift in Commerce

Companies like BCV portfolio company ShopMy are closing the gap between sellers and creators by leveraging software and artificial intelligence to provide end-to-end talent discovery, vetting, introduction, partnership and return on investment data services – all in one platform. We recently co-led ShopMy’s Series B to help this stellar team. Brands of all sizes can now engage with influencers without the level of risk and cost historically involved with finding, background checking and signing creators to in-house contracts.

The founders of ShopMy, Harry Rein, Tiffany Lopinsky and Chris Tinsley, had an initial, brilliant insight captured in a 2024 TechCrunch piece. They recognized “a significant disconnect in the social media ecosystem: Influencers struggling to monetize their product recommendations effectively, and their followers not having an easy path to purchase… and viewed ShopMy as a potential solution – a bridge to transform how influencers share and monetize their product recommendations.”

And consumer behavior heading into 2025 reflects a changing generational shift in trust as it relates to traditional advertising that proves out their insight. In fact, 65% of consumers trust influencers more than traditional celebrity endorsements. A significant 54% of consumers will purchase a product if an influencer has positively reviewed it.

In parallel, Americans now spend 39% of their media consumption time on user-generated content platforms. TikTok has become the most common channel for influencer marketing, used by 69% of brands. Creators have driven the growth of short-form video content and brands increasingly rely on creators for their own short-form video needs due to its perception of authenticity and relative effectiveness.

The creator economy’s surge into the mainstream and Gen Z’s undeniable thirst for authenticity has yielded the emergence of creators and influencers as affiliates. There’s been a rise in consumer popularity of social media channels, particularly video. In parallel, recent IOS tracking changes, ad blockers and declining consumer trust in traditional ads have all meaningfully reduced the effectiveness of traditional digital ad spend (display ads, branded social posts, etc.).

These phenomena have converted to create a compelling “why now” for a new type of affiliate marketing platform that provides valuable capabilities to both brands and creators.

The ROI Era of Influencer and Creator-Powered Commerce is in Full Effect

Over the course of my past two decades as an investor focused on commerce (and the prior decade as an operator and founder in this arena), I’ve witnessed the ebb and flow of various marketing channels, including affiliate. In that time, I’ve rarely seen this dramatic of shift in marketing spend in such a short period of time.

In 2025, I fully anticipate that we’ll see a resurgent focus around affiliate marketing from brands of all types and sizes. We’ll see new and creative ways of bringing ROI-focused campaigns to life across channels. Affiliate marketing anchored by creators, in particular, will explode in volume as it becomes a truly measurable performance channel thanks to a new class of sophisticated platforms like ShopMy.

Are you a founder in commerce or marketing tech? Simply interested in trends powering the commerce industry and creator economy? Have your own predictions for how AI will impact commerce in the next decade (see my recent post on the Agentic Commerce Era here)? Reach out! I’m at sfriend@baincapital.com.