Full transcript & breakdown
Why we started publishing a quarterly report
Most affiliate networks talk about performance in vague superlatives. We wanted a document our publishers and advertisers could actually plan against: sourced third-party market data, an honest vertical-by-vertical read, and a forward view we can be held to next quarter.
This breakdown walks through the same structure as the written report — market context first, then verticals, then what it means for the people running traffic. Read the full write-up in our Q3 2026 performance report, then use this summary as the fast version.
The market context in four numbers
Global affiliate marketing sat at roughly $19.6B in 2025 and is projected near $24.7B in 2026 — about 26% year-over-year growth, according to Track360 citing IAB Performance Marketing Standards. iGaming alone accounts for roughly 22% of global affiliate spend in that same data set.
On the lead-gen side, Roots Analysis puts the global lead generation market at $5.59B in 2024, trending toward $32.1B by 2035 at roughly a 17.2% CAGR. US affiliate spend specifically reached $13.62B in 2024, up roughly 50% since 2021.
The payout spread matters more than the totals. Simple email-submit leads still clear at $1–3, while qualified insurance and legal leads regularly land in the $20–100+ range. Same traffic source, wildly different economics, depending purely on how the lead is qualified.
Vertical by vertical, in plain terms
iGaming remains the highest-ceiling vertical and the one with the most compliance overhead — RevShare and hybrid deals dominate, and GEO selection does most of the work. Home warranty and auto insurance behave like classic US CPL: volume is steady, and approval rate is the number that decides whether a campaign is profitable.
Personal loans reward tight intent matching more than clever creative. Dating is a volume-and-creative-rotation game where CPA is low but scale is real. Across all five, our standard models stay the same: CPA, CPL, CPS, and RevShare, chosen to match how the advertiser actually recognises revenue.
What publishers should do with this
Pick a vertical based on the intent your traffic already carries, not on the highest payout on the offer list. Comparison-intent traffic belongs on marketplaces and multi-carrier flows; brand-intent traffic belongs on direct advertiser offers.
Then instrument it. Postbacks and event-level tracking are what let you see approval rate rather than just clicks, and approval rate is where the margin lives.
Outlook into Q4
We expect continued spend growth into Q4 2026, with qualified-lead payouts widening further away from email-submit pricing as advertisers keep tightening lead-quality thresholds. Publishers who can prove lead quality will capture most of that upside.
