Affiliate marketing is no longer just an add-on to traditional PR—it’s becoming a core, integrated strategy that bridges storytelling with measurable business impact. As consumer discovery evolves across platforms like podcasts, social media, and AI-powered search, PR agencies are reinventing their approach to blend creativity with commerce, driving both brand awareness and revenue. To help marcomms pros navigate this shift, we asked industry leaders to share their perspectives on the rise of affiliate strategy within PR agencies, and why it’s crucial for teams to get on board now. 

Photo: Dreamday

POV: A Growth Strategy in its Own Right 

Lauren Kleinman, Founder & CEO, Dreamday & Co-Founder, Quality Media / The Quality Edit

“As affiliate becomes a bigger part of agency strategies, I think the biggest shift PR and marketing professionals need to understand is this: affiliate is no longer just a channel; it’s an entire strategy. When used well and integrated with intention, affiliate is one of the most powerful tools and effective ways to bridge the long-standing gap between brand storytelling and measurable business outcomes.

“Before founding Dreamday, I was on the founding team at Ritual and worked closely with some of the top U.S. PR agencies. I saw firsthand how hard it was to find PR partners who understood both brand equity and business metrics. Dreamday was born to solve that gap. We’ve spent the last six years building an agency around what we call Performance PR: a model that fuses traditional earned media tactics to build brand awareness and equity with affiliate strategy, so press isn’t just driving visibility, but actual revenue. 

“We didn’t bolt affiliate onto a legacy PR approach, which I think is important to note. While I think it’s great that agencies are currently adding affiliate capabilities to their suite of services, often one hand doesn’t talk to the other, and the two remain siloed. At Dreamday, we rebuilt the system from the ground up from the very beginning to ensure affiliate strategists and publicists work side-by-side, tracking shared KPIs, shared client calls, shared strategies, and optimizing toward both earned organic coverage and storytelling and conversion-driving high-quality press hits, a high quantity of press hits, and traffic and revenue through the affiliate channel.

“The way people discover and trust brands has fundamentally changed. They’re not just reading Vogue or searching on Google. They’re listening to a podcast, skimming a publication on mobile, reading a Substack influencer’s recommendations on the weekend, perusing  TikTok FYP or Reddit threads, and (my favorite) asking ChatGPT if a product is worth the hype. Press is no longer a moment in the consumer journey occurring in a vacuum; it’s a full-funnel growth lever. 

“AI is undoubtedly accelerating this shift, too. Tools like generative search and AI-powered shopping assistants are already shaping how product information is surfaced and trusted, placing even more value on high-quality, affiliate-optimized earned media that feeds those results.

“As AI-driven search, affiliate-forward media, and commerce platforms continue to shape discovery, the brands winning today are the ones earning trust across all of those moments, and the agencies supporting them need to think more holistically - blending creativity with commerce, and searchability with storytelling - or risk becoming irrelevant.  Performance PR teams will need to evolve accordingly, ensuring content is not only compelling to editors and publishing partners but also structured to be discoverable and favored by algorithms. 

“One of the biggest misconceptions we still see is that affiliate is “just a link” or a last-mile tactic to support commerce coverage. That couldn’t be further from the truth. When done right, affiliate is a strategic lever that can drive brand equity, power partnerships, inform content roadmaps, and create a flywheel effect across press, SEO, and even influencer and paid channels.  

“To Dreamday, the opportunity isn’t just about scaling coverage, it’s about elevating the entire role of PR by making it more data-informed, results-driven, and indispensable to growth. That’s where we believe the industry is headed, and we’re excited to help lead the way.” 

POV: Full-Funnel Integration

Jaclyne Franciscone, Chief Strategy Officer, LaRue

“LaRue launched the affiliate division of our business 5+ years ago in response to the shifting media landscape and the increased demand from media partners for our brands to have an affiliate presence. We realized early on that for affiliate to drive meaningful results, both at the top and bottom of the funnel, you need a cohesive PR strategy for brand awareness and credibility. One of the biggest missed opportunities I’ve seen is brands only wanting to engage affiliate at the top of the funnel. While it can work in a limited capacity, it’s not a sustainable, long term strategy. To see true growth, you need multiple levers throughout the funnel to create momentum and drive results. In addition, LaRue is actively launching and testing unique affiliate partnerships and campaigns that support and work in conjunction with our brands’ entire marketing mix to scale the business in an impactful way. It is essential for a PR agency to proactively analyze affiliate data and measure results against industry benchmarks to drive a strong and unified forward-looking strategy.”

POV: PR KPIs and Data-Backed Brand Growth

Kristin Flohr, Performance PR Director, eAccountable

“Brands have started to re-evaluate KPIs for their PR efforts, and agencies need to be in alignment. Although the credibility that comes with a top-tier placement still holds tremendous value, clients now have follow-up questions: what links are they using? What is the SEO value of this article? How many pageviews? What are click-throughs to site? 

“PR firms need to be ready with answers to those questions. At eAccountable, we have seen first hand how publications who have clout and positioning will publish an article that will drive no traffic – clients are smarter, and need more than a logo to convince the output was worth the input. 

“PR professionals are uniquely positioned to excel in affiliate marketing. Their deep understanding of storytelling matched with their editorial relationships gives them an upper hand in securing unmatched upper funnel placements. Combined with affiliate, these efforts result in tangible business outcomes for their clients. 

“For many publishers, affiliate marketing is now their most reliable stream of revenue. Without an affiliate program, brands often miss out on important opportunities, such as inclusion in “best of” shopping guides and major editorial placements. The integration of affiliate strategies into PR efforts enables brands and publishers to discover what appeals to their audience, determine high-performing products, and use data and tracking to refine ongoing tactics.

“However, when integrating it into their offerings, PR agencies need to keep in mind that affiliate  is a productive channel with huge potential for profit. It needs deliberate strategy and purposeful action – you can’t just “set it and forget it.” It is important to onboard team members who understand how to keep the channel productive with partners that are aligned with the brand’s values. 

“As the lines between editorial content, commerce, and paid media continue to blur, affiliate-driven collaborations give brands a smarter, more accountable way to secure exposure and build lasting publisher relationships. PR agencies need to be savvy with these changes.”

POV: The Back-End Takes A Front Seat

Michelle Songy, Founder, Press Hook

“Affiliate is no longer optional, it’s become a core visibility strategy. From Substacks to podcasts, media is monetizing across every format, and PR pros need to be ready with both the story and the structure to support it.

“We’re seeing affiliate commissions become table stakes: 10% is now the bare minimum for many top-tier publications, and even that’s not always enough to compete. Editors are under pressure to drive revenue, so stories that include affiliate links with competitive commissions often get prioritized. That’s why at Press Hook, we’ve built affiliate into the DNA of our platform. The future of media is hybrid: earned, paid, and performance-based coverage all working together.

“For PR pros, this means understanding affiliate isn’t just a marketing lever, it’s a visibility strategy. The biggest mistake we still see is treating affiliate like a backend tech issue. In reality, it needs to be baked into how brands pitch, how they show up for press, and how we all think about the value of a media hit. The brands seeing the most success are the ones who combine great storytelling with strong affiliate readiness. That’s where the magic happens.

“And affiliate is only expanding, from major media outlets to newsletters, Substacks, and even podcasts. We’re seeing podcast transcripts posted online and YouTube episodes with affiliate links dropped into the comments or show notes. This isn’t a side hustle for media anymore—it’s a core part of the ecosystem.”