Performance PR + Affiliate Marketing: Stronger Together
This post is Part 2 of our two-part series on Performance PR and affiliate marketing. If you missed Part 1, start there for a breakdown of the fundamentals. Here, we’re exploring how the two strategies reinforce each other — and what goes wrong when brands treat them in silos.
In our last post, we broke down the basic differences between Performance PR and affiliate marketing. And while it’s important to understand what makes them different, it’s even more critical to understand how they work best: Together. The brands getting the most out of their PR and affiliate spend are creating systems where the two fuel each other, becoming greater than the sum of their parts.
Like Everyone Else, Media Needs to Get Paid
“If your affiliate program is weak, messy, or nonexistent, you’re simply less appealing.”
Here’s the reality: Editors and writers are under enormous pressure to generate huge volumes of content that perform. And when we say perform, we mean generate revenue. That means they aren’t just looking for the best products anymore; they’re also looking for products that drive measurable revenue through commissions on sales generated through the links in their articles. If your affiliate program is weak, messy, or nonexistent, you’re simply less appealing.
So yes, Performance PR is about coverage first. But don’t ignore the subtext: editors are more likely to put you in their biggest, most profitable roundups if they know your brand can deliver sales. A strong and integrated affiliate marketing program is the best way to demonstrate your value to media partners.
The Missed Opportunity in Affiliate Marketing
On the flip side, affiliate marketing teams often underestimate the halo effect of earned media and the visibility, discoverability, and credibility value it delivers:
Brand mentions in top publications (and blogs, Substacks, YouTubes) support AI discoverability, a metric affiliates may use to evaluate the strength of a brand and its attractiveness as a partner.
Earned media placements are the ultimate social proof. Leverage them as assets that your affiliates can use to help promote your brand. Their followers love to see "featured in” press mentions as much as yours do.
PR primes the runway to conversion across the entire sales funnel. A Wirecutter or Bon Appetit stamp of approval doesn’t just move product from that article. The credibility and trust will follow your brand wherever consumers encounter it next.
When affiliate marketing is managed in isolation, you lose that compounding effect.
The Visibility Engine: A Flywheel in Action
Together, Performance PR and affiliate marketing create a flywheel we’re calling “The Visibility Engine”
This is what we see every day with brands that have their affiliate house in order and pair it with smart affiliate-powered PR.
The Biggest Threats We See
If you’re wondering why your affiliate program or PR isn’t delivering the results you expect, chances are one of these dynamics is at play:
PR and affiliate teams are siloed. Whether it’s internal departments or separate agencies, it’s critical that the two sides collaborate. When that doesn’t happen, opportunities get missed, and neither team can support the other to reach full potential.
Brands don’t understand the connection between PR and affiliate. Too often, brands assume, “We already have an affiliate agency, so PR doesn’t need to touch it.” But the reality is PR can’t work its magic without an affiliate component, and coverage opportunities are lost if the brand isn’t optimizing its affiliate program for publishers, who often have different needs than other affiliate partners.
Affiliate agencies “doing PR.” We can’t tell you how many affiliate agencies we’ve encountered that claim brands don’t need a PR agency because they handle media outreach. And, in an effort to streamline spending and resources, brands will hand over media outreach to these unqualified teams. The result? Editors get pitched by teams who don’t understand storytelling, relationships, or the nuances of earned media. But don’t take our word for it: According to veteran commerce editor Bryce Gruber, "PR wins every single time, because they’ll tell the story and get the editor to understand exactly why the story should even be written/include said brands."
If these threats go unaddressed, you end up with watered-down PR, underperforming affiliate programs, and frustrated teams.
“PR wins every single time, because they’ll tell the story and get the editor to understand exactly why the story should even be written/include said brands.”
Building Bridges
Performance PR and affiliate marketing aren’t competitors. They’re interdependent. Brands that treat them as part of the same engine build momentum. Brands that don’t, stall out.