Read Time: Approx. 2 Minutes 38 Seconds
Author: Ben Thompson
Affilifest Returns to the North!
Affilifest North returned to Freight Island, Manchester on Thursday 10th September 2026, and there’s every reason to believe this is becoming one of the industry’s favourite events.
Over 600 people from publishers, advertisers, agencies and more came together for healthy debate, conversation and networking, with activities like padel, a charm bar, breakfast and even tattoos thrown in for good measure.
Importantly, the event offered key insights into ever-present topics like measurement, creator playbooks and long-term AI brand visibility. It also served as a key reminder that beyond campaigns, performance and platforms, people and partnerships are the cornerstone of affiliate, and without these, results rarely follow.
We enjoyed great conversations throughout the day, with ideas shared around client case studies with Genie Shopping, gap analysis with adstrong, and the approach to rewards with the likes of Gener8 and Airtime.
What We Came Away With
There was just enough time left in the day to soak up some of the knowledge shared across the stage talks. Arguably, one of the most important focused on marketing mix modelling (MMM), and the challenges of applying it to affiliate marketing.
At a high level, MMM estimates the differing impact of various marketing channels by looking at historical inputs such as spend and impressions alongside the resulting sales or revenue. The problem with affiliate is that it is less of a single channel and more of an ecosystem, bringing together publishers with very different models, audiences and roles within the customer journey. For example, a CSS publisher is vastly different from a reward publisher. Treating affiliate as one aggregated channel can therefore make it difficult for an MMM to accurately understand what is actually driving performance.
This becomes even more challenging when the model doesn’t understand the activity that’s taking place within the channel. For example, a publisher that you’ve spent tenancy with, or an editorial placement secured during a major event like Black Friday, is likely to generate a very different level of exposure and influence compared with that same placement during a quieter period.
If your affiliate network only receives the resulting clicks and conversions, but not the impressions or wider exposure generated by that activity, most of that context is invisible to the model. This can lead to affiliate activity being assessed primarily through its measurable conversion output, rather than the broader role it may have played in generating awareness, consideration and demand.
Without that wider understanding, there is a risk that the channel becomes undervalued, potentially resulting in reduced investment and fewer opportunities for publishers to contribute in the ways that make affiliate such a diverse channel in the first place.
What’s Next
Customer First Digital continue to represent our brand partners at various industry events, after a busy run at the likes of Rakuten DealMaker, iPX London, Awin ThinkTank, and Affilifest North, we’re rounding off the year at the the European Affiliate Awards hosted in Berlin. We have been shortlisted for the Best Agency award, along with Best Programme alongside our partners Sunspel.
If you’re a publisher who we didn’t get a chance to speak with on the day, don’t hesitate to get in touch via email. We’ll get back to you at the earliest opportunity to discuss the brands we represent.
Finally, if you’re an advertiser with an existing programme looking to understand what growth opportunities are available within the channel, or have no programme at all, we’d be happy to talk you through our approach and let you know what affiliate could do for your business.
Use our 2-minute growth calculator to discovery what opportunity awaits you and we can follow up to discuss it in more detail and answer any initial questions.
Catch you at the next one!
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