Affiliate Marketing 2026: The return of marketing's human-led approach?
2025 promised a lot for iGaming marketers. It ended with tightened budgets, platform-inflated metrics, and a wave of AI slop that dulled creative impact.
Heading into 2026, two forces will define results: a pull back from brand to short-term performance, and a consumer pushback against generic AI content. If you want efficient growth next year, you'll need to correct both.
Why the swing to performance isn't paying like it should
November's budget pushed costs up: Remote Gaming Duty jumping from 21% to 40% and General Betting Duty from 15% to 25%. Many operators reacted by slashing brand spend to protect near-term numbers.
At the same time, platforms are over-crediting themselves. If a user searches your brand and converts via a paid click, the platform takes full credit-ignoring the TV, social, PR, or OOH that sparked the search. That bias shifts budget into channels that look "cheap" but free-ride on brand.
The result: starving the engine that makes performance cheaper in the first place. In iGaming, the link between steady brand investment and lower CPAs is especially strong. Cut brand too deep and your blended CAC rises, even if last-click dashboards look healthy.
A better way to measure 2026
Short-term dashboards aren't enough. You need a measurement mix that captures how brand and performance work together across weeks and months, not just hours and days.
- Independent analytics: Own your data. Run platform numbers alongside an unbiased attribution layer.
- Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM): Quantify how TV, OOH, affiliates, search, social, and CRM contribute to revenue over time.
- Geo/market experiments: Hold-out tests and staggered rollouts to isolate true lift from brand and creative changes.
- Incrementality for paid: Use ghost ads, PSA tests, and conversion-lift studies where possible.
- Branded search guardrails: Cap bids on exact-match brand to avoid overpaying for demand your brand already generated.
The goal: make budget decisions with models that align with P&L reality, not platform narratives.
Countering AI slop
GenAI improved production speed in 2025. It also flooded feeds with low-quality sameness. Audiences noticed-and they're rewarding work that feels human, specific, and alive.
The cautionary tale: a $2,000 AI-generated NBA Finals ad from Kalshi earned attention but also pushback for feeling inhuman. On the other side, Paddy Power's witty social showed how sharp, human storytelling builds brand while driving action.
Bottom line: AI is a tool, not the product. Let humans lead the voice, narrative, and insight. Let AI support scale, speed, and variations.
A 2026 playbook for iGaming marketers
- Rebalance your mix: Protect a meaningful brand share of spend if you want cheaper performance later. Tie that to MMM and incrementality, not last-click.
- Set a "human bar" for creative: Write first drafts by humans, then use AI for options, edits, and localization. Ship only what a real fan would share.
- Build a modular creative system: A few high-quality "hero" ideas, plus cutdowns and dynamic variants for channels and cohorts.
- Stand out where AI blends in: Invest in formats AI struggles to fake convincingly: live action, UGC with real fans, events, commentary, and community-driven bits.
- Fix branded search inefficiency: Reduce cannibalization; align bids with organic strength and brand GRPs.
- Hold partners to outcome standards: Affiliates, creators, and networks should be measured on incrementality and quality (FDS, retention, compliance), not just raw signups.
- Create a weekly "truth report": One page that blends MMM trends, geo-tests, paid incrementality, creative win rates, and finance actuals.
Creative that actually moves the needle
- Specific > generic: Use real fan culture, real match moments, real product quirks. Ban bland.
- Show, don't claim: Demonstrate product advantage in the story (odds boosts, bet builders, cashout speed) without shouting.
- Humor and timing: Piggyback live sport moments with fast, human commentary. Train a small "writers' room" to ship same-day.
- Consistency: Distinctive brand assets (voice, character, color, format) that make your ads recognizable in 1-2 seconds.
Affiliate and performance alignment
- Quality screens: Pay more for FTD quality and retention; pay less for low-intent traffic that spikes chargebacks and churn.
- Creative guardrails: Enforce brand safety and ad clarity to avoid regulatory headaches and trust erosion.
- Shared insights: Feed your partners winning hooks, formats, and landing pages. Your brand work should lower their CPAs too.
What to expect in 2026
Expect a partial return to brand. Expect more operators to adopt MMM and geo-tests. Expect the market to favor emotionally intelligent, unmistakably human ideas over templated AI output.
The brands that win won't abandon AI-they'll use it behind the scenes, while putting human taste, insight, and timing out front. That's how you lower blended CAC and build equity that compounds.
Upskill your team (without the slop)
If your team needs practical AI skills that support human-led creative-prompting, workflow design, and quality control-explore this resource:
Use AI to work faster. Keep people in charge of taste, story, and trust.
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