Jun 17, 2026
Written by
CJ
Three recent market studies, one each from the UK, Germany, and France, provide a powerful new look at what’s happening in affiliate and connected commerce in top European markets. On its own, each study provides an illuminating snapshot of a national market. Together, they tell a more interesting story about our industry and how performance marketing strategy is playing an increasingly critical role in European commerce.
Affiliate has spent a long time filed under bottom-funnel activation, the dependable place you go for measurable conversions at a cost you can predict. That reputation is earned, and it still holds. However, what the three studies show is that affiliate as a strategy has become a great deal more than that. Each market sits at a different stage of maturity and carries its own structural quirks, yet all three are showing the impact that our industry can have at every stage in the buyer journey, across every channel.
The UK is the most developed affiliate market of the three, and the figures behind it are substantial. The latest data from the APMA State of the Affiliate Nation 2026 report puts the market at:
While core affiliate publisher types continue to show strong business performance, nearly one pound in five is now spent outside pure CPA arrangements, with investment growing even faster in content, comparison, and hybrid models. The UK study describes affiliate as performing two roles: converting demand while also building the consideration that leads to it. For a market that built its name on last-click conversion, that shift opens up a lot more room to grow.
Germany tells its own version of the same story. The newly formed APMC/BVDW has just released a study to measure the size of the affiliate sector. According to the report, the market is large and unusually efficient, and the numbers make the economic weight clear:
Roughly a quarter of all online transactions in Germany are influenced by affiliate. Most of that influence never shows up clearly in a last-click report, since around 80% of investment still sits in programs measured using only CPA and CPO deals. Affiliate’s contribution to many journeys goes largely unrecorded.
Underneath that, the structure is shifting in the same direction as the UK, with influencer, content, and comparison partners growing their share even though core affiliate business trends remain robust.
German affiliate is closer to commerce infrastructure than most attribution models give it credit for, and closing the gap between what it does and what it gets measured for is one of the clearest opportunities in the channel right now. Get the measurement right, and a lot of budget follows.
France shows the change most visibly. The French cpa baromètre d`affiliation takes a different angle from the UK and German studies, trading market sizing for detailed KPI benchmarks across verticals. These include measures like conversion rate, average order value, and return on investment. ROI is still the center of gravity. What has changed is everything growing up around it.
The Barometer points to three shifts happening at once.
France reads like a market in the middle of a strategic transformation, broadening the model while it keeps running the business.
For all their differences, the studies converge on a handful of points. The first is that affiliate is increasingly playing a role beyond influencing the final moments before a conversion. While many programs continue to measure on CPA, many advertisers and publishers are making additional agreements to help ensure that top and middle-journey touches are compensated as well.
The UK has a fifth of spend outside CPA, German affiliate has measurable influence that extends beyond what traditional attribution models capture, and France is openly investing in the upper funnel. Each market is, in its own way, redefining what affiliate value means beyond the closing click.
Full-funnel work is becoming the default rather than the exception. Affiliate now drives discovery through content and creators, supports comparison through CSS and price-comparison partners, and converts through cashback and voucher partners. That gives brands a single, accountable strategy to do far more of the work. Many are recognizing that affiliate is far more than a channel. It is a business strategy that brings performance accountability to every channel.
The partner mix is widening fast. Content, comparison, and influencer partners are growing across all three markets while purely promotional publisher types continue to show strong revenue and profitability. The pie is growing. The best part is that efficiency holds through all of it. Even as the channel takes on more of the journey, the performance logic and accountable returns that made it attractive in the first place stay intact.
All three are heading the same way, and they are simply at different points on the road. The UK is the most mature and scaled, with advanced commercial models and a clear move toward hybrid monetization. German affiliate is demonstrating a remarkable level of efficiency with plenty of attribution headroom still to claim. France is experimenting aggressively, pushing hard into branding and influence, and with significant investment in AI-led commerce.
A few priorities fall out of all three studies. The business contributions of the affiliate strategy are undervalued when measured purely via last click. While many of the largest revenue drivers in the industry prefer last click because their business models are optimized for it, there is increasing recognition that a more holistic strategy requires additional compensation and measurement methodologies. While last click may remain the default measurement methodology, companies also want to understand and reward upper funnel influence.
There is room to grow the partner mix. Adding new partner types and giving them roles across the funnel, alongside the traditional cashback and voucher partners that already perform remarkably well, is where a lot of the next gains sit. Content and influence earn strong investment for the same reason, and not only as branding work, since both are now pulling weight as conversion drivers earlier in the journey.
Commercial models can stretch to match. CPA is still the foundation, but tenancy, CPC, and placement deals are growing quickly, and they give brands a way to pay for influence and visibility, not just the final sale. The AI shift is worth getting ahead of now. LLMs and zero-click results are changing how people find and choose what to buy, and the partners with strong content and structured data are well placed to win visibility inside those experiences.
Put the three studies together, and the trajectory is hard to miss, and it is a wonderfully positive one. Affiliate is growing from a performance lever into a full-funnel revenue driver and a partnership model that touches discovery, consideration, and conversion alike. The definition of performance is what is widening. It now accounts for influence and the value that builds across a journey, alongside the transaction at the end of it.
That connected version of commerce, where discovery, consideration, and conversion link up across partners and markets instead of living in separate boxes, is what we at CJ call Connected Commerce. The European studies are early evidence that the rest of the market is arriving at the same place, and there is real advantage in getting there first.
Capitalize on all this opportunity with CJ
If you’re looking for powerful growth strategies in Europe, Asia, the Americas, or MENA, CJ would love to connect with you. We can learn your business goals and work together to determine how affiliate can be leveraged as a growth strategy to achieve your objectives. Get in touch now for a consultation.
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