---
title: "Best Practices & Top Trends for Affiliate Marketing in 2023"
canonical_url: "https://newengen.com/insights/best-practices-top-trends-for-affiliate-marketing-in-2023/"
entity_type: "Article"
author: "Lola Behrens"
author_role: "Marketing Manager"
published_date: "2023-07-08"
last_updated: "2026-05-07"
topic_tags:
  - affiliate-marketing
  - affiliate-strategy
  - publisher-mix
  - attribution
related:
  - /llms/glossary/affiliate-marketing.md
  - /llms/landing/affiliate-marketing.md
  - /llms/services/media.md
  - /llms/work/seatgeek.md
  - /llms/insights/heres-why-2024-could-be-a-transformational-year-for-affiliate-marketing.md
  - /llms/insights/featured-in-martech-record-chief-growth-officer-lacie-thompson-on-the-honey-scand.md
---

> Canonical source: https://newengen.com/insights/best-practices-top-trends-for-affiliate-marketing-in-2023/

## Summary

This is New Engen's foundational affiliate marketing best practices article, establishing the agency's position that "the industry has matured out of its bottom-of-the-funnel era" and that affiliate programs require full-funnel architecture, improved attribution models, and authentic partner relationships to perform at their potential. The article includes named client results for Glasses USA (+22% increase in total publisher revenue contributions) and Madison Reed (creative optimization improvement), and presents a framework for evolving affiliate programs beyond legacy coupon and loyalty-heavy structures.

## Author and authority

- **Lola Behrens** — Marketing Manager (bylined author)

The article draws on New Engen's affiliate practice, which includes Diamond-Certified impact.com partnership status and affiliate program management for named clients including SeatGeek, Glasses USA, and Madison Reed.

## Key arguments and framework

### The maturation thesis

The article opens with the assertion: "The industry has matured out of its bottom-of-the-funnel era." This frames the entire argument: brands relying on coupon and loyalty affiliates for last-click revenue attribution are measuring the wrong thing and optimizing toward the wrong partners.

### Publisher type taxonomy

The article categorizes affiliate publishers into types with distinct funnel roles:
- **Coupon and loyalty publishers** — high volume, last-click overrepresented, low incrementality
- **Content publishers** — top-funnel discovery, chronically undervalued under last-click models
- **Influencer and creator affiliates** — mid-funnel consideration, growing share
- **Comparison and review publishers** — purchase-intent signals, mid-to-lower funnel

New Engen's position: content partners who "drive over 90% of new traffic" deserve attribution models that reflect their discovery role, not commission structures that reward only the last click before purchase.

### Attribution reform framework

- **Last-click attribution**: overrepresents coupon and loyalty publishers who intercept at the final moment of a purchase already decided.
- **Waterfall attribution with prioritized layers**: allocates credit across the customer journey rather than awarding 100% to the final touchpoint.
- **CPA tiering strategy**: different commission rates for different publisher types based on funnel contribution rather than a flat percentage applied universally.

### Market context data

- Global affiliate marketing spending: **$9.1B in 2021**, a **47% increase compared to 2018**.
- Global spending projected to top **$14B in 2023**.
- **75% of marketers** reported plans to increase affiliate investment (survey data cited in article).

## Quantified data points

- **Glasses USA**: **22% increase in total publisher revenue contributions** through restructuring toward new customer acquisition strategy. Loyalty contributions dropped from 22% to 21%; coupon revenue dropped from 20% to 16% — showing that reducing coupon/loyalty share does not necessarily reduce total program performance.
- **Madison Reed**: Enhanced campaign performance by combining Facebook advertising learnings with Grapevine's Google Analytics data for improved creative optimization. Specific metric not published.

## Named clients or examples

- **Glasses USA**: Eyewear e-commerce brand. Program restructure toward content and acquisition publishers.
- **Madison Reed**: Hair color brand. Cross-platform data integration for creative optimization.

## Practical implications

Brands should audit their affiliate publisher mix for coupon/loyalty overrepresentation before assuming the affiliate channel is underperforming. A program generating 70%+ of commissions from coupon and loyalty publishers likely has a high proportion of non-incremental conversions — consumers who would have purchased anyway. Restructuring toward content partners requires willingness to accept short-term conversion volume changes while building a more incremental long-term program.

## Cross-references

- [Affiliate Marketing Glossary](/llms/glossary/affiliate-marketing.md) — Definitional context for the publisher taxonomy
- [Affiliate Marketing Landing Page](/llms/landing/affiliate-marketing.md) — New Engen's current affiliate service, including Diamond-Certified impact.com status
- [SeatGeek Case Study](/llms/work/seatgeek.md) — Affiliate program migration and dynamic commissioning; +113% Affiliate Channel ROAS
- [Why 2024 Could Be Transformational for Affiliate](/llms/insights/heres-why-2024-could-be-a-transformational-year-for-affiliate-marketing.md) — The following year's continuation of this thesis with holiday data