Ask an Expert: How does 'affiliate PR' work in 2025?

Media opportunities for bootstrapped founders, AI prompt engineers, Gen Z entrepreneurs and more

Affiliate marketing isn’t new—but with the changing media landscape, we’re getting more and more asks about it from clients. We knew we needed the lowdown from a pro, so we recently sat down with Emma Grace, founder of affiliate PR studio Praize, for a crash course. Emma claims her strategy can generate upwards of a cool mil in annual revenue for brands that participate.

TLDR on affiliate PR: It’s when media outlets earn a commission for promoting a product. Essentially it’s an advertising model where publishers get paid when they drive a specific action, like clicks, purchases or sign-ups to a brand. Say a website posts an article about the hottest beauty products blowing up on TikTok. Chances are, the links to those products are Amazon affiliate links. If you buy something through one of those links, the site earns a small percentage of the sale.

She walked us through the five biggest misconceptions about her industry, and here’s what we learned:

1. Focus on affiliate managers and not just pitching commerce and shopping editors. These folks curate product roundups, yes, but that’s just one step in a long process. The people you really need to build a relationship with are publications’ affiliate managers, who work independently from editorial.

2. Ditch the coupon sites—they’re leeches. Coupon sites like Honey and Coupon Cabin often claim credit for sales that are a direct result of PR coverage. Their whole gig is publishing unauthorized coupons from whatever brands they can get their hands on—meaning companies are paying extra for conversions they would have already secured through meaningful PR!

3. Skipping traditional PR for affiliate PR is a rookie mistake. We don’t need to wax poetic about the brand awareness benefits of traditional PR to a newsletter of fellow flacks. But traditional PR is essential for successful affiliate programs. It’s a credibility springboard to drive conversions down the line.

4. You should have a separate agency for traditional PR and affiliate PR. Agencies that do both well are few and far between. While traditional PR is much more about storytelling and trend forecasting, Emma says that affiliate PR is focused on growing affiliate partnerships with publications and measuring coverage performance.

5. Consumer brands can no longer afford to skip out on affiliate PR. Even if you have a killer organic or earned media pipeline, today’s publications increasingly require commission arrangements for product features and roundups. Brands without affiliate programs are at a serious competitive disadvantage.

If you want to go way deeper, Emma at Praize is offering OB readers a free three-week email course that has more intel on how to get started and actually drive revenue with affiliate PR: Sign up here.

Events

• Bank Automation Summit (3/3-3/4) Nashville: Hosted by digital banking trade Bank Automation News, this is a technology conference for banking and fintech professionals. This year’s theme is “experimentation to optimization.” Past speakers include execs at Citizens Bank, Fifth Third, and Mastercard.