Affiliate Marketing Ebook

The affiliate manager's free guide to the AI shift

AI changed how partner programs are run: publishers can fake their numbers and buyers get recommendations from ChatGPT instead of Google. This ebook explains what that means for your program and gives you checklists to act on the same day.

It's a free PDF sent straight to your inbox.

Trusted by 3,000+ SaaS businesses

4.5

4.9

Trusted by 3,000+ SaaS businesses

4.5

4.9

Trusted by 3,000+ SaaS businesses

4.5

4.9

What's Inside the Ebook

5 chapters on what AI changed in your program

Introduction

Understand the two shifts reshaping the job: fake publishers got cheap to build and AI citations got valuable. You'll know where your program is exposed.

Spotting the signals

Learn which checks analytics tools can run for you and pick up a two-tier triage that vets an applicant in minutes, saving deep review for real risks.

The new rules of vetting

Learn why subscriber counts, traffic and engagement stopped being proof, and get the cross-platform check that separates real publishers from manufactured ones.

The AI citation opportunity

Find the publishers ChatGPT and Google cite, and get four ways to reward them even when conversions never show in your tracking.

The fake publisher problem

Get red-flag lists for websites, YouTube, short-form social and newsletters, plus the patterns that tell a boosted-but-real publisher from a fully fake one.

Rebuilding recruitment

Turn it all into a process: qualifying signup fields, acceptance gates and a minimum viable vetting routine that a small team can actually run.

Introduction

Understand the two shifts reshaping the job: fake publishers got cheap to build and AI citations got valuable. You'll know where your program is exposed.

The new rules of vetting

Learn why subscriber counts, traffic and engagement stopped being proof, and get the cross-platform check that separates real publishers from manufactured ones.

The fake publisher problem

Get red-flag lists for websites, YouTube, short-form social and newsletters, plus the patterns that tell a boosted-but-real publisher from a fully fake one.

Spotting the signals

Learn which checks analytics tools can run for you and pick up a two-tier triage that vets an applicant in minutes, saving deep review for real risks.

The AI citation opportunity

Find the publishers ChatGPT and Google cite, and get four ways to reward them even when conversions never show in your tracking.

Rebuilding recruitment

Turn it all into a process: qualifying signup fields, acceptance gates and a minimum viable vetting routine that a small team can actually run.

Introduction

Understand the two shifts reshaping the job: fake publishers got cheap to build and AI citations got valuable. You'll know where your program is exposed.

The new rules of vetting

Learn why subscriber counts, traffic and engagement stopped being proof, and get the cross-platform check that separates real publishers from manufactured ones.

The fake publisher problem

Get red-flag lists for websites, YouTube, short-form social and newsletters, plus the patterns that tell a boosted-but-real publisher from a fully fake one.

Spotting the signals

Learn which checks analytics tools can run for you and pick up a two-tier triage that vets an applicant in minutes, saving deep review for real risks.

The AI citation opportunity

Find the publishers ChatGPT and Google cite, and get four ways to reward them even when conversions never show in your tracking.

Rebuilding recruitment

Turn it all into a process: qualifying signup fields, acceptance gates and a minimum viable vetting routine that a small team can actually run.

Download Free Ebook

It's a free PDF sent straight to your inbox

The Research Behind Ebook

Built on original research and current data

The ebook draws on first-party research into how people make buying decisions with AI, along with fraud monitoring data from the first quarter of 2026.

68% of searches end without a click

Google answers most queries itself. The ebook shows what that means for publishers.

22% of fraud detections hit the US

Fraud follows the biggest affiliate budgets. Early 2026 data shows where.

3 verification problems,
3 approaches

Some channels can be checked, some can't be verified at all. The ebook covers each.

AI trusted like experts

First-party research shows buyers trust AI recommendations as much as expert review sites.

Tens of thousands of fake ads

That's just one month of attacks on a single brand, from a small group of operators.

Fresh from Q1 2026

All fraud data comes from monitoring in the first quarter of 2026. It describes the landscape right now.

About The Author

Written by expert who has worked both sides

Tautvydas has managed affiliate programs for more than 10 years, across e-commerce and B2B SaaS. His track record includes a full rebuild of an e-commerce affiliate program: reconnecting broken tracking tools and stopping hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in commission errors, click fraud and credit card fraud. He has also run programs on the publisher side, so he has seen the affiliate relationship from both chairs. Today he leads marketing at FirstPromoter, where partner program infrastructure is the product.