Affiliate marketing has been around for decades, and the influencer as we know it was largely built on the back of the 2000s blogging era. However, it wasn’t until Instagram became the platform du jour for creators in the mid-2010s that a cottage industry of social-specific affiliate companies really took off, with the aim of solving for the fact that Instagram posts, unlike blog posts, had no click-through or tracking capabilities.
All of a sudden, “link in bio” was not just a follower directive for creators—it was a revenue opportunity for third-party platforms hoping to break down the platform’s walled garden to make it more shoppable and trackable.
But while the walled garden was a business opportunity to start, it’s posed a threat to the continued growth of affiliate companies and creators. Platforms that are friendlier to direct linking, like YouTube and Substack, meanwhile, seem to be on the rise and signal a new era beyond the link in bio.
