Affiliate Roundup: Affiliate Gets Strategic, Phia Faces New Allegations, Retail Media Gets a Measurement Push, & More

This week in FMTC’s Affiliate Roundup: Affiliate marketing is shifting toward fewer, higher-value strategic partnerships. New reporting alleges Phia knew about and encouraged cookie stuffing months before calling it a bug. The ANA is pushing for standardized retail media measurement to make performance easier to compare.

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• Affiliate marketing is shifting from scale to strategy as brands prioritize fewer, higher-value partnerships that drive incremental growth and long-term customer value. 

• Holiday ecommerce is expected to grow in 2026, with AI-referred shoppers converting at higher rates and buy-now, pay-later and cross-border shopping gaining ground. 

• CPG brands are increasingly combining promotions with retail media to drive incremental sales, with new research showing measurable gains in sales and new customers. 

• Pinterest named Jason Fairchild GM of programmatic and affiliate as it expands its audiences into affiliate, programmatic, and CTV buying channels. 

• The news continues for Phia, as new reporting alleges its founders knew about and encouraged cookie-stuffing features months before the company publicly characterized the issue as a bug. 

• Affiliate marketing could be critical to monetizing the open web as walled gardens and AI search reshape traffic and attribution.

• The ANA is calling for standardized retail media measurement as inconsistent attribution windows, metrics, and definitions make it difficult for marketers to compare performance and prove ROI.