Affiliate Roundup: MFA, CPL, SERPs, & More

The Most Interesting Happenings in Affiliate, in 7 Bullet Points or Fewer

This week in FMTC’s Affiliate Roundup: MFA continues to gain traction web-wide, Google further improves product search results, and podcast ad revenue is on the up and up.

• [Case Studies, Profiles & Awards] Affiliate links masquerading as organic search results threaten transparency and trust.
  
• [Case Studies, Profiles, & Awards] Dotdash Meredith partners with OpenAI to boost ad business and protect traffic.
  
• [Affiliate-Adjacent] A study of over 17,000 campaigns found that cost per lead increased by an average of 25% over the past year.
  
• [Affiliate-Adjacent] Podcast ad revenue rebounds to a projected $2 billion after a period of slow growth.
  
• [Affiliate-Adjacent] Google enhances product search results, streamlining price comparison within SERPs.
  
• [Affiliate-Adjacent] Almost half of all internet traffic in 2023 was the result of bots, highlighting a problem with open web programmatic.
  
• [Affiliate-Adjacent] MFA content farms — and questionable profits — are gaining traction at best and running rampant at worst.