The Seven-and-a-Half-Month Stress Test

Written by Brook Schaaf

This past March 25, I was feeling rather tense, not because of our youngest’s first birthday but because I was due to sign the dreaded FMSO, the Final Manuscript Sign-Off for The Affiliate Hypothesis: Universal Link Monetization to Save the Open Web. How could I possibly proof it against an uncertain future? 

My publisher, who is undoubtedly well familiar with this particular ledge, pointed out that you can’t, so don’t worry about it. Thus, hostage to logic, I capitulated. It brought to mind jumping off the high diving board as a kid, except it wasn’t over in a second. It’s been over half a year, so how did the content fare?

I dare say quite well.

The central thesis holds. Many links can be characterized as commercial links in that the commercial benefit accrues to the traffic recipient. If these are turned into affiliate links, data is gathered and remuneration can follow. Just what value is created, how it is compensated, and how much data is shared with whom are matters of negotiation and implementation. 

In the zero-click era, that value can potentially be magnified if the various parties can agree on metrics. This is a great, immediate challenge, perhaps the great, immediate challenge. If it can be resolved, then the arrangement will suitably fall to the relationship (affiliate/influencer/public relations) management side of things and not to command-and-control systems (walled gardens/retail media networks, open-web programmatic advertising).

This could, hypothetically, help save the open web, now threatened like never before. My revenge-of-the-slighted affiliate origin story and a few anecdotes notwithstanding, the book is not a memoir; it is an explanation of the space and, more importantly, a call for us to recognize its value and unrealized potential. There is a lot in there. ChatGPT said the book “presents one big hypothesis supported by approximately three dozen interconnected arguments.”

A huge thank you to everyone at Forbes Advantage, especially Erica Orloff, Shandi Thompson, Laura Rashley, Gabi Jones-Monserrate, and Hampton Lamoureux; to Mike McNerney for his excellent foreword (here’s hoping his association with me does not destroy his reputation); to everyone who provided interviews, quotes, and testimonials; and to everyone who has already purchased the book. I hope you’ll consider reading the book and weighing its arguments.  

We face headwinds right now, but a tailwind will blow in. It always has before. Here’s to a bright future for our channel.