This week in FMTC’s Affiliate Roundup: Retailers are shifting ad spend toward digital and retail media. Google wiped out AI-generated affiliate sites in its latest spam update. YouTube pulled in $40.4B in ad revenue, beating major TV media companies.
• Retailers are shifting ad budgets heavily toward high-attribution digital channels and retail media networks, with digital now accounting for about 87% of total retail ad spending.
• X is testing a new ad format that adds product recommendations directly beneath posts mentioning a brand, turning everyday conversations into potential shopping prompts.
• An experiment building AI-generated affiliate sites at scale briefly gained search traffic before Google’s spam update wiped them out, reinforcing that low-trust, templated content isn’t a sustainable SEO strategy.
• Retail data shows shoppers clicking more but converting less, as longer research cycles reshape the online purchase journey.
• AI shopping assistants are creating an “AI attribution blind spot” where product discovery happens upstream in AI answers, making it difficult for marketers to track which channels actually influenced a purchase.
• YouTube generated $40.4B in ad revenue in 2025, surpassing Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery combined as advertisers shift toward digital video platforms.
The post Affiliate Roundup: Retail Ad Spend Shifts To Digital, Google Hits AI Affiliate Sites, YouTube Ad Revenue Tops $40.4B, & More appeared first on FMTC.
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