From $8B to $36B: Why Affiliate Marketing’s Golden Age is Just Beginning (Despite AI, Recessions, and Industry Chaos) by Chris Trayhorn, Publisher of mThink Blue Book, September 27, 2025 We got together with ClickDealer’s head of PR, Nataly, to dive deep into the trends that will shape affiliate marketing in 2025 and beyond Introduction The affiliate marketing industry is experiencing unprecedented growth, but with that growth comes unprecedented challenges. In this wide-ranging conversation, we explore the forces reshaping performance marketing as we know it. Key Discussion Points: Explosive Industry Growth: Affiliate marketing is projected to jump from $8 billion in 2022 to over $36 billion by 2030—but what’s driving this massive expansion? The AI Revolution: How artificial intelligence is transforming campaign creation, content generation, and creative design, while raising questions about who really benefits when everyone’s using the same tools White Hat vs. Gray Hat Evolution: Why experienced affiliates are shifting toward white hat verticals like e-commerce, insurance, and downloads as algorithms become more sophisticated Conference Culture Reality Check: The truth about networking events, shallow content creation, and how to measure real ROI from industry gatherings The Influencer Problem: Distinguishing between genuine industry experts and lifestyle influencers who may not even run traffic Recession-Proof Verticals: Which sectors historically perform well during economic downturns, and why e-commerce giants like Walmart and Temu are becoming strategic focuses Global Uncertainty Impact: How world events, tariffs, and market volatility are affecting affiliate strategies and budget allocation Speaking from Kiev during an unusually snowy April, Natalie offers unique insights into adapting and thriving in uncertain times, while Chris brings his perspective on industry evolution and the challenges facing both newcomers and veterans. Whether you’re a seasoned affiliate looking to future-proof your business or a newcomer trying to navigate an increasingly complex landscape, this conversation offers practical insights into where the industry is heading and how to position yourself for success. This episode was recorded during a period of significant global uncertainty, offering timely perspectives on adaptation and resilience in the performance marketing space. Transcript: Chris – mThink (00:02) Hi and welcome to the Blue Book podcast. My guest tonight is Natalie from ClickDealer. She is the head of PR and is one of my favorite people in the industry. We are going to talk today about 2025 trends, but from both sides of the argument. So we’re going to have a pretty wide-ranging discussion. How are you today, Natalie? – Nataly – ClickDealer (00:34) Hey, hey, I’m good. I’m happy to be here and to have you today. So the weather is bad. But it’s okay. Yeah, we have snow. Chris – mThink (00:44) For the benefit of our viewers, where are you exactly? Because many viewers probably won’t know where you are. Nataly – ClickDealer (00:49) I’m in Ukraine. Yes, I’m in Ukraine, in Kiev, and we have snow in April. Chris – mThink (00:59) Wow… Is that to be expected or is that unusual? Nataly – ClickDealer (01:06) It’s unusual, absolutely unusual. It’s okay to happen in March, at the beginning of March, but not in April. We have all the trees in blossom, we have the birds singing and now… snow. That’s crazy. Chris – mThink (01:13) Climate is crazy right now. Nataly – ClickDealer (01:27) It’s the contrary, which we will discuss today. Chris – mThink (01:32) Spring but snow, you know what? I like that, I like that. So there’s a lot going on in the world. Let’s talk about trends and for and against. I think we’re going to start off by talking about opportunity versus competition and growing market in the performance marketing industry. Nataly – ClickDealer (01:34) Yeah, springy but snowy. Chris – mThink (01:58) How big do you think affiliate marketing really is? Is it growing or how do you see the industry as a whole? Nataly – ClickDealer (02:06) Moreover, I know the numbers because we have made the research and we found out at Statista that in 2022 the affiliate marketing size was about more than 8 billion dollars. But in 2030, Statista says that it will grow into 36, more than 36 billion dollars. Yes, affiliate marketing is growing and it’s just enormous numbers. Chris – mThink (02:40)So mathematics isn’t my strong point, but that’s like four times the amount that it is now, right? That’s in six years, seven years, something. Five years, five years, it’s 2025. This is by 2030. Wow. Nataly – ClickDealer (02:49) I think it will be even more because the predictions are not as it is really. So we can expect even more reach. Chris – mThink (03:07) Obviously that’s a prediction. Do you have a feel for what verticals or what sectors are going to see particularly fast growth? Nataly – ClickDealer (03:25) Well, yes, think about grey hat verticals, they are growing in spite of the fact that algorithms are just killing every advertisement of something like white hat or gray hat, it bends the accounts, even not ads or campaigns, it bends the whole accounts. So I think that Google and Facebook algorithms will be renewed, will be developed, and we will see some more GDPRs maybe even. So verticals, grey hat, they will grow, but they will face such troubles with the algorithms. And I think white hat verticals, they will be growing much faster and a lot of affiliates, I think, they will just switch to something white hat. I think that it will be downloads because the digital world is everywhere and some Chrome extensions, some subscriptions, online subscriptions, antiviruses, downloads of some cleaners. Everything that is connected to the digital world, will develop very fast. Chris – mThink (04:51) Right. And of course, we’re going to come on when we’re going to talk to AI, talk about AI a little bit later. But of course, AI is going to overturn a lot of the incumbents in every marketplace. Every product is going to get, every market is going to get reinvented. Every product is going to be reinvented. So there’s going to be a lot of opportunity and a lot of failure. Do you think? Nataly – ClickDealer (05:04) Yeah. Chris – mThink (05:14) Stepping sideways a little bit. Do you think many networks will struggle as a result of the changes that we’re seeing at the moment? Nataly – ClickDealer (05:24) I think if they can adapt, they will not struggle. The network as ours, ClickDealer network, as far as we are multivertical and we have more than 40 verticals, some of them are dying, some of them are rising. It’s a normal process of affiliate marketing. So the main competition is to adapt to these changes. Chris – mThink (05:44) One of the things that always strikes me is that people need to sort of keep in touch with those moving currents in the industry, which is a good segue onto our second item, which is conferences. So what is your feeling on conferences? Because I have to say, I do a lot of traveling backwards and forwards, and so I don’t get to go to as many conferences as I would like to. And I find that there comes a point where there’s a limited positive value to it because you just get fatigued by it and there’s diminishing returns. What’s your feeling on conferences? I I mean, clearly they’re going to stay important. What do you see as the pluses and minuses of conferences? Nataly – ClickDealer (06:44) The plus is obvious, as you have said. Since the COVID times, people are struggling to meet face-to-face, to have communication, to meet new people or new friends, or even old friends. To have a glass of Prosecco at the conference is always a great idea. Moreover, you can absorb a lot of new information, a lot of insights on conferences, on visiting speeches. Even if it is an online conference, it also can be useful. But offline communication is the key. It’s pivotal and I think it will never be replaced by something online. Though no one says that there is the other side, that it’s very tiring, that jet lag is just awful and that there are some cases when you just don’t know whom to approach. Sometimes you are shy when you are a newbie, sometimes. I didn’t face it, but my friend told me that one time he faced a rude attitude at the conference. I think people go there for communication and they need to communicate with everyone, to network, to get to know people and to find new perspectives, new business partners. But if you are approaching someone and he says, “We will not work with you, so we don’t need to get acquainted.” I don’t understand this because the affiliate market is very big and you never know where you will be tomorrow. ” Maybe we will meet with these people on your podcast.” So you have to be polite, you have to make as many acquaintances as you can and just have a great time. Chris – mThink (09:11) What I see is that there are a lot of people now that just go around conferences, doing interviews, producing a lot of content that may or may not be of good value. What’s your view on that? Nataly – ClickDealer (09:28) Yeah, I know what you’re talking about. There are a lot of media nowadays who just travel around the globe. They are visiting conferences and sometimes they get paid from companies for the interview at the conference. Sometimes it’s their own initiative, so they are just showing the conference as it is. But these people are not acquainted with affiliate marketing. And sometimes, okay, not all of them, but I saw such media, they are not connected to affiliate marketing and they just ask overall questions on the interviews. Like, “How do you like this conference?” ” What are your plans for the future? What problems does your company see nowadays?” It’s not interesting as for me. It’s not insightful, it’s just entertaining content. So it may be okay for someone, it may be interesting for someone, but not for me as I think that insightful, useful content is about the deep understanding of the industry. Chris – mThink (10:31) The big thing about content like that that’s fairly shallow is AI video content is going to completely wipe that out because AI can churn that stuff out all day long at basically zero cost. So what’s the point of traveling across the world? Nataly – ClickDealer (11:05) That’s true. A funny fact, I saw that such media, they put marks to each conference and they estimate the quality of the conference by the quality and quantity of food, drinks, or who is the main headliner of the after party. It’s such a criterion for… I don’t know for whom. For me… Sorry, okay. For me, for my company, we can estimate the conference afterwards. It’s a huge job on counting. How much did you spend on traveling, for the passes, for the hotels? Then how many people have you approached? How many contacts did you get? And how many of them are really useful for our company? Then you start collaboration with some people whom you met at the conference. And in about two months, you can say if that was really fruitful cooperation. So we can estimate the quality of each conference about two months after this conference. And it will not be food and drinks. Chris – mThink (12:41) Like everything, attribution is what counts. Being able to do some kind of attribution eventually is critical. So far as AI is concerned, I mean, it’s going to reshape the industry. It’s already reshaping the industry. What do you see as the biggest impacts of AI on what ClickDealer does, for example? Nataly – ClickDealer (12:59) Well, we use AI, of course. We are a digital marketing agency and everything which has the word digital is for us. Yes, think in affiliate marketing, AI plays a pivotal role and it develops every day. That’s just incredible. What it can do. These technologies enable marketers to delve deeper into data, to personalize content effectively, and to optimize campaigns with precision. Though AI still requires control, you need to check it very carefully. If you write content with AI, you need to read it sometimes because the data can be outdated. Then it has some structure. For example, ChatGPT answers you with the structure. I don’t know how to describe it, but I always see when the text was written with ChatGPT. When I am hiring people and I am giving test tasks, I always see if it was written by the person or with ChatGPT. Other types of AI are creatives. Our team uses this kind of artificial intelligence, especially when we create designs for booths. That’s very useful. It saves us, our designers, a lot of time. Our designers are just geniuses, so they can draw themselves. But it’s such an incredible tool that they can really rely on it and give those creatives to AI. Though you need to control it because, a funny fact, AI has problems with fingers. They often give people four fingers or make them blue. I don’t know what it’s about. Also, I see some biases in AI, so we need to train them. For example, if you ask, ” I don’t remember the name of this AI, but I asked it to draw me a doctor or a CEO or a director and it always shows men. When I ask to draw a teacher or a nurse, it shows women. Chris – mThink (16:22) Right. And nearly always they’ll be white if they’re in charge. Yeah, no, it’s… No, I think that’s the thing with AI is I have… Obviously, you can’t deny the advance that AI is and the advantages it promotes. But the question is when every campaign is designed by an AI when every campaign is run by an AI. Who gets the benefit from it? I mean, because everybody’s doing the same thing. It’s how in, as we’re all forward five years, in five years’ time when AIs are autonomous and when you have AI agents who can actually make things happen in the real world, AIs are going to be competing with other AIs and you’re like, well. Okay, what do I do at that point and where’s the advantage? How exactly did anybody gain from this? It’s going to be really, it’s an interesting time. Nataly – ClickDealer (17:32) I think we will have a new vacancy, a new position, prompt writer. The person who will just write prompts for AI carefully, accurately, and AI will do all the job. Maybe, maybe, but I think we will still control it because biases, these kinds of mistakes, let’s call them mistakes, they will not go anywhere in the short time. Maybe later when robots will conquer the world. Chris – mThink (18:25) This whole point about AI and technology, et cetera, is, you know, obviously it brings us onto things like hiring and new people coming into the industry and the direction of the industry as a whole. I know that we’ve previously talked about how there’s a wave of young affiliates coming into the industry with new ideas. What is your view on that? How are you seeing that play out at ClickDealer? Nataly – ClickDealer (19:02) Well, I can’t answer from other departments. I can answer from my PR department. I always in search of good PR managers, not yet as a writer for prompts. But PR managers, it’s a really tough task to find them. And from other departments, I heard that… Chris – mThink (19:18) Right? Nataly – ClickDealer (19:29) It’s a wave of young people who are willing just to make money. They actually don’t know what affiliate marketing is about, but they want to make money on it. They want someone to teach them everything and they just get the money. Sometimes from other companies I see the situation is like that. It’s a common situation for every company in affiliate marketing nowadays because people see that it’s some kind of glamorous image and they want to be involved. This way they are just willing to get to the company connected to affiliate marketing and then to learn about it and make great money. As for PR, no, I wanted to tell you a story. I was recently talked to an owner of another network, it’s a dating network, and he told me that he has affiliates who are just 16 years old. 16! And they are running traffic to dating offers already. Chris – mThink (20:47) All right. Nataly – ClickDealer (20:53) In my 16, I was just chilling and entering the university, getting my education and didn’t even know about affiliate marketing. Nowadays, young people are powerful, they are with their strong aim and these are people who will change the world, who will do their best. to rule their lives. Chris – mThink (21:25) If I look at the younger people that I know and that I’m friends with, obviously they’re all much more digitally aware than than me. I’m older than them and so I probably don’t know as much as they do. I know a little bit about some other things but man, some of them know a lot. But of course the problem is, as you say, they don’t necessarily want to do much of it themselves. They don’t want to learn the basics of affiliate marketing, etc. They just want to get the benefits because they see that it’s a thing. I guess like in every generation there are people that really dive into it and learn it and understand it and they’re the ones that are 16 years old and driving a Ferrari and then there are those who don’t know anything but just want to come in and be taught it and hopefully earn a lot of money and whatever. Guess it’s always been that way it’s just been now it’s being transferred online I guess maybe. Nataly – ClickDealer (22:36) One question. Who will work while they are learning? Chris – mThink (22:42) I think we’re going to have AIs working for us. The robots are going to be doing all the work. I mean, think the big question for me, just stepping outside the thread of our conversation, the big question for me is, I think we all know that AI is… All right, let’s rewind a little bit. If you look at the internet, there is a theory, and a lot of statistics back this up, that for all that we’ve invested into the internet, actual, know, real productivity, actually producing things that make people happy, has not increased that much. You know, there’s a lot of online stuff, a lot of online entertainment that has moved from TV onto online. There’s a lot of other stuff that keeps people busy. But in terms of actually producing stuff that makes people happy, You know, the internet actually hasn’t done much. It’s just moved effort around. And I wonder if with AI, we’re going to see something similar, which is, as we’ve already mentioned, if everybody is using AI, well, then your campaigns aren’t going to make you more money because everybody’s going to be using AI. It’s just a different way of competing. And so all that happens is that the money moves from you paying a 25-year-old to build a campaign for you to paying Mark Zuckerberg for Grok to build a campaign for you on Facebook. Know, I don’t know if that’s better. I don’t know if paying Mark Zuckerberg is better than paying a 25-year-old. You know, it just doesn’t seem that it doesn’t seem like an improvement. Yeah. Nataly – ClickDealer (24:24) Yeah. That’s a question, Chris – mThink (24:36) And so, you know, I think back to when I was a kid and when I was a teenager, I loved reading science fiction and there was always science fiction was always, you know, about the future. And there were always two different versions. There was the version where everybody lived in luxury because the robots did all the work. But then there was the version where you had a few hundred people that lived up in this luxurious floating sky palace, and then everybody else was working in the fields or living in poverty down on the ground because there was no work. The robots did all the work, and the people with the money thought, well, what do we need to pay them for? We don’t need to pay them; they’re not doing anything. And I don’t know which of those two scenarios is going to happen. I have a feeling it’s going to be the second one. Nataly – ClickDealer (25:29) I hope not. We’ll see. Chris – mThink (25:36) The thing is you look around science fiction, and there actually aren’t that many science fiction books that come out well. It’s not like there are many science fiction books that say, yeah, hey, we’re going to move into paradise. Everybody’s going to have more than they can eat and more than that. Science fiction books don’t do that. Nataly – ClickDealer (26:00) Yeah! Have you watched Black Mirror? Chris – mThink (26:07) I have. I have. I mean, for me, as an English person, it’s such a classic English view of the world where everything is weird, everything is messed up, but it kind of makes sense. You can kind of see how it could happen. Yeah. Nataly – ClickDealer (26:19) Yeah, it totally makes sense. Especially the series when the girl was hunting someone and she didn’t know how to kill that person. And after that, it turned out that everyone was just watching her on TV and it’s like a TV show. Or it’s like we saw in Squid Game. Something similar. Then there was a series when everyone was estimated with the rating, with a personal online rating and even flight tickets were not sold to the person with the low rating. I think it’s also our future. Now we have a credit history, but soon we will have an overall history. Chris – mThink (27:05) Well, I think that that’s what people like Weibo, et al. in China, I think that’s what China has. They kind of have a social rating for people and your level of economic freedom follows on from it to some extent. It’s like, okay, if you were a person in charge of a country, if you were Donald Trump, why wouldn’t you do that if you were Donald Trump? Nataly – ClickDealer (27:32) Yeah. Chris – mThink (27:52) I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s going to be a strange time. We’re in strange times. Exactly. Or maybe we are living in the next series of Black Mirror. All right. So let’s go back to our conversation. So we’ve talked about the increase of technology, et cetera. One of the areas that is going to be seen is that media is more and more personalized. Everybody has a slightly different experience when they go online. How do you see that’s going to work out over time? Nataly – ClickDealer (28:38) Well, yes. Now many, many medias appear on the market, on YouTube, and you can easily find a lot of influencers in affiliate marketing. I personally know several of them. They are real affiliates with a great history, with great achievements, and throughout all these years they are ready now. To share their knowledge, to bring it to people and to teach them, of course, with personal benefits. But on the other hand, there are a lot of people who just want to be influencers. And what they do, they just show their life, sometimes luxury life, sometimes ordinary life, on Instagram, on YouTube. Chris – mThink (29:14) Right. Nataly – ClickDealer (29:35) And they just show their life and open presence from partners like Merch or going to conferences and showing just the way they’re spending their time. No useful information about running ads, about some bands, about something else that can be useful for other affiliates. Chris – mThink (29:41) Right. Nataly – ClickDealer (30:04) Maybe about verticals showing what else they can do, what they are trying new. Maybe they just don’t run any traffic. And maybe they do and just don’t want to show it. No one knows. But a lot of people want to become bloggers to get some presents, to get paid for stories or posts. And that’s a real problem, I think, because… Chris – mThink (30:14) That’s right. Right. Nataly – ClickDealer (30:32) Whom can we call influencers? With whom should brands make collaborations? I see the only way is to narrow the audience to work with nano-influencers who have not so many followers, but they do a really useful content, informational content, and show real statistics, maybe some kind of statistics or campaigns or verticals, at least that they are running and showing their experience. And also I know that there are some types of fake gurus that people call themselves influencers and they show screenshots even and they are running some courses, but those screenshots are fake. Some AI did that and actually they have knowledge of affiliate marketing, but overall it’s not enough to teach people. Chris – mThink (31:39) The difficulty is how somebody who wants to learn, how they tell the difference, how they understand who’s good, who’s bad, et cetera, et It reminds me actually of when we started the Blue Book, which is 10, 15 years ago now. And I don’t know, I’m not sure if I’ve ever told you this story, but basically at that point we were publishing, we were still publishing Revenue Magazine back in the day, which was a magazine for the affiliate marketing industry. And then Hasoffers launched. And Hasoffers was the first SaaS platform for a network. And within a year, literally 700 new CPA networks popped up. Nataly – ClickDealer (32:49) Whoa. Chris – mThink (32:50) Because for the first time, up until that point, if you wanted to start your own network, you had to write your own platform. And so all of a sudden, HasOffice was available. Everybody jumped on board, every super affiliate thought, okay, I can make more money now. And as I say, there were literally 700 people. So Revenue Magazine. We were suddenly getting all of these advertisers that we worked with who were saying, do we know who to work with? And this is actually where the blue book came from. Because brands were saying to us, if we have 500 people working in basements, one-man bands, but they all look the same as a real network, how do we tell the difference? And that’s where the blue book came from. Nataly – ClickDealer (33:43) So now you need to make a new list of influencers, of media, of people who are really into this market, into this industry, so that you can help newbies or even experienced people in our industry to understand whom to trust. Chris – mThink (34:07) Honestly, you are anticipating our 2025 strategy. Because in fact, just within the next two weeks, we’re going to be announcing a whole software and services section of the Blue Book site. We have a whole partner marketing platform, a new category that’s launching in the next week or two. And then out of that is going to be a whole bunch of things and one of those categories I think is going to be training courses. Because I think people, again, there are a million training courses out there and how on earth does anybody understand what’s good and what’s bad? I mean there’s just no way if you’re new to the industry and people spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on these courses. And often it’s just somebody who’s photogenic or sounds good on camera. And they don’t really know what’s going on or their knowledge is years out of date or whatever. It’s difficult for newbies coming into the industry, that’s for sure. And I do think AI is not going to make it any easier, because everybody’s going to be using AI. So everybody’s going to sound like they know what they’re talking about. Coming back to AI, the other thing is that AI does enable websites, the whole of your online experience to be customized and personalized to you. How do you, I mean, Nataly – ClickDealer (35:33) I’m pretty sure. Chris – mThink (36:01) This isn’t something that we’ve really talked about, but how do you think that that’s going to affect the affiliate marketing industry? Because if your whole experience of the internet is curated by an AI, if every website is saying, here’s Natalie, I know her, here’s what I’m going to show her. A bit like we go on social media and they now present as a feed. It used to be that you used to sign up to see your friends’ posts, but now you don’t see your friends’ posts. Now you just see, here’s the feed that we want to show you. Eventually, isn’t the whole internet just going to be a feed that they want to show you? Nataly – ClickDealer (36:36) If the AI will show me, Natalie, there is no milk in your fridge. Please buy it or I will order it for you. Here’s the courier just in front of your door. Thank you. But it’s okay. I think that it will still be based on my interests and it will be based on the things that I Google. Actually, I now think what am I Googling because it will show me the ads of these things. So I am really paying attention to it and I think I will pay attention to it more accurately. So I think it’s a positive prediction. For AI. If it will show my interests, if we adapt AI and train so that it will show our interests, but not his interests, then it is a really positive prediction. Chris – mThink (37:53) Yeah, I already recognize that I pretty much don’t use Google search at all now. I will… Most of the time now I use Perplexity, which is the AI search engine. And then if I want to do, if I want to use something else, I’ll use DuckDuckGo or something else that doesn’t track me quite as comprehensively as Google does. But of course, we are online professionals and so we, I guess we’re ahead of the curve on that stuff. But you have to think that, you know. I don’t know, Google seems, whenever I do use Google for search, it seems unusable. I can’t find what I want to find. It’s the strangest thing. I mean, it’s, yeah, pages of stuff that I don’t want. We talked earlier about where business was going to come from and all of this stuff. And you mentioned, know, white hat versus gray hat, et cetera, et cetera. Nataly – ClickDealer (38:43) Yeah, that’s true. Sometimes. Chris – mThink (39:04) Why don’t you talk to me a little bit about how you see the future. You’re a very successful agency, network in Europe, with worldwide interests. You do traffic across a lot of verticals. So you see what’s going on with, you know that there are black hat people out there and doing business. You know there are gray hat people out there and you know that there are white hat people. How do you see the, where are the currents flowing? Do you think the currents are flowing more towards the grey hat and black hat people or do you think they’re flowing towards the white hat people? Nataly – ClickDealer (39:40) I think that black hat and gray hats will exist always, but I see experienced affiliates are switching to white hat. Or at least they unite their portfolio with something gray hat and white hat. For example, 70 % of white hats and only 30 % of gray hats because White hat is like more stable niches, it’s something long-term or evergreen and gray hat it’s something that is influenced with algorithms of even government or political situation, some new laws if we are talking about iGaming for example and casino and white hat White hat verticals, it’s something that you can rely on in your budgets, in your everyday life. And if you want to get stable profits, you are switching more and more to white hat. Of course, always there are cons. White hat is something that is a little bit more complicated to run because sometimes it needs a long optimisational process and sometimes it needs really high costs. And moreover, your traffic, you need to pick the right traffic source because advertisers in white-head verticals, do not accept any kind of fraudulent traffic, any kind of fraudulent activity. Your traffic has to be super clean, super pure, and because it’s checked very attentively by the anti-fraud team and by the tools, maybe even AI. So now in our company, we are focusing and we chose those strategic verticals which receive the most growth. Now for us, it is totally e-commerce. It’s e-commerce giants like Walmart, Tesco, AliExpress, of course, Temu is rising and some more marketplaces are coming like Whatnot. It’s a marketplace with old stuff. It’s not like old, it’s old-fashioned maybe, but people are collecting such things like vinyls, sneakers, luxury purses for girls, but they are old, they are used and people are buying such things for their collections. Yes, e-commerce. Then I can mention auto insurance. It’s on its rise. Insurance in all the way, actually. Home warranty, life insurance, medical insurance, but auto insurance is something that is very promising. Then downloads, I have mentioned them at the beginning, and subscriptions, and antiviruses like McAfee, Iolo, something like that. Also, home improvements. Offers for the USA mostly, something in Europe and Canada, all the works that can be done on your house. Since people were sitting at home for a long time, they noticed what they need to change, what they need to rebuild or build or something else. Home improvement has some seasonal niches and evergreen niches. So it depends on the season sometimes. What else? What else? Where else? Let’s see, if we are talking about other niches that we think are promising and we think they are our strategic ones also, it’s iGaming, dating also, and pay per call. Chris – mThink (44:38) Let me ask, we are recording this at a time when things in the world are a little bit uncertain. We have new tariffs and everybody’s uncertain about what’s going to happen. Let’s say that we, theoretically, let’s say that the world goes into a recession. What do you think that does to marketplaces which verticals historically have ClickDealer seen do well during downturns and recessions. Nataly – ClickDealer (45:11) Maybe people will spend less money on some luxury things, on some fashion, on cars maybe, but they always will eat, they always will be dressed. Some e-commerce in certain markets, certain goods, certain furniture and clothes, it will still exist and it will work. Furniture will work as also fitness apps, fitness, some lessons maybe, education. It will work because people will pay attention to their mental health, to their health in total always. Moreover, it’s spring now and we face that people are buying some nutra also to support their health and spring to get those vitamins. It will live on long. Chris – mThink (46:09) Yeah, and then of course there’s the traditional downturn sectors of financial services, loan restructuring and debt relief and credit ratings and all of those sorts of things and then who knows? Nataly – ClickDealer (46:36) Yeah. Crypto vertical. it will be complicated because I see that crypto is going down. Maybe it will be complicated for buyers. And about, also I wanted to tell about loans, financial niches like loans, credits, it maybe also will have some rise. Chris – mThink (47:11) Yeah, no, that’s the traditional thing. Everybody turns to, “Okay, I need to borrow money. My credit has turned to awful. What do I do? How do I get through this?” And of course, we’re going to see a whole bunch of people, a whole bunch of newbies coming into affiliate marketing. Nataly – ClickDealer (47:42) Yeah, 100%. Chris – mThink (47:43) Because everybody wants to try and make money if they’ve been laid off from their job or whatever. Nataly – ClickDealer (47:50) Yeah, like additional money and then it can be the work. Chris – mThink (47:58) Yeah. All right. All right. Well, I mean, we’ve been talking for quite a while, Natalie, so I think we should probably call it a day. This has been a great conversation. Nataly – ClickDealer (48:06) Yeah. Chris – mThink (48:15) What do you see during the rest of 2025? Just to end the conversation, all right? The whole world is in a state of confusion right now for people watching. We’re just at the point where the tariffs from Donald Trump are due to take effect in the next day or two. Everybody’s in a meltdown. Stock exchanges are in a meltdown, et cetera, et cetera. Let’s say worst comes to worst. All right? Natalie, this is your chance to predict the future. If the US stock market crashes, Nataly – ClickDealer (48:49) No, really, I can’t predict anything because now we see such incredible things which surprise us every day. Being in Ukraine, it’s more interesting than being in Europe, know. Let’s call it like that. Chris – mThink (49:13) You’re already seeing so much uncertainty. I mean I feel for you, I really do. I mean it’s like the whole world is on fire, it’s crazy. Nataly – ClickDealer (49:36) Yeah, the whole world is on fire and we are in front of it. So I think everything will be okay just because our people, our businessmen, our marketers, they are so strong and adaptive that they can find those exits everywhere. They can find the right way and they can adapt to any changes of the world, of the economy, of digital things. So they will get the most from it, believe me. The only thing is I feel it’s the time to focus on our health, our mental health. And in work, we need to focus on quality content, really personalized quality content, experienced influencers, data-driven strategies. And we need to make authentic partnerships. We need to stand out with all that and everything will be okay. Chris – mThink (50:57) In some ways, I think that that’s a perfect description, a perfect way to finish our conversation. And in some ways, I think it’s a perfect description of the industry as well. The great thing about affiliate marketing, performance marketing is that everybody adapts, everybody is flexible, everybody evolves, and the fittest survive. And yeah, so here’s hoping we all survive. All right, Natalie of ClickDealer. This conversation has been fantastic. It’s been very interesting. This has been a fantastic conversation. I really appreciate you spending time with us. Natalie from ClickDealer, everybody. Reach out to her if you want to make a good friend in the industry who really knows her way around. Natalie, thank you so much. You take care, and I’ll speak to you soon. Nataly – ClickDealer (51:30) We will! Thank you, Chris. Talk to you soon. Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Featured, Revenue Magazine Archive Tagged under: affiliate marketing, affiliate networks, Industry Trends, Interview, podcast About the Author Chris Trayhorn, Publisher of mThink Blue Book Chris Trayhorn is the Chairman of the Performance Marketing Industry Blue Ribbon Panel and the CEO of mThink.com, a leading online and content marketing agency. He has founded four successful marketing companies in London and San Francisco in the last 15 years, and is currently the founder and publisher of Revenue+Performance magazine, the magazine of the performance marketing industry since 2002.