Mobile Commerce
.png)
Performance marketers are facing a harsh truth in 2025: the more they spend on social media, the less they get back. According to a recent Taboola and Qualtrics report, nearly 75% of performance marketers are experiencing diminishing returns from social ads. Despite social media ad spend projections soaring to $273 billion by 2026, the return on investment is flatlining. So what’s really going on?
Audience saturation. Rising ad costs. Creative fatigue. These are the culprits eating away at performance marketing budgets. The report found that for most affected marketers, more than 30% of their ad spend is underperforming. That’s not a rounding error, that’s a crisis. And the response from most marketers? Double down on budgets and hope for the best.
But in an environment where audiences are tuning out and costs are creeping up, marketers can’t just outspend the problem. They need to outsmart it.
Affiliate and creator marketing aren’t new. But the way they’re being used is. These channels are emerging as high-intent, performance-driven alternatives to traditional social ads—and they’re proving to be remarkably effective when executed with the right infrastructure.
Unlike standard ads that chase attention, affiliate and creator channels intercept users when they’re already in a shopping mindset. From YouTube reviews to TikTok hauls to blog posts linking to in-app checkout, these touchpoints are closer to the point of conversion than ever before. And the best part? They’re measurable.
Our partners have seen 3x higher conversions by routing traffic through optimized, app-based journeys that deliver what social ads can’t: measurable intent. Partners using Button have seen a 230% conversion rate lift on Instagram, a 175% lift on Facebook/Meta, and a 170% lift on Pinterest—proving that when you match great content with intelligent infrastructure, the results speak for themselves.
One of the biggest barriers to scaling affiliate and creator marketing has been visibility. Traditional affiliate networks and social platforms don’t provide the level of attribution accuracy that performance marketers require.
That’s where commerce optimization platforms like Button come in. With deterministic attribution, smarter deep linking, and real-time data, marketers can finally connect the dots between affiliate and creator posts with in-app purchases.
The solution isn’t to abandon social altogether—it’s to reallocate your budget toward channels that are already working. Here’s what the smartest performance marketers are doing:
It’s time to think differently about what performance means. More impressions aren’t the goal. More conversions are. As audiences evolve and mobile shopping dominates, marketers need tools that connect discovery to purchase seamlessly.
.png)
.png)
