My AWasia 2025 Journey

It’s time for the annual AWasia summary once again.

Last year, I said my plan for this year was to casually browse around, but this year I established a partnership with PropellerAds, so it turned into browsing with small tasks. Even so, this year’s main theme was still relatively relaxed and enjoyable. Meeting AMs, meeting online friends I’ve known for years but never met in person, discussing the industry, changes, and trends - it was both enlightening and interesting.

This Year vs Last Year

More attendees, more booths, and next year Affiliate World will add another North American event, increasing from 3 events per year to 4. These all indicate that the industry is still on an upward trend. This year they also added an EcomWorld next door. Although it was quite quiet there - after all, it’s the first year and it was organized as an add-on - it might be better next year when more people know about it. The organizers probably want to separate black hat and white hat more clearly, because the current Affiliate World is filled with iGaming and Adult content, which has caused many Ecom-related participants to stop attending.

Trends I’ve Observed

This year, I talked with many industry friends including affiliate managers, affiliates, agencies, and traffic source AMs about changes in 2025 and perspectives on 2026 trends. Most people believe that Leadgen is becoming increasingly strong, AI is becoming increasingly critical, and search arbitrage is becoming increasingly difficult. Below I’ll share the trends I’ve observed - personal opinions for reference only.

mVAS

mVAS itself is also mainly focused on Tier3. With economic development and the diversification of payment methods, I personally believe mVAS doesn’t have much room for growth, and compliance requirements are becoming increasingly strict. Except for advertisers with special relationships, it’s quite difficult for others. In my view, this type of offer is currently only suitable for beginners with tight budgets to learn the process as an entry-level choice, not suitable for long-term work, because mVAS itself is very unstable with a short lifecycle. Some PIN API types are suitable for affiliates with some technical knowledge, but overall it’s best used for learning, not for deep investment.

Dating

For beginners, it’s become very difficult to play. Now many people in Adult are doing it through traffic arbitrage. It’s hard for beginners to scale this type of offer directly. Those who scale big are no longer just playing with Adult traffic - they’re doing things more precisely, which isn’t suitable for solo affiliates.

iGaming

According to information from multiple affiliate network AMs, advertisers’ overall LTV (Lifetime Value) is declining, so advertisers are cutting some budgets, and networks are gradually reducing business in this area. Going forward, advertisers will focus more on quality, including CPL and CPA (FTD).

Nutra

What I’ve heard is that due to mids impact, Europe performs better than the US. I don’t run this business myself, so I can’t verify it, but I know some affiliates are indeed doing very well in Germany. Now with AI for translation, small languages are no longer a problem.

Search Arbitrage

Many friends doing search arbitrage are cutting this business because it’s too affected by policy changes. Big players are exiting, small players can’t enter, and I don’t recommend entering either.

Leadgen

This year, affiliate networks discussed home improvement and insurance Leadgen the most - everyone is developing in this direction. Actually, this area has always been good. Perhaps it’s because other payment channel-related types have declined, making this area seem even better. A very important factor in Leadgen is quality, which is also why I don’t like running Leadgen.

Ecommerce

The ecommerce here refers to ecommerce offers, not ecommerce platforms or dropshipping independent sites. This year I had dinner with an ecommerce network owner and AMs, discussing a lot about this direction. This is still a massive market with a high ceiling, suitable for solo affiliates to pursue, especially with AI assistance nowadays. This is a direction that can scale and is relatively stable.

Traffic Types

Push is on a downward trend due to policy reasons, domain flagging, and decreased volume. The nature of the traffic determines this type is difficult to sustain long-term. It’s fine for beginners, but not suitable for deep investment.

Pop - many people say it’s dead, but it’s been “dying” for years and is still doing fine. Many people are still investing in it successfully. You just need to find the right offers/products for it. Overall, it’s better than Push.

Native compliance requirements are getting higher and higher, yet traffic quality is just mediocre. In my view, Native and Meta are both display-type traffic, except Native has more publishers to filter through blacklists and whitelists, while Meta sells traffic from its own platform. Display-type traffic really tests creative ability.

Search, because of active search intent, definitely has the best quality and better stability, but compared to display types, the volume isn’t as large. Of course, for solo affiliates, it’s definitely large enough.

My Recommendations

I pursue long-term stability and want to work in areas that can continue to grow, accumulating digital assets like websites, email lists, etc. These are difficult in the black hat space but much easier in the white hat space, and everyone likes them - whether it’s traffic sources (Meta, Google, Native), agency accounts, or networks. No need for cloaking, no need to fight platforms, truly bringing value, with a high enough ceiling.

For newcomers, pop/push are suitable for practice, for familiarizing yourself with the entire Media Buy process, such as tracking postbacks, etc. But once you’ve figured out the process and want to do something more long-term rather than chasing hot trends, I strongly recommend developing in the white hat direction, which includes ecommerce/home improvement/insurance and other areas allowed by traffic platform policies.

My Reflections

Based on the losses I’ve experienced this year, I believe discovering profit points and rapidly scaling is very important. When you have an idea, you need to act on it quickly. I often miss good opportunities because I act too slowly. Think more in terms of OKRs rather than setting vague KPI goals.

Learn to subtract, don’t try to do everything. Instead, focus on doing one business well, doing it to the extreme, then expand to others. This year I will focus more on my own business, focus on executing my ideas, pushing forward quickly and failing fast.

Conclusion

The industry changes very rapidly, and no one can predict the future, such as policy changes - no one knows when policies will change. As affiliates, we must constantly learn, try to choose areas with higher certainty to persist in long-term, create content that can accumulate, and avoid investing too much energy in directions with low certainty that are easily affected by policies.

Information gaps will always exist. Every time I attend a conference, I hear about business directions I’ve never heard of before, and many things I thought were impossible. I enjoy attending conferences and communicating with people because it allows me to see a lot of content and directions I didn’t know before, and these insights and reflections may generate some interesting ideas for me to execute.

See you in Bangkok next year!

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