Tapfiliate: AI Overviews Are Eating over 50% of Clicks - How to Future-Proof Your Affiliate Content

CHICAGO, July 29, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Across multiple independent datasets, AI Overviews consistently reduce clicks to product and review pages by 15–35% (and sometimes even over 50%). Until Google provides clear attribution and CTR reporting for AIO links, brands should anticipate continued leakage and adapt their SEO and merchandising strategies accordingly. Tapfiliate, one of the leading affiliate tracking and management platforms for marketers and entrepreneurs, shares insights and ways to secure clicks amidst the AI revolution.

Tapfiliate customers observed a decline in traffic from product review websites - approximately 64% of e-commerce brands reported shifting their affiliate marketing strategies from product reviews to UGC (user-generated content).

They are also shifting their paradigm: from clicks to visibility, reach, and awareness. Nonetheless, cashback services, promocodes and coupon services are keeping good performance and can't be overshadowed by AI Overviews. Impressions are the new clicks: treat Google Search Console impression loss or gain as a leading KPI.

With the rise of clickless searches, media-buying affiliates increased their activities last quarter. Around 37% of businesses reported receiving more traffic from affiliates focused on search ads (Google and Bing). Brands should keep in mind that even top-ranked pages and content-packed blogs no longer guarantee traffic. AI Overviews will show up on the very top and summarise crucial parts of your website's content preventing a user from ever reaching it directly.

At a time of such groundbreaking changes, cooperation with Tapfiliate allows brands to instantly identify traffic sources that are starting to bring in more orders and direct the efforts of the marketing team to them. Also, close collaboration with publishers helps businesses quickly change their approach to those tools that have been affected by the changes.

Higher-intent, non-branded queries are the most vulnerable. Searches like "best budget espresso machines" or "iPhone 17 vs Galaxy S25" almost always trigger an AIO summary that aggregates multiple sources. According to Similarweb's data, 69% of Google searches end without a click.

Meanwhile, more e-commerce brands are relying on launching referral programs and see a future in them. This year, 18% of Tapfiliate's e-commerce customers decided to initiate a referral program. Tapfiliat's infrastructure allows businesses to quickly launch their referral program in just a couple of days, without spending large budgets on developing and maintaining their own solutions.

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SOURCE Tapfiliate