Where did January go?

As I write this, it is January 26, and the month is nearly over. WTF?

I guess a lot has been happening. 😃 

On Dec 4th, we welcomed our newest addition

Fess Maverick DeGrange

He is doing very well, 7 weeks old. So we are now a party of 5!

Between welcoming him, the holidays, Affiliate Summit, the super flu, and now the winter storm “Fern.” 🥶 

Alas, the show must go on.

I know you are eagerly awaiting issue #74 of the RBL Flywheel Newsletter. As you know, it’s a mix of my views on growth, performance marketing, SaaS, and partner (affiliate) marketing.

Let’s review 2025!

RBL 2025 Performance

How did Round Barn Labs perform?

• 48% year-over-year revenue growth.

• We refined our world-class service, and we built technology to complement it.

• Launched TruPartner Score™ - a proprietary algorithm to improve the match between brand and partner to increase authenticity and revenue.

• Released the leading GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) solution (service+ tech) to increase exposure and rankings in Chat GPT and leading LLMs.

• 9.4/10 client satisfaction score

• 42 months average client retention

• Emerged as a trusted leader for innovative SaaS brands like Superhuman, Atlassian, and Google Workspace.

2025 Year In Review

• Trust is still key: people are becoming increasingly “blind” to ads and prefer trusted recommendations from authentic third parties over brands themselves, which makes the affiliate and partner marketing lever critical.

• Affiliate is hot - Interest and growth in affiliate marketing are driven by AI and GEO, as brands seek trusted third-party content to improve their rankings in LLMs like ChatGPT. AI growth has made affiliate marketing a main course in performance marketing, and it is no longer just an appetizer.

• Connected TV continues to grow and perform, as seen in Pinterest’s acquisition of TV Scientific.

• Agency + Network is best - Networks continue to report that brands that use reputable agencies perform much better than those that use networks. Brands that combine the best of networks and agencies simply grow much more effectively than those that do not.

• SaaS is the most lucrative and high-growth opportunity in affiliate and partner marketing

  • SaaS businesses that build AI into their products are ripping

  • Partners and affiliates that add value can earn commissions in perpetuity and earn higher amounts due to a higher margin and LTV than many consumer brands

• PR, Affiliate, and SEO continue to converge and need alignment more than ever, amid the challenges and opportunities of GEO and AI.

• Honey is out - Rakuten, Impact, and AWIN have all removed Honey from their network. The browser extension partner and deal site were removed for violating network terms and deliberately avoiding promotional method detection.

• Think outside the click

  • This topic is so important and juicy we will dedicate a future newsletter to it

  • More and more brands and thoughtful practitioners are improving their attribution models and implementing MMM (Marketing Mix Modeling) to assess which marketing is credited and which is deemed incremental.

• Server-to-server is in - PartnerStack, Impact, and AWIN have leaned into the importance of accuracy for partners and all ecosystem players. As cookies and pixels become less accurate over time, server-based tracking is a critical way to ensure brands, partners, and networks have accurate tracking to show the value of the ecosystem.

2025 Predictions Grade?

B+

2025 predictions with the corresponding fact check…

1. Google Search will lose market share to 75%, down from 88%, and AI responses will be involved in >50% of Google queries.

   1. Google's market share dipped but stabilized at 78-91% by late 2025, rather than collapsing to 75% from 88%. Wrong

   2. AI Overviews appeared in 18-60% of U.S. queries, exceeding your >50% call as adoption surged. Right

2. Content-focused affiliates will not die; they will shift.

   1. Content affiliates adapted rather than dying, with authentic human content gaining premium value amid AI noise; investments grew steadily. B2B SaaS affiliate programs expanded robustly (15-25% MRR contribution in AI sectors), hitting near my 30% growth mark. Right

3. The value of authentic, human-trusted content will only increase, and affiliate and influencer marketing investments will continue to grow. Right

   1. Global brand investment in influencer marketing grew by roughly 35–36% in 2025 versus 2024, increasing from about 24 billion dollars to around 32–33 billion dollars worldwide.

   2. Affiliate marketing investment grew by 8–12% globally and 11–12% in the U.S. in 2025, depending on the source and whether you look at realized or forecast spend.

   3. One 2025 industry analysis notes that B2B affiliate programs (explicitly including enterprise software and SaaS providers) grew about 17% in 2025 as these companies leaned more into affiliate channels.​

   4. SaaS‑specific affiliate benchmarks show affiliates contributing roughly 10–20% of MRR for B2B SaaS programs, with many vendors reporting room for further scaling rather than saturation, implying increased budget and resourcing behind these motions in 2025.

4. Video and Audio formats will continue to grow and perform well. Long live YouTube, Shorts, Reels, and Pods! Right

   1. Video/audio boomed: YouTube Shorts, Reels, and pods thrived for engagement.

   2. Short‑form video (TikTok, Reels, Shorts) saw about a 75% increase in global consumption, making it the fastest‑growing content format on social.​

   3. YouTube Shorts reached roughly 2–2.3 billion monthly active users and 70–200 billion daily views, with engagement rates (~5.9%) slightly ahead of TikTok and Reels.

   4. On Instagram, Reels took over user attention and ad inventory: Reels accounted for about 46% of time spent in the app in 2025 (up from 37% in 2024) and hosted most of the platform’s ad impressions.

5. TikTok ban will take effect. Sort of right.

   1. TikTok ban was briefly activated in January 2025 but got extended via Trump executive orders—no full shutdown.

6. Smartphones and social media for kids will decline as parents and schools change policy. Sort of right.

   1. Kids' smartphone/social use rose (62% under-2s on YouTube), bucking your decline prediction.

   2. While the macro trend is unfortunately increasing, there are multiple communities looking to buck the trend and counter the Anxious Generation, such as the “Wait Until 8th pledge” and “Smartphone Free Childhood US.”

   3. By April 30, 2025, at least 11 U.S. states had passed statewide policies that ban or restrict student cellphone use in schools; several more were actively moving similar bills.

7. The power of nostalgia will only grow. Right

   1. Nostalgia absolutely surged in 2025 across ads, social, and culture, and there’s plenty you can point to as proof that “the power of nostalgia will only grow” was a dead‑on prediction.

   2. One analysis notes Forbes data that “80% of millennials and Gen Z are drawn to brands who tap into nostalgia” and that 92% say nostalgia makes ads more relatable, a stat repeated in 2025 nostalgia-marketing primers.​

   3. Multiple marketing and academic pieces describe nostalgia as the strategic language of 2025, especially for Gen Z, calling it “dominating cultural and commercial landscapes” and “here to stay.”

   4. 2025 “best ads” roundups highlight how many top spots leaned on retro callbacks, reboots, or heritage storytelling (Coke, Nike, Levi’s, Apple, Spotify, etc.).

   Nostalgia is having a moment in marketing (link to article)

5. Richness will thrive over minimalist aesthetics Right

   1. “By 2025, maximalism and rich, layered aesthetics were described as ‘taking center stage’ in interiors and ‘here to stay’ in graphic design, with minimalism explicitly on the way out.” Source 

   2. “Design and marketing trend reports flagged ‘Mix & Maximalist,’ saturated hues, pattern‑mixing, and maximalist illustration as core 2025 moves—evidence that richness edged minimalist aesthetics in user preferences.”

5. B2B SaaS: Integrates AI, adopts usage pricing models, and affiliate marketing for SaaS grows 30%! Right

6. We will finally get flying cars Wrong

   1. No widespread "flying cars" in 2025—first consumer model (Alef Model A) pre-ordered, but deliveries start early 2026.

   2. Joby and Archer are launching eVTOL air‑taxi services in cities like Dubai and Miami, moving flying vehicles from airshow demos to actual passenger services by 2026.

7. VC investment will grow by 25% Right

   1. VC funding surged 30% to $425B, beating your 25%.

8. The IPO market will grow by 75%

   1. IPOs grew 36.5% (200+ deals), under your 75%.

9. Telsa will hit $500 Wrong

   1. Tesla ended ~$450-480, shy of $500.

10. BTC will hit $130,000 Wrong

    1. BTC ~$90K, missing $130K.

11. Palantir will hit $100 Right

    1. Palantir topped $190, crushing $100.

5. The biggest winners in performance marketing will be:

   1. YouTube Right

      1. YouTube dominated the reach and was THE performance marketing channel of 2025

      2. By mid‑2025, YouTube clearly exceeded other major streaming platforms like Netflix, Disney+, and Prime Video in overall viewing time, especially on TV screens in the U.S.

      3. Marketers report Shorts and vertical formats delivering around 20% better ROI per dollar than traditional landscape video in many campaigns, giving YouTube a performance edge as consumption shifts to vertical.

   2. Perplexity Right

      1. Ok, so they did not win the market, but as predicted, Perplexity gained AI search traction.

      2. Perplexity went from handling around 230 million search queries per month in August 2024 to about 780 million in May 2025, more than tripling monthly query volume in under a year.

      3. Perplexity’s annual revenue was projected to be around 100 million dollars for 2025, up sharply from roughly 20–35 million in 2024, showing strong monetization on top of usage growth.

      4. The company’s valuation reached roughly 18 billion dollars by early–mid 2025, supported by over 900 million dollars in total funding, which reflects investor conviction that it’s becoming a meaningful AI search player.

      5. Estimates put Perplexity’s AI search market share at around 6.2% in 2025, positioning it as one of the leading independent AI search engines outside of big-tech incumbents.

      6. While they are still far behind ChatGPT and Gemini, they are growing ~40–60% month‑over‑month in late 2025.

   3. Connected TV Right

      1. Money and eyeballs shifted hard to CTV

      2. Streaming/CTV accounted for roughly the mid‑40% share of all TV viewing time in the U.S. by 2025, a massive jump from early‑2020s levels.

      3. CTV ad spend was forecast at low‑ to mid‑$30B in the U.S. in 2025, growing double‑digits year over year and accounting for over a third of total TV ad spend.

      4. Industry reports describe CTV as one of the main engines of overall TV/video ad growth, alongside retail media, with most major categories increasing CTV budgets.

      5. TV Scientific was acquired by Pinterest, reflecting the value of the space and their ability to offer brands ConnectedTV on a Cost Per Purchase basis (performance-based model)

   4. An actively managed, well-diversified affiliate and influencer program (B2B SaaS, especially). Right

      1. Diversified B2B SaaS affiliate/influencer programs excelled

2025 Recap

Ok gang, on my 2025 predictions, I batted about .700: I was very right on the big arcs (AI in search/SaaS, affiliates + influencers, YouTube and CTV, VC’s comeback, partner marketing), but over‑confident on a few specific numbers and hero bets (Google share collapse, IPOs +75%, Tesla/BTC targets, flying cars actually showing up in 2025).

It was a great year for RBL, and for our industry, and in our next episode, we will outline predictions for 2026!