Currently, while affiliate marketing has a high conversion rate, the process suffers from centralization where brands and content publishers go through 3^rd party platforms to interact. As described in the Nasdaq article, an affiliate marketing model includes the merchant, the affiliate network, search engines and the content publisher (the website owner). While this model is widely used, there is no easy way for merchants to track how their advertising budget is spent.

A futuristic solution is to implement blockchain technology in the system. Like in other industries, blockchain has the potential ability to remove middlemen from the transactions side of marketing, where barriers of engagement are removed between merchants and content publishers. The result would shed light into an opaque industry and offer more transparency into the ad buying process.