Our program for the Affiliate Conference 2025 in Berlin
09:00 a.m.
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10:00 a.m.
Registration & networking breakfast
Check in, into the world of Affiliate Conference.
10:00 a.m.
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10:15 a.m.
Greeting
In 2025, we look forward to welcoming our sponsors, supporters and guests to the Affiliate Conference through René Roth and our moderator Dimitrios Haratsis.
You can find our sponsors and supporters 2025 here. If you would still like to join us, please send an email to: events@oliro.com
Dimitrios Haratsis (moderator) / René Roth (Oliro GmbH)
10:15 a.m.
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10:45 a.m.
Keynote: The Great Affiliate Reset
Affiliate marketing is at a crossroads. Drawing on exclusive APMA research from nearly 300 industry professionals, Kevin Edwards reveals how the Perception, Performance, and Capability Gaps are shaping the future of the channel. From shifting boardroom attitudes to the rise of AI and compliance as growth drivers, this session explores what needs to change for affiliate marketing to earn its rightful strategic place and how the industry can reset for a more confident, data-driven future.
Kevin Edwards
The APMA
10:50 a.m.
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11:40 a.m.
1st workshop slot
- Music Hall 4: Global Growth Playbook: Scaling Affiliate Marketing Across Borders (CJ, Jonathan Finke &
Giulia Toscano) - Raum Soul: We track everything – except trust: What affiliate marketing can learn from couples therapy (lead alliance, Kathrin Siegel)
10:50 a.m.
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11:10 a.m.
The future of association work in affiliate & partner marketing – quality, image, lobbying
Affiliate and partner marketing has developed rapidly in recent years – technologically, strategically and in interaction with other channels. Nevertheless, the industry has so far lacked a unified voice and clear quality standards that create transparency and trust both internally and externally. At the same time, regulatory requirements are increasing, social expectations in terms of responsibility, data protection and sustainability are growing, and the boundaries between affiliate, creator and influencer marketing are becoming increasingly blurred.
The turning point in affiliate marketing
The industry is facing a decisive turning point. The new Affiliate & Partner Marketing Working Group in the BVDW is a central platform for realigning the association’s work and raising the issues of quality, image and lobbying to a new level. The presentation will show how the initiative came about, what its goals are and how advertisers, publishers, agencies, networks and technology providers can be actively involved. The aim is to strengthen cohesion in the industry and jointly create a sustainable, transparent and future-proof structure for affiliate marketing.
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The role of the new Working Group
This is precisely where the new BVDW working group comes in: It pools the industry’s strengths, networks expertise and resources and acts as a strong, effective unit. The aim is to take affiliate marketing out of its niche, correct misunderstandings and make its relevance to the digital ecosystem clearly visible.
André Koegler
impact.com
Markus Wigbels
easy Marketing
11:10 a.m.
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11:30 a.m.
Short discussion round on industry standards, affiliate reputation and lobbying
Participants:
- Tim Lomborg (Awin)
- André Koegler (impact.com)
- Markus Wigbels (easy Marketing)
- Malte Hasse (BVDW)
Moderator: Ingo Kamps (Munich Online Rebels)
11:30 a.m.
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12:15 pm
Networking coffee break & speed networking powered by 
12:15 pm
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1:05 pm
2nd workshop slot
- Music Hall 4: Publisher Audit & Trends 2026 (impact.com, Florian Gruhne & Sabrina Stiller)
- Room Soul: AI-supported, demand-driven publisher recruiting: From data signals to activated partnerships (Daisycon (part of Linehub), Lino Richter)
12:15 pm
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12:35 pm
SMEs first: Affiliate marketing as a growth driver Special features, opportunities and success factors for SMEs in the platform economy
The SME sector ticks differently. And that is precisely what makes it so exciting for affiliate marketing. Small and medium-sized companies have different priorities than large corporations: budgets are tighter, decision-making processes are shorter and resources are more limited. At the same time, it is precisely this dynamic that opens up enormous opportunities for networks, publishers and agencies that take this target group seriously.
Marcus Seidel shows in a practical way what is important for affiliate programs for SMEs: from simple setups and personal support to transparent communication and smart remuneration models. Specific cases are used to illustrate which channels are particularly effective for SMEs – whether quick leverage via voucher and deal pages or sustainable strategies via content formats.
Find out moreThe
topics covered include:
What SMEs expect from affiliate marketing – from ease of use to personal support.
Why transparency and trust are key factors in retaining these advertisers in the long term.
Which channels pay off particularly well for SMEs (deals for quick results, content for sustainable ROI).
How budgets, tracking and remuneration models can be tailored to the reality of smaller companies.
What role agencies play in relieving the burden on SMEs and enabling scaling.
The presentation provides tangible recommendations for action for all players in the affiliate ecosystem who want to tap into SMEs as a growth area – and shows how special requirements can be turned into real opportunities.
Marcus Seidel
ADCELL
12:40 pm
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1:00 p.m.
Benefit from recommendations: How brands use test portals strategically
Brands today find it difficult to become visible in search engines purely organically. Tests and recommendations on renowned test portals offer a strong lever here: those who impress in a test gain visibility, including in SEO snippets and AI overviews, and thus also strengthen trust in the brand, even without their own strong rankings. At the same time, a recommendation or a test win benefits from an above-average conversion rate. The presentation will use concrete figures and examples to show the impact test reports can have on reach, sales and visibility. It will also discuss how pricing and the choice of stores for a product influence traffic share – for example, when dominant players such as Amazon are involved.
Tobias Sökefeld
F.A.Z. Kaufkompass
1:05 pm
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1:25 pm
TikTok Shop as new customer access – seize opportunities, preserve data sovereignty
TikTok has long been more than just an entertainment platform – with the TikTok Shop, direct checkout is coming to the fore and changing the way customers are reached and purchasing decisions are made. Already commonplace in Asia, social commerce also offers the DACH market an opportunity to establish new, scalable customer access beyond traditional platform gatekeepers.
But the fast track to checkout comes at a price: brands risk losing valuable customer data to the platform and thus weakening their direct customer relationship. The presentation shows how advertisers can combine social commerce with affiliate strategies to leverage reach and creator power without giving up data sovereignty.
Find out more
Participants will receive concrete insights from international best practices, practical recommendations for getting started and a clear classification of how social commerce in combination with affiliate marketing can become a lever for data-driven, scalable and independent customer access.
Daniel Kocher
MAI xpose360
1:25 pm
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2:40 pm
Networking lunch sponsored by
2:40 pm
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3:30 pm
3rd workshop slot
- Music Hall 4: More than Last Click: Strategic cooperation in affiliate marketing (Awin, Steffen Grunwald)
- Raum Soul: Why “direct buying” solves many affiliate marketing problems and why networks should offer it. (everysize.com, Eugen Falkenstein)
2:40 pm
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3:00 p.m.
When Google turns off the tap: Why brand ambassadors are now the bridge to customers
Google is changing the rules of the game – checkout is being cut, data flows are being restricted and dependencies are increasing. For brands, this means that those who rely solely on platforms will lose their direct line to the customer. In this presentation, David Odenthal shows why brand ambassadors & platform economies are the new bridge to building trust, creating reach and developing stable customer relationships. He combines psychology, behavioral economics and practical examples from affiliate and referral marketing. The result: a strategy with which brands can grow independently of Google and generate genuine loyalty.
David Odenthal
konversion.digital GmbH
3:05 pm
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3:25 pm
Data. Dialogs. Deals. – What happens when the Agentic Commerce Protocol rewires commerce?
The way in which people discover and buy products is changing radically.
With the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) for the first time real Conversational check-outs possible: AI systems such as ChatGPT can find, compare and order products directly – without having to go through a website or traditional advertising.
This changes everything.
For brands and retailers, this means that Only those who structure their product data properly and offer it via PIM, API or MCP servers will be visible at all in this new retail logic.
But this is also precisely where the opportunity lies: if more providers open up and standardize their data, the range of products that can be integrated will grow dramatically – and with it the foundation for new, intelligent forms of affiliate marketing.
Find out more
Contextual added value takes the place of traditional advertising interruptions: services, apps or platforms can directly integrate suitable product offers – exactly where they make sense in terms of content.
This massively increases the likelihood of closing a deal – and opens up new ways of refinancing beyond advertising and subscription models.
The Hamburg startup PAIDAI, on whose advisory board Küllenberg sits, is already testing this approach: AI-supported product recommendations are creating new monetization models that focus on user flow and user interest – not banners, pop-ups or paid walls.
Bosse Küllenberg does not regard these developments as a finished model, but rather as a open discussion space:
How is the Agentic Commerce Protocol changing the value of data and partnerships?
Can affiliate marketing become the cornerstone of the Conversational Economy?
And what do we need to do today to be found tomorrow?
Bosse Küllenberg
PAIDAI
3:30 pm
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3:50 pm
AI as a competitive advantage: customized AI applications for sustainable affiliate growth and efficient processes
AI is changing the way companies work and grow – but standard solutions are reaching their limits in terms of data security, customization and scalability. Acceleration Partners sees technology as a force multiplier for thinking, collaboration and performance. With APVision GPT, our privately hosted AI assistant, we enable secure, data-driven decisions and drive faster, smarter and more sustainable growth.
Florian Jetzlsperger
Acceleration Partners
3:55 pm
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4:35 pm
AI Panel: A look into the crystal ball – how will the AI revolution change the way the affiliate industry addresses target groups?
In 2025, all industry participants have arrived: AI is here to stay. The basic concepts of Large Language Models (LLMs) have been widely known and established for years thanks to the groundbreaking success of Chat GPT. At the same time, Google has caught up massively with its continuous progress in terms of performance and speed. These developments are not just technical milestones, but have far-reaching implications for the entire digital economy – including our industry.
What concrete effects do these developments have at a high altitude, and where do they open up completely new opportunities, especially for the affiliate industry? How will the AI revolution transform the way target groups are addressed?
Participants:
- Malte Landwehr – CMO Peec AI
- Torsten Leidloff – Adopt AI Ambassador Artefact
- Max Rose – Managing Director audory
- Bosse Küllenberg – AI expert & head of the BVDW’s AI Techlab
Moderator: Robert Förster – Strategist Affiliate Marketing Projecter
4:35 pm
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5:20 pm
Networking coffee break & speed networking powered by
5:20 pm
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6:45 pm
Presentation of the PerformixX Award 2025
Categories:
- Best network/tracking solution
- Best agency
- Best Advertiser
- Best technical service provider
6:45 pm
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6:55 pm
Closing words and farewell
Dimitrios Haratsis (moderator) / René Roth (Oliro GmbH)
7:00 p.m.
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11:59 pm
Affiliate NetworkxX evening event
