These options include building a solution internally or with a services partner (26%), purchasing a solution and building significant additional functionality (17%), and assembling solutions from packaged modules from a single vendor (23%) or multiple vendors (9%). One-Quarter Of Decision-Makers Opt To Build Internally When Switching Providers A comparative bar chart shows how organizations acquired their POS software versus how they plan to change providers.

However, those planning a change are notably more likely to build internally or with a services partner (26%), signaling increased interest in tailoring capabilities to support more complex or bespoke billing models and requirements. At the same time, reliance on multivendor assembly is declining.

With affiliate marketing, shipping, customer service, payments, and returns remain merchants’ risks to bear. For now, AI-integrated affiliate marketing helps consumers replenish staples from merchants like Walmart. As consumers grow more confident in answer engines’ value, consumers will make bigger purchases via affiliate links on answer engines’ results pages.

Creator-led affiliate marketing budgets will double. Affiliate marketing is one of the fastest-growing strategies within the creator economy as brands try to scale their programs to drive sales volume. Companies like Walmart and Amazon run creator programs that include tens of thousands of creators monetizing their followers with affiliate links. Last year, half (51%) of US B2C marketing executives who invested in creator programs funded them with affiliate marketing budgets.

These ad tests coincide with early experimentation in affiliate marketing as answer engines push further into commerce. Ads In Answer Engines Risk Little Churn From Free Users A graph showing that from our survey of 364 online adults in the US, UK, and Canada who use the free tier of an answer engine, most (83%) free-tier answer-engine users would continue using the platform even if ads were added.

Perplexity, Google, and OpenAI all plan to monetize via sponsored results and questions or affiliate marketing. Plus, as shopping and other commerce experiences mature on genAI platforms, consumers will explore or buy products via shopping assistants or genAI chatbots on retailers’ sites. All this changes how your brand shows up online in 2026. Get ahead of it now by prioritizing customer understanding to capitalize on new expressions of intent.

Figure 1 Creator Marketing Budgets Come From Many Places According to Forrester’s Q3 B2C Marketing CMO Pulse Survey, 2024, organizations fund their creator/influencer programs through various budgets, including public relations, affiliate marketing, paid media, organic social media, and content/creative production. This graphic has an associated spreadsheet that includes all data presented. Please access the spreadsheet for details.

Using SEO, paid advertising, and affiliate marketing that focuses on targeted users instead of buyers, even traditional sales-led organizations can leverage PLG elements to speed user growth and point sales to qualified opportunities across companies and market segments. Leverage these PLG tactics to speed broad user adoption: Build network effects that generate exponential user growth.

A multidimensional creator program with hundreds, or even thousands, of creators demands an ecosystem of strategic and technical support from agencies and tech partners. In Forrester’s Marketing Survey, 2024, 26% of B2C marketing decision-makers said that their organization currently uses an influencer marketing platform; 26% plan to use one in the next 12 months.

It’s a business necessity for advertisers and partners under budget and revenue pressure. When marketing, agency, and media executives apply transparency, principal media can be a winning strategy for all involved. This report helps media and other marketing executives understand how to apply disclosures to principal media programs.