Turning Affiliate Data into a 2026 PR roadmap
The top reports to audit 2025 performance, uncover what moved the needle, and a prompt to help you pitch strategically in 2026.
When you read this, there is a high likelihood you are drowning in emails and catching up after being out for the holidays. Welcome back to reality!
Publicists spend so much (read: too much) time reacting to what reporters are working on that it’s a rare day when we stop to strategize. Review what actually worked. What you landed. What you missed. What percentage of Best Of roundups you are in and where your competitors secured the coverage you should have landed. Most people wait until the moment they are about to pitch something again before realizing they didn’t do an audit right after it happened.
So that’s the theme of today’s stack - how to audit your 2025 affiliate performance so you are planning another year based on facts instead of feelings. Most publicists never open affiliate dashboards. But the fact you’re still reading tells us you want to show up differently in 2026. So this is where it starts. Your 2026 strategy is only as strong as your understanding of what worked and what didn’t in 2025.
So, let’s talk about specifically what reports to pull and how to make sense of it. Plus, a fun prompt that will leverage AI to be the affiliate expert assistant.
First, if you are stepping into affiliate data for the first time, do not overthink this. There are hundreds of reports you can look at, so we get it - but there really are a handful of reports that tell you almost everything you need to know to make good decisions and plan a roadmap for 2026.
These five reports tell you a number of things about your program, like:
if the channel is healthy
where you have leverage
where you have untapped potential
When Sarah audits an account, she pulls these every single time. Whether the program looks fine on the surface or has clear issues, these are baseline reports to help you review what worked in 2025, what didn’t, which affiliates are sitting on the sidelines and more.
Let’s walk through each report, what story each one tells, and where to click to find them in the Impact platform specifically.
