Observed Signal · Sep 25, 2026 · Hiring · Source: Hello Partner · Impact: 2/5 · Sentiment: Positive
Reward Gateway | Edenred Hires Annie Gateva as Partnerships Head
Reward Gateway | Edenred has appointed Annie Gateva as Head of Partnerships – Emerging, strengthening its UK affiliate team. Gateva, who previously worked at Reward Gateway and on the client side, will focus on improving brand-publisher collaboration. In an interview, she discusses key trends in affiliate marketing, including a shift away from last-click attribution towards non-last-click models, the importance of treating affiliates as a channel rather than a cost of sale, and the challenges of marketing mix modelling (MMM) which often fails to capture the true influence of discovery and education efforts. She also highlights the growing significance of audience insights over pure tracking, and advocates for brands to build strong, honest partnerships with publishers to maximize ROI and differentiate during peak periods like the Golden Quarter.
The appointment of a new partnerships lead at a major employee benefits and affiliate marketing platform (Reward Gateway | Edenred) signals continued investment in UK affiliate marketing and highlights strategic shifts towards non-last-click models and audience insights, which are relevant for brands and publishers in the performance marketing space.
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Key Takeaways & Evidence Grounding
- Annie Gateva has joined Reward Gateway | Edenred as Head of Partnerships – Emerging.
- Gateva brings experience from both client-side and agency-side roles in the affiliate industry.
- The company is investing in its UK affiliate team as part of this hire.
- Reward Gateway | Edenred published the research report “The Offer Economy: Golden Quarter 2026”.
- The appointment was announced on September 25, 2026.
Ontology Mapping & Concepts
Related Market Signals & Shifts
Recent verified developments and strategic activity across this market segment.
Affiliate Reframes Selling Point in AI Era
Hello Partner's 23 June 2026 newsletter covers how affiliate marketing is repositioning amid AI and LLM disruption. It includes an interview with OpenAttribution Director Alex Springer on treating affiliate as a set of distinct channels that tie influence to measurable outcomes, coverage of Adtraction's acquisition of Affiliate Future and the establishment of a new UK organisation, and analysis of retail media and affiliate convergence. The newsletter highlights industry events (IPX, Partnership Day, Creatorfest) and publisher responses to LLMs, and reports that the Affiliate & Partner Marketing Association (APMA), led by founder Kevin Edwards, is launching a survey into the impact of Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) on affiliate budgets and channel perception.
Transforming Affiliate Marketing: Data-Driven Growth Strategies Unveiled
The OMR article summarizes an OMR Virtual Panel and practical case studies showing how affiliate marketing has evolved from a discount- and last-click‑driven channel into a data‑driven growth program spanning the full customer journey. Panelists from Awin, Kupona, Acceleration Partners and Vision Healthcare argue that affiliate now includes content publishers, influencers, cashback and price-comparison sites, onsite tech (recommendation widgets, cart assistants), loyalty and BNPL partners. Key recommendations: integrate tech partners into the purchase phase, prioritise new‑customer tracking and differentiated commissions, and adopt multi-touch attribution or shared attribution models rather than pure last‑click. Three cases illustrate impact: Kupona’s Rebounce recovers bouncers with measurable clicks and conversions; Le Col scaled affiliate to raise share of e‑commerce revenue and new‑customer rates; Vision Healthcare (Bärbel Drexel) moved to full‑funnel attribution and saw large uplifts in new‑customer sales. The piece positions affiliate marketing as a stable, measurable growth lever when governed by data and appropriate partner remuneration.
Partnership Day: Affiliate Remains Important in New Paradigm
Hello Partner summarised key takeaways from Partnership Day on July 2, 2026, where industry leaders argued that affiliate marketing will remain important despite challenges from AI, attribution loss, and margin pressure. Panels discussed a shift to a "machine‑mediated market," the need for new governance and measurement standards, and the rise of hybrid roles such as "marketing engineers." Speakers highlighted large attribution gaps — e.g., loveholidays reported 43 untracked conversions for every one tracked conversion and Acquire reported up to 65% of purchases unattributed — and advocated hybrid compensation models instead of last‑click-only payouts. The event also emphasised preserving human oversight (summarised as HMH: Human, Machine, Human), moving to full‑funnel thinking, and exploring tools and closed‑loop systems to better connect upstream AI influence to downstream commercial outcomes.
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