Affiliate models built on Google traffic face mounting pressure as zero-click search and AI overviews cut into both supply and revenue. Catena Media’s COO Pierre Cadena explains why only differentiated brands will survive-and how the company is adapting.
Affiliate media businesses that rely on renting Google traffic and reselling it on a CPA basis are being squeezed from all sides, according to Pierre Cadena, COO at Catena Media. He points to the rise of zero-click search and stricter operator pricing as dual forces eroding both the volume and value of traditional affiliate traffic. “Zero-click cuts the supply, and operator discipline cuts the price,” Cadena says.
Asked about the best-case scenario for affiliates in a zero-click future, Cadena argues that the winners will be those who evolve beyond the classic affiliate model. Instead, he envisions affiliates transforming into consumer-facing brands and platforms-trusted destinations with their own direct audiences, proprietary products, and first-party data. In this environment, AI actually increases the value of verified trust and genuine expertise, as generic answers become free and ubiquitous.
Operators, Cadena notes, will work with fewer but much stronger partners-companies that deliver higher LTV players and provide data and analytics to optimize acquisition. The result is a smaller but more resilient and strategically mature affiliate ecosystem, which is the direction Catena Media is pursuing.
For those who wait, the outlook is bleak. The old model of renting Google traffic and reselling it on CPA terms is already failing, not with a sudden collapse but through steady decline. “The uncomfortable truth is that for undifferentiated affiliates relying on mass content, the worst-case scenario isn’t a forecast-it’s already happening,” Cadena says. The market no longer rewards this approach, and he sees no sign that will change.
To diversify its marketing strategy, Catena Media is investing in sub-affiliation, infrastructure, partnerships, referrals, newsletters, CRM, social media, and video-channels not dependent on a single platform’s ranking logic. CRM and email are top priorities for their compounding effect: every subscriber represents a relationship the company owns, not rents. The company is also experimenting in new verticals to build early presence and exposure, while keeping its core model insulated from regulatory shifts. The guiding principle is speed-testing, measuring, iterating, and scaling faster than the market changes, rather than making a single big bet every 18 months.
Cadena is clear that affiliates cannot control how Google, search, or distribution evolve. “No one in this industry controls Google, and pretending otherwise is a recipe for getting blindsided,” he says. What affiliates can control is their vulnerability: the mix of channels, product, brand, and learning speed. “You can’t control the weather, but you fully control what you build.” Distribution has splintered from a single “user, Google, click” arrow into a web of direct traffic, newsletters, creators, social, video, partnerships, and AI-powered answers. The affiliates who survive will be those who build audiences across multiple spokes, so that a single platform’s decision can’t break their business.
Building for the future in a zero-click world, Cadena told his team, means four things: diversifying distribution, developing platform-level capabilities, accelerating learning cycles, and investing in brands and direct audience relationships.
AI has forced rapid change at Catena Media. “To be direct and honest: we got hit,” Cadena told Affiliate Leaders, part of SBC Media. Catena Media was built for a world of concentrated search demand, and affiliate businesses based on reviews and scalable content were exactly the target of Google’s core updates and AI Overviews. Industry-wide, click-through rates on AI Overview pages dropped by about 65%, and Catena Media felt the impact.
But Cadena sees clarity as the more important effect. “AI doesn’t kill media business; it kills undifferentiated media business.” The company stopped counting content volume as an asset and started focusing on editorial trust, proprietary products, first-party data, and brand-real defensive moats. Catena Media restructured around four pillars: people, product, profit, and performance. In Q4 2025, revenue grew 53% year-over-year to €15.6 million, with adjusted EBITDA at €4.7 million. AI was a real headwind, but also a catalyst for improvement.
The newest pillar, performance, is about making AI work for the company, not against it. Catena Media is embedding AI and automation across all processes, moving content from source to site faster, using agent workflows to speed up product development, and collaborating with influencers to reach younger audiences on social platforms. The same technology that disrupted the old model is now helping build the new one.
To defend against zero-click, Cadena says affiliates must stop depending on the click itself. “There’s no going back to the search economy of 2019.” The key assets are those that don’t require Google’s permission to reach audiences: direct traffic, branded search, email lists, communities, and products that people return to intentionally. Direct audience relationships act as a buffer when platforms change the rules. Cadena’s rule: no single traffic source should exceed 35-40% of total company traffic. This is the margin that allows affiliates to remain resilient when any one channel comes under pressure. “Zero-click only kills you if your entire business model is renting distribution from someone else’s platform or algorithm.”
Successful affiliates share two traits: they became valuable to both sides of the deal before the shock hit, and they move fast. On the consumer side, they own audience relationships-repeat visits, subscribers, communities-not just search positions. On the operator side, they’ve evolved from traffic resellers to acquisition partners measured by LTV, retention, and compliance, not just first deposits. Speed is the other constant: Google can reshape distribution several times a year, often without warning, and regulation shifts market by market. The companies that protect themselves are constantly running controlled experiments-testing, measuring, iterating, and scaling, instead of relying on 18-month planning cycles.
Catena Media, founded in 2012 and headquartered in Malta, has grown into one of the leading global affiliates in the online gambling and sports betting sector. As of 2025, the company reported annual revenues exceeding €60 million and employed over 300 people worldwide. Catena Media is publicly listed on Nasdaq Stockholm and operates a portfolio of affiliate brands across Europe, North America, and other key markets.
