Why Affiliate Marketing Firms LTK and ShopMy Want to Be the Next Social Media Platforms

As search and social algorithms change, two major affiliate marketing platforms, LTK and ShopMy, are eyeing becoming one-stop shopping and social destinations. In July, LTK rolled out new features to its platform including public profiles for consumers and upgraded AI-powered search. Later this summer, LTK plans to launch a two-way messaging feature between creators and consumers. Similarly, ShopMy recently revamped its platform with features like consumer profiles, follows, likes, a consolidated section for creators' ShopMy links across social media platforms, and AI-powered search for consumers. Both companies' main business is connecting brands with creators. But they both see a bigger role to play as social platforms for consumers to find and buy products. LTK and ShopMy's recent moves show how influencer marketing tech companies are evolving into social shopping platforms. Emarketer expects for U.S. social commerce sales to hit $85 billion this year, growing to $101 billion in 2026. "A consumer-focused platform lowers the barrier for consumers who want to easily follow their favorite creators’ recommendations, simplifying the user experience and purchase journey," said Emily Brown, associate director of strategy at Billion Dollar Boy. Why LTK is leaning into social LTK, which was founded in 2011, has long wanted to focus its business on consumers, Amber Venz Box, CEO of LTK, told ADWEEK. By 2013, the company launched the consumer-facing side of the product with creator profiles that consumers could follow through email subscriptions. In 2021, the company received a $300 million investment from Softbank, allowing LTK to invest further in the consumer side of the business, said Venz Box. Venz Box believes that social platforms were never designed to drive a creator’s business because the platforms prioritize their own ad revenue. Plus, TikTok and Instagram's algorithms shifted away from showing a person's followers to showing content based on their interests. LTK’s investment in becoming a social network is a response to the unreliability of reach on other social media platforms, Venz Box said. "We have these massive algorithmic shifts that displace creator content and unbundles their reachable community, which is a creator's business," said Venz Box. Unlike other social media platforms, LTK is positioning itself as a distribution platform for creators to reach their audiences. Its hope is that creators will house their businesses on LTK and use other social media platforms as free marketing channels. Most of LTK's visits now come from direct traffic, meaning that people go to LTK's platform instead of going from a creator's link. In the last 12 months there have been 700 million profile visits, said Venz Box. The aim of the new updates is that creators will no longer have to rely on third-party apps to direct their following to LTK. To do so, creators upload unique content to LTK. According to the company, creators uploaded 7 million pieces of content to the platform last year. The goal of launching public profiles is to move away from consumers discovering products from individual creators in a vacuum. Instead, LTK aims to help consumers discover a broader array of products—akin to a social platform. "Connecting with your friends and seeing the content and products that your friends like and the people that they follow is actually one of the best ways to drive trust," said Venz Box. It isn’t just changes to social media algorithms that LTK is responding to. Venz Box is also considering the proliferation of AI content on social media and AI-generated search results. “It’s so important to have a place for consumers where they know the creators are real humans making real recommendations," Venz Box said. "We’ve tripled down on trust as we think about life in the age of AI." LTK is betting that consumers aren’t going to turn to AI to find out what’s cool. Instead, creators will become more valuable as tastemakers and curators. Venz Box hopes that LTK’s new search feature will help consumers when they're looking for products to buy based on creators' recommendations. ShopMy wants to court more consumers ShopMy is taking a similar approach to LTK and betting against algorithmic-based shopping. Its new tagline is “curated by the obsessed not the algorithm.” ShopMy launched in 2020, and in January the company raised $77.5 million in Series B funding. Prior to the recent updates, consumers could only go to a single influencer’s account and they couldn’t search for items, other creators, or save products. Now the platform operates more like a social media platform with a feed of all the products the creators someone is following recommend. “ShopMy is about human recommendations and taste,” said Harry Rein, ShopMy’s cofounder and CEO. More broadly, the changes that ShopMy and LTK have made make affiliate marketing less disjointed for consumers, said Emma Gottdiener, senior paid media manager at creator agency Buttermilk. Gottdiener said that ShopMy and LTK's tools help facilitate longer-term brand partnerships, which marketers have realized are more valuable because they're viewed as more authentic to consumers. "These platforms aim to shift the power away from the algorithm and bring back the human touch," said Gottdiener.

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