The Death of Retail Public Relations and Affiliate Marketing

Here at She’s SINGLE Magazine, we—like many other media outlets—have made it nearly impossible for retail publicists to contact us, and here’s why. Public relations isn’t dead depending on your industry, but what is dead is exploitative journalism. Journalists and media conglomerates are waking up to the fact that, in the digital age, we’re still considered valuable and prestigious, but that value isn’t reflected in our bank accounts. Media is a business like any other—it has to be profitable. Yet nowadays, every retail publicist seems to think they can convince clients to shell out thousands of dollars a month, plus more for affiliate platforms, all for the sake of “organic media placements.”

That concept is dead, and we’re glad. Journalists, bloggers, and media outlets—we are the endgame. We’re the ones your publicist promises you, yet we’re the ones who receive nothing in the end—not a cup of coffee, not a thank-you, and certainly not a dollar. Think about it. Let’s say you own a skincare brand, and people want clear skin because they know the benefits of it and want to look and feel their best. Instead of paying you directly for your skincare products, they pay a middleman to contact you and tell you that sending your products to some stranger is somehow a good idea and that asking to be compensated is “unethical.” Welcome to journalism. It makes absolutely no sense. It’s exploitation at its finest.

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Brands have been conditioned by PR firms and affiliate platforms to believe that “earned” placements are a smart or budget-friendly way to gain visibility—but they’re not. To be fair, if a journalist is genuinely looking for a story, they might accept your brand and write about it. But guess what else they’ll do? They’ll make the backlink a no-follow link, which, in the world of SEO, doesn’t benefit you anyway. Meanwhile, the brand shares that article all over social media. Sure, the media platform may get some traction, but AdSense doesn’t pay much, and social media followers don’t equal revenue.

Brands are told to get exposure without paying for ads, forgetting that exposure comes from someone else’s time, platform, and editorial credibility. Not to mention, setting up affiliate accounts can cost a brand upwards of $750—only for them to then contact us asking for a backlink. It’s laughable at best. We’re not bitter; we’re smart. We know the power we hold and the benefits of working with us. Media outlets are no longer laying down and allowing PR firms to steamroll us in favor of influencers and affiliate platforms.

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With us, our editorial placements reach real readers, deliver measurable SEO impact, and build brand equity. Never in the history of business should that kind of value be deemed worth zero dollars. Transactional exposure from Google Ads and Facebook/Meta Ads is great and widely accepted, yet these platforms continue to lose users year after year. Deceased accounts are never removed, and people have spoken out heavily about skipping “sponsored” links in Google search results to find actual, credible information.

How is none of this enough to convince businesses that something needs to change in their marketing if they want to be successful? PR firms are focused on their bottom line and fast turnarounds, even if their pitches don’t align with their client’s niche, get buried under ads, or go to outlets that aren’t credible. Media outreach should never be a lazy endeavor, because the goal for journalists and media outlets is to make money. So if one brand is an organic placement and another is a paid placement, guess who gets treated better—pushed on the website, promoted on social media, featured in newsletters, and mentioned through word of mouth?

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I can honestly say I’ve done this. We’ve had a brand consistently work with us—from providing items for our cover girl shoots to investing in articles—and in return, we’ve promoted the brand on and offline. If a friend says they need new shoes, I’ll say, “Hey, I order from this brand. Let me send you their website.” Just like that, they’ve gotten an organic sale from their paid partnership with us. Paid placements go far beyond the website. They establish a relationship, build trust, and serve as a thank-you—not only for recognizing the value of our work but also for respecting us enough to compensate us for it.

Media outlets don’t dislike publicists, and the industry isn’t dying, but it definitely needs restructuring if it plans to stay afloat in a world where journalists are realizing that this can be a profitable career. We deserve appreciation for our work and the time we spend perfecting our craft. Publicists aren’t working for free or for a cup of coffee—they want your money to do exactly what you could do for far less.

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Picture this: you’ve spent $6,000 in one month at a PR firm for your beauty brand, only for them to charge extra to send a press release through PR Newswire and email us—the very people who are going to ignore them anyway because they’re strangers asking us to make their client money while we get nothing, not even a thank-you most of the time. But if you took that same $6,000 and pitched media outlets or specific journalists yourself while offering an editorial fee, you’d see faster, better results—and your brand would scale much quicker.

Just my two cents.
by Riley Cook