Affiliate marketing is still a new and emerging industry. There are Efforts from Shawn Collins, MarketingSherpa and others to report on this industry and define it. Here are some interesting facts and figures about affiliate marketing.
July 22, 2006 | AffiliateFlash
Affiliate Marketing Industry Stats
Source: AffStat 2005 & 2006 Reports
Affiliate Managers:
- nearly two-thirds of in-house affiliate managers earn $40,000 to $80,000 a year
- 75% of marketers manage their affiliate programs in-house
- 30% have reduced the size of their affiliate networks in the past year
- Most affiliate managers rely on an affiliate network or email to recruit affiliates
Is your affiliate program in-house or outsourced?
Source: Internet Retailer
- 65.5% of respondents manage their affiliate marketing internally
- 34.5% outsource all or a portion of affiliate management to an outside provider
- 15.7% of all companies responding to the questionnaire had two to three employees assigned to oversee affiliate marketing
- 3.2% with four to five employees assigned to affiliate marketing
- 3.2% with more than 10 employees assigned to affiliate marketing
Do you let affiliates bid on your brand name? Most don't.
Source: AffStat 2005 & 2006 Reports
- 28% of advertisers allow affiliates to bid on the marketer`s own brand name in search engines.
Affiliate Summit West 2006 Stats
(an affiliate marketing conference held twice a year)
Source: Shawn Collins
Most of the attendees at Affiliate Summit are companies or advertisers. This means they sell something online. Affiliates sign up to promote their products. Most merchants are affiliates also.
- Affiliates - 23% (this is actually higher because many merchants are also affiliates)
- Merchant / Advertiser - 31%
- Affiliate Network / Advertising Network / CPA Network - 34%
- Vendor - 5%
- Staff - 1%
- Press - 2%
- Service Provider - 4%
Most affiliate managers manually approve affiliate applications:
Source: Shawn Collins
- In 2003, 64% of affiliate managers reported that they manually approved applications.
- In 2005 77% of affiliate managers were manually approving their affiliates.
Terms for affiliate marketers.
Source: Shawn Collins
- 60% refer to themselves as affiliates.
- About 25% say they're publishers.
- 8% call themselves partners
- Less than 3% say associates.
- There are a few other random terms like "traffic driving and conversion specialist" or "affiliate partner."
Conversion Rates for Affiliates:
Source: Shawn Collins
- 14% of affiliates generate higher than 5% conversion rates. That's higher than the average of around 3%.
What advertising methods are most popular with affiliates?
Source: Marketing Sherpa
- 19.88% use text links
- 18.80% use banners
- 18.40% use content (articles, reviews, etc)
What affiliates want from merchants:
Source: Marketing Sherpa
- 27% of affiliates asked for better converting landing pages and checkout processes.
- 30.02% want more content from the company they represent. More articles, reviews, videos, white papers
- Money and more frequent payouts is more attractive than better products
- Affiliates want newsletters with facts, not marketing
What defines a "super affiliate"?
Source: Marketing Sherpa
There are roughly 125 true super affiliates total.
Affiliates bring the typical retailer 20% of total revenue online
Source: MarketingSherpa
When affiliates don't get credited for their sales:
Source: OnlineMediaDaily
- 12% of affiliate sales aren't credited because web users delete cookies (so merchants can't track the sale and give credit to affiliates)
Can affiliates negotiate better terms or kickbacks? Most will.
Source: ZDNet Blog quoting Internet Retailer
- 65.2% of survey participants said they offer higher commissions to better-performing affiliates, compared with 34.8% that don't.
- 75.5% of online retailers offer early access to new products to better-performing affiliates.
Content Sites Best Converters from Employment 911's program, but probably applies across the board.
Source: Frederic Thom, affiliate program manager for Employment 911
Affiliate Marketing for Employment Blog
Best paying sites: CONTENT sites
Worst paying sites: Blogs and free sites
"Earning around 70% of all commissions paid, the top-earning category of affiliates is content sites, which are informational websites with useful resources and articles – and I mean valid and original articles, not phony keyword-rich blurbs filled with affiliate links and sandwiched between a bunch of AdSense units."
- Affiliate Marketing for Employment Blog
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