Jan 22 2007
UK Affiliate Census Results
I’ve been lucky enough to get a sneak preview at the results of the UK affiliate census. It’s very interesting reading and Jess Luthi at Affiliate Program Advice alongside E-Consultancy should be congratulated for the hard work in getting the census to this point. Most of the networks contributed as well but it’s strange to see that one or two of the networks didn’t manage to get involved.
I could make dozens of posts about the different results in the survey but here are a few that I found most interesting
- UK affiliates are 83% male - it does fit with my experience when I think about the affiliate get2gethers but it’s still hard to understand why it’s skewed so heavily this way. In some ways affiliate marketing would be an ideal job for a stay-at-home mum and I keep reading about successful female American affiliates in this position.
- The majority (61%) earn more than £20k if affiliate marketing is considered as their day job which must compare well to the average wage. However a surprising number of part time affiliates are struggling to make anything at all. There really is a gap here where people find it hard to get started in the industry.
- With this in mind though the survey turns to consider the level of education that affiliates have and it was interesting that 50% felt their education had not helped their affiliate marketing career. I am inclined to agree with that. I wish that instead of spending 4 years getting a degree in Computer Science I had just started teaching myself affiliate marketing sooner. Those that do well in affiliate marketing are self taught and there are no short cuts but perhaps networks could offer better support as comments did seem to reflect poorly on the networks.
- I was intruiged that only 14% of affiliates consider themselves to be offering consultancy but from my experience the industry seems to run on free consultancy provided by affiliates. When a network phones an affiliate to get their opinions & ideas on improving a program this to me is free consultancy. When a network asks affiliates to test their new interface or new data feed technology I think this is free consultancy and I do think it’s about time in certain circumstances that networks stopped expecting this for free.
- I also found it interesting to see the various reasons that affiliates would join a program but then not go ahead and get links up to promote the program. The main reason is because of not being able to get hold of the right links and good quality banners. This is definitely something to think about for the merchants that like to kick out inactive affiliates every so often. Maybe they should be looking closer to home?
All in all the survey makes for very interesting reading and will be a great benchmark to build on and compare to results in future years. Well done to all involved.
Read the results here
http://www.e-consultancy.com/publications/affiliate-census
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Exactly who and what is an affiliate?
A simple enough question to ask but certainly not a straight forward one to answer. With so many different “classes” of affiliates ranging from the part time “spare bit of cash” through to the full time professional and the emerging corporate …
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7 comments | Leave your comment | Feed for this Entry
Jan 22nd, 2007 at 5:27 pm | #
To pick up on the free consultancy, as a friend of mine I will often rope you in to test or checkout the latest bit of new kit that Paid On Results has designed for Affiliates as I can trust your comments. I personally think on beta testing of new tools developed to help Affiliates that Affiliates shouldn’t be looking for payment to give feedback as after all these are designed to help you make more money for your business (and of course Network and Merchants in return).
I do think there is a place to be paid for consultancy work such advising Merchants or Networks on improvements they can make to increase sales and the reason for that is simply that these improvements not only effect your Affiliate business but everyone else’s and also the Merchants normal business and so you should be paid something to compensate for the increase in business not directly related to you the Affiliate giving the advice. That said I rather speak up and see improvements in my cash flow even if it effects everyone else positively than to sit back say nothing and see the Merchant go down the tubes over something that is obvious to me but not to them.
I still think Affiliate, Network and Merchant should be trying to work together to always improve things, even if that means putting aside a little time to give pointers or advice, and I know you think the same otherwise you wouldn’t have AffiliateBlog.co.uk as lets face it your helping other peoples businesses without asking for anything in return, your just too nice
Jan 22nd, 2007 at 8:39 pm | #
Fairly interesting read, not too many surprises.
I wouldn’t mind seeing a breakdown of the “Which Network” section, where TD and CJ came out on top, split into “day job” and “spare time” affiliates. It might help clear up the relevancy of the old “we’ve got x,000 affilates” chestnut.
I’d also like to put my hand up as one of the 299 people who agreed with “I have lied to avoid going out just so I can stay at home and work on my website or affiliate campaign”.
Perhaps the one thing that surprised me the most is that so many “spare time” affiliates spend less than an hour a day working at it.
Possibly the biggest benefit of the survey is that it keeps us marching down the road to becoming a respectable member of the marketing community, with proper figures and everything guv!
Jan 23rd, 2007 at 4:04 am | #
Yeah I think you are right Clarke - I don’t fully mean what I had posted but I do think the advice of affiliates is abused sometimes. Certainly not by you or POR for sure but I do think there is space in the market for taking the help & consultancy that affiliates provide a little more seriously.
Chris - the one hour a day stat is definitely interesting. I think people sometimes don’t realise that it’s not easy money. We all have to work hard for it.
Jan 25th, 2007 at 2:34 pm | #
Interesting reading. Half of Affiliates believe that Affiliate Marketing is getting harder over time. If you can’t adapt to the ever changing SEO and industries/sectors you targetting, it will leave you behind, thus become harder.
Also 13% of day job affiliates have more than 5 computers. Why?!
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