Affiliate Marketing Statistics 2024: Industry Size and Report

In the book “Affiliate Marketing Success,” some secrets white label to becoming a successful affiliate marketer were mentioned. Whenever a post with the affiliate feature enabled is made, a text stating “eligible for commission” will appear below their username, close to the sponsored content labels. Several affiliate marketers have confirmed using the Instagram affiliate marketing program. Affiliate marketing is seen as an effective form of advertising from customers to companies, with links generating over 5 billion clicks per year. And these clicks matter, resulting in 170 million purchases and 63% of affiliate marketers saying they “strongly agree” that affiliate marketing is great for drawing in new customers.

Affiliate Marketer Profiles, Demographics, & Team Dynamics

With up to 20% of yearly profits coming from affiliate strategies, it’s clear that businesses are relying heavily on this channel. The longevity of affiliate marketers highlights the sustainability and long-term potential of the industry. While many affiliates generate modest incomes, a https://www.xcritical.com/ small percentage earn substantial amounts, demonstrating the lucrative possibilities for high-performing affiliates. They have over 250k writer accounts, 75k energetic in 165 international locations.

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Meanwhile, low-tier affiliate marketing managers typically earn $42,000 annually. Affiliate networks act as intermediaries between merchants and affiliates. They provide a platform for merchants to list their affiliate programs, and for affiliates to find products to most profitable affiliate programs promote. Networks manage the tracking, reporting, and payment, simplifying the process for both parties.

Bluehost, a web hosting platform, paid over $5M in commissions

Nevertheless, this data reveals how influencer marketing implemented in the form of affiliate marketing can be an effective marketing strategy for brands. This is one of the most consistent affiliate marketing trends as the lifestyle niche also made up the highest market share of Instagram affiliate marketers (11.59%) in the previous year’s survey. In this post, we list the top affiliate marketing statistics brands and publishers alike can use to optimize their marketing strategies. New bloggers, influencers, and brand owners would need a host to set up their websites. Web hosting affiliate programs are popular among publishers because, for a minimal fee, they can earn per referral. More female content creators and influencers are learning the trade, which can reduce the gap in the coming years.

Only 5% of US marketing directors said that their attempted affiliate programs turned out to be not successful. One case study depicted affiliate marketing conversion rates are between 0.5% and 1%. Conversion rates vary greatly from industry to industry, and the majority of affiliates don’t offer to share their conversion rate, so this affiliate marketing statistic is tough to gather accurately. A surprising 20% of brands work with 5 or more networks, while some work with two (23%), three (39%) or four (12%). It’s based on numerous factors like what competitors are on the platform, which brands they can connect to, and more. While 83% target those discovering the brand, 79% target potential buyers during the conversion or purchasing phase.

Statista reported estimates of exponential growth in digital advertising fraud worldwide between 2018 and 2023, from $35 billion to $100 billion. It was predicted to reach $13.8 billion in the US in 2020.With the growing digitization of processes, including those in advertising, comes a growing risk of fraud. Today when more and more ads are traded programmatically, fraud detection processes are not yet fully developed, and so the bulk of advertising ends up being served to bots instead of potential customers.

Yes, anyone can become an affiliate marketer, but success requires dedication, research, and a strategy. Affiliates need to have or build a platform (such as a website, blog, or social media presence) where they can promote affiliate products or services. YouTube and podcasts are also gaining traction, with high engagement and sales, signaling the potential for brands to diversify across multiple content types. The increased allocation of marketing budgets to influencer campaigns indicates the industry’s growing importance in overall marketing strategies. This contains the $303.4 million raised particularly in 2021 by software program platforms centered on the internet online affiliate marketing business. Note that in accordance with Crunchbase internet online affiliate marketing firms have raised a complete of $1.3 billion from 198 funding rounds total, 12 months previous to 2022.

Product level payment and tiered incentives are substantially less common. A few years ago, eCommerce stores tended to be complex and expensive, requiring a custom website. Nowadays there are eCommerce website builders that very much simplify the process. Using Ahrefs data, we found a huge increase in searches for Affiliate Marketing since the onset of Covid19. Clearly, increased numbers of people working from home have been looking for new sources of income. Using impact.com’s reporting suite, you’ll learn how to uncover the insights that matter most for your program’s success.

• Affiliate publishers are content creators who specialize in publishing materials through websites, mobile apps, and other digital channels.
• Success in affiliate marketing depends on understanding and optimizing your highest-performing customer journeys.
• Hogan used cookie stuffing to artificially inflate the number of commissions he was referring to eBay’s marketplace.
• No longer a niche strategy reserved for the internet-savvy, it has become a mainstream channel for businesses of all sizes generating significant revenue and influencing consumer behavior.
• Because of the way affiliate marketing works, brands only need to pay for advertising after affiliates generate sales for them.
• The data we use in this report comes from Influencer Marketing Hub surveys and those of some of our sister companies, in particular Refersion, a platform helping you manage affiliates and influencers at scale.
• According to PayScale, the average base salary for an Online Affiliate Marketing Manager is $61,748, not including benefits, bonuses, profit sharing, or commissions.

Affiliate marketing technology has changed in recent years away from using affiliate network sites. More often, marketers now look to complex tracking when choosing the right affiliate solution. There is a new SaaS based performance-based partnership, which Refersion found the preferred model of 73% of their respondents, rather than affiliate networks. Now a multi-billion-dollar powerhouse, affiliate marketing is a global industry table stakes for any e-commerce business hoping for sustainable growth. At its heart is a pay-for-performance, adaptive advertising model empowering millions of consumers to make better purchasing decisions every day.

Success in affiliate marketing comes from choosing the right products to promote, building a strong online presence, engaging your audience, and continuously optimizing your strategies. It’s also important to stay updated on industry trends and adjust your approach accordingly. The affiliate marketing world stands at the precipice of a transformative era. With advancements in technology and shifts in consumer behavior, the dynamics of affiliate strategies are evolving rapidly. As businesses and marketers navigate this burgeoning landscape, understanding the trajectory of these changes is paramount.

Statistics from Forrester show that around 83% of affiliate recruiters find new affiliates through affiliate network dashboards. About 79% of these affiliate recruiters attend events hosted by other affiliate networks, while an estimated 71% use a join network button on their website. Interestingly, about 56% of affiliate recruiters will host their events searching for new affiliates. 33% of executives say that affiliate marketing is “highly successful.” 42% say their programs are successful, 20% consider them somewhat successful, and 5% say they’re not at all successful. Worth over $4 trillion, the health and wellness industries are considered the most profitable niche to enter. The fashion industry makes up about 25% of all affiliate program accounts.

Other top channels listed as the most important for acquiring new customers was paid social (12%), display ads (15%), paid and organic search (16%), and PR and influencer marketing (11%). Well, the largest group of publishers, 18.8%, earn less than $20k annually, but the other 80+% are making decent profits. A lucky, or maybe hard-working, 6% reportedly earn over $2M per year from affiliate marketing. Publishers say that affiliate marketing creates an opportunity to earn money with little effort. However, 26% said that they work both at an office/place of work and at home, it just depends on the day.

A whopping 94% of publishers join 2 or more affiliate programs, while 39% and 20% of publishers use 3 or more and 5 affiliate marketing programs, respectively. Statista reports that the projected expenditure for affiliate marketing in the United States alone was expected to reach $8.2 billion in 2022, up from $7.4 billion in 2021. From only $2.5 billion in 2012, the spending for affiliate marketing has continued to increase year by year, which suggests that more businesses are incorporating affiliate marketing in their campaigns. The upward trend is projected to surge further with affiliate marketing spending anticipated to reach an impressive $13 billion by the end of 2023. Affiliate marketing remains a top revenue source for many content creators, with the majority expecting consistent or increased earnings.

In 2024, affiliate marketing is booming, with spending reaching new heights. SaaS products seem to pay the highest commissions, and the Toy and Home & Garden niches are surging in popularity. These statistics are derived from our own in-depth affiliate marketing survey, as well as trustworthy external sources. This continued in 2021, when US users searched for ”affiliate marketing” 1,305,226 times. Welcome to the inaugural Influencer Marketing Hub Affiliate Marketing Benchmark Report.

There are no rules—your affiliate partners, campaigns and strategies can be unique to you and produce impressive results. To better understand the increasingly varied opportunities within the channel, my company studied our hundreds of thousands of active partners to determine the most innovative affiliates. Through this process, I struck upon five themes I feel characterize trends in affiliate marketing.