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As a blogger, you probably know that affiliate marketing is one of the most popular methods of monetization.
Affiliate marketing enables brands and content creators to reach a wider audience, grow brand awareness and drive more sales.
Seems pretty straightforward, right?
Affiliate marketing has rapidly evolved over the past decade. Although it first began in the ‘90s, it has become increasingly competitive and diverse since its expansion in the 2000s.
This is precisely why it’s essential to do solid research before embarking on your affiliate marketing journey.
In this article, we’ll share the most interesting affiliate marketing statistics every blogger and advertiser should be aware of in 2024.
Best Affiliate Marketing Stats and Facts for 2024 (Key Findings)
- Affiliate marketing is responsible for 16% of the global ecommerce sales.
- 67% of affiliate marketers use social media to reach their target audiences.
- 11,400 affiliate programs exist in the US alone.
- Searches for “affiliate marketing” on Google have grown by 170% over the last five years.
- 81.4% of affiliate marketers promote business-to-consumer (B2C) products or services.
- 35% of the affiliates reported generating an annual revenue of at least $20,000 from their affiliate activities.
- The gains from affiliate programs range from $3 to $200 per sale.
- The affiliate marketing industry has a global worth of over $17 billion.
- 80% of brands run an affiliate marketing program.
- SEO is considered the top affiliate traffic source by over 69% of marketers.
General Affiliate Marketing Statistics
Affiliate marketing is the process through which an affiliate marketer earns a commission by promoting someone else’s products or services.
As an affiliate marketer, you choose a product or service that interests you, advertise it, and then receive a percentage of the sales revenue. The main advantage is its far-reach and versatility, providing marketers with tons of possibilities.
Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s take a look at some general affiliate marketing statistics to gain a better understanding of the industry:
- Google searches for the term “affiliate marketing” have risen significantly over the last five years. The search interest has increased by over 170% between 2018 and 2023.
- There are 11,400 affiliate programs in the United States.
- Leading by 20%, affiliate marketing has proven to be extremely valuable for customer acquisition. It is followed by paid and organic search (16%) and display ads (15%).
- 90% of advertisers think that running an affiliate program is an important or very important part of the marketing strategy. Moreover, 80% of them spend 10% of their marketing budget on their affiliate programs.
- The total revenue generated by the top coupon affiliate marketing websites is $1 billion.
- 59% of brands include influencers in their affiliate marketing campaigns.
- 94% of online content publishers participate in two or more affiliate programs.
Image source: Google Trends
Global Affiliate Marketing Statistics
To ensure you stay ahead of the game, it’s essential to be aware of what is happening globally in this industry.
Let’s take a closer look at the top global stats and figures:
- Over 80% of brands offer affiliate partnerships.
- Affiliate marketing generates 15%–30% of the total sales for businesses.
- ShareASale is the most trusted affiliated network globally, leading the market share with 55.7%.
- Awin, one of the largest affiliate networks, earned $4.9 billion in revenue in 2022.
- Outbrain is the leading affiliate marketing technology in 2023 with a customer base of over 39 thousand users.
- Commission Junction (CJ), another big partnership platform, reports that publishers on the CJ affiliate network gained the most year-over-year (YoY) revenue for quarter four (Q4) of 2022 from loyal closed user groups. Global revenue growth from this publishing method is 55% YoY.
- The Amazon Associates affiliate network is the world leader by number of connected affiliates—900 thousand in 2021.
- A 2021 global survey shows that almost 60% of affiliates earned up to $50,000 from affiliate marketing. However, 57.55% earned under $10,000.
Affiliate Marketing Industry Statistics
Now that you’ve got a clearer idea of what this strategy involves and what is happening around the globe, it’s time to delve deeper.
To determine if an affiliate marketing program is worth the investment, here are the most important stats from the industry:
- As of 2023, the affiliate marketing industry is worth around $17 billion. Forecasts show that its worth might grow to $40 billion by 2030.
- With a 39% market share, America is the dominant nation in the world of affiliate marketing.
- 16% of global ecommerce sales affiliate marketing.
- Retail is the affiliate sector with the highest revenue share of 44%. Telecom/Media and Travel/Leisure follow with 25% and 16% respectively.
- The US affiliate marketing spend grew by $2.8 billion between 2017 and 2022, which equals a remarkable growth rate of almost 52% in five years.
- Japan’s affiliate market size was evaluated at nearly ¥385 billion (about $2.6 billion) for 2022. That number is expected to grow to ¥564 billion ($3.7 billion) by 2026.
- 99% of UK affiliate marketers use the cost-per-action (CPA) payment model. 86% use the Last Click payment attribution model where the commission goes to the last referring partner.
- 57% of Australian advertisers have increased their overall affiliate and partnership marketing spend over the last year.
Top Affiliate Marketing Niches and Channels
In any online marketing strategy, the channels you decide to focus your attention on need to be chosen very carefully.
Since not all strategies for affiliate marketing are equal, you need to explore all possibilities when talking about affiliate marketing channels.
Here are the most important niche- and channel-related affiliate stats:
- Fashion is the most popular industry for affiliate marketing. The other niches in the top three are Sports/Outdoors and Health/Wellness.
- The Health and Wellness industry is the most profitable in terms of affiliate marketing, worth over $5.5 trillion. It is expected to reach a market value of up to $7 billion by 2025.
- However, Computers/Electronics is the most preferred sector for promotion by affiliate marketers, leading by 41.04%. With 39.84%, Clothing/Apparel falls behind by just 1.2%.
- More than 50% of affiliate-referred traffic comes from mobile devices.
- Leading by 27.8%, the majority of affiliate marketers use bloggers to enhance their online traffic.
- A whopping 81.4% of affiliates engage in the promotion of B2C products/services, while the remaining 18.6 work in the business-to-business (B2B) sector.
Image source: Influencer Marketing Hub
Affiliate Marketing Trends
Trends are integral to affiliate marketing since they reveal new approaches marketers should follow.
Below, you’ll find some data highlighting the hottest affiliate marketing trends you need to pay attention to. These will help you understand the direction the industry is going in.
- 81% of advertisers and 84% of publishers include affiliate marketing as part of their overall marketing strategy.
- According to Forbes, brand affinity is extremely important for an affiliate program because it’s based on emotion-driven sales.
- 83% of affiliate marketers pursue customers when they are in the discovery and awareness stage.
- A significant majority of affiliate marketers (67%) use social media to connect with their customers.
- Partnering with micro-influencers instead of macro-influencers is an emerging affiliate trend that will continue to grow.
Image source: Doc Player
Consumer Behavior Affiliate Marketing Stats
In the affiliate marketing system, we have the seller, affiliate, and consumer. Affiliate marketing works only if the consumer clicks on the affiliate link and purchases the product.
Just like in any other marketing industry, you need to understand consumer behavior in order to optimize your results.
Check out these relevant consumer behavior stats that will help you use affiliate marketing more effectively.
- 83% of shoppers say that the primary motivator for purchasing a product during shopping trips is coupons.
- 50% of customers use digital coupons when they make in-store purchases.
- 74% of US online shoppers visit many affiliate websites before making a decision.
- 88% of consumers said that an influencer’s recommendations had motivated them to make a purchase.
- Before making a purchase, 85% of online customers use Google to research their options.
- 70% of consumers expect greater personalization from affiliate advertisers.
- 83% of affiliate advertisers find new partners by searching for them in affiliate platform dashboards.
- US marketing experts use affiliate tactics at every step of the sales funnel. Consideration leads by 58%, followed by Awareness (56%), Acquisition and Conversion (50%), and Loyalty and Retention (32%).
Affiliate Marketing Revenue Statistics
The affiliate marketing industry is extremely profitable, and is worth billions of dollars. Consequently, affiliate marketers can make a pretty good income if they know how to do it properly.
Read on to discover essential affiliate marketing revenue statistics.
- Affiliate advertising is a top revenue source for 31% of US publishers.
- 73% of retailers believe their revenue objectives are met by affiliate marketing programs.
- According to CJ’s Shopping Intelligence Report, October is the unofficial start of the holiday season considering revenue and sales growth.
- Black Friday and Cyber Monday are no longer viewed as best deal days by consumers, as the shipping season is prolonged before and after.
- On average, affiliate marketers in the US make $85,255 per year.
- 40% of marketers consider affiliate marketing a crucial skill for their careers.
- 65% of merchants state that their annual affiliate marketing revenue is between 5% and 20%.
- 35% of the affiliate marketers gained over $20,000 in annual revenue through affiliate marketing.
- 48.9% of marketing professionals shared that they want to increase affiliate spending in 2023.
- Affiliate marketing spending has drastically increased over the past years, reaching $6.8 million in 2020.
Image source: Doc Player
Stats on Affiliate Traffic: Turning Leads Into Conversions
Developing a marketing strategy takes time and money, and affiliate marketing is no exception.
You’ve created a website, begun advertising it widely, received some traffic, and got your first conversion. That’s great news!
But beyond that, you need to look at which conversion turned into a lead. Ultimately, affiliate marketing is all about conversions.
Let’s explore some crucial affiliate marketing lead stats:
- The conversion rate for affiliate marketing typically revolves around 1%.
- The average affiliate commission can range from 10% to 70%.
- The SaaS industry offers the highest average affiliate commissions of 20–70%.
- The cost-per-action (CPA) affiliate payment model is the most popular one among advertisers. The commission can range between $3 and $200, depending on the industry or platform.
- SEO traffic converts 7x more than other methods.
- The best traffic source for affiliate marketing is SEO with 69.22%, followed by social networks (67.32%), blogging (64.48%), email marketing (41.47%), and pay-per-click (34.28%).
Image source: First Site Guide
Affiliate Marketing Success Stats
If you’re still not convinced of the power of this industry, the following affiliate marketing growth stats will paint a clearer picture of its success.
- U.S. affiliate marketing spending was expected to reach $8.2 billion by 2022.
- Spending on affiliate marketing is increasing by more than 10% annually.
- 42% of affiliate marketers consider affiliate programs successful, while 33% find them highly successful.
- For 20% of marketers, affiliate marketing is the most important marketing channel for customer acquisition.
- The global spending on affiliate marketing is estimated at $14.3 billion in 2023 and $15.7 billion in 2024.
Image source: Influencer Marketing Hub
Potential Results for Brands Using Affiliate Marketing Programs
As proven in this article, affiliate marketing programs can bring incredible results to those who use them properly.
Check out these interesting stats that illustrate the results affiliate marketing can offer brands:
- 15% of all revenue is earned through affiliate marketing.
- 20% of brand marketers consider affiliate marketing to be their most profitable channel.
- The top brands make a significant portion of their online sales through affiliate marketing, ranging from 5% to 25%.
- Affiliate fraud is a concern for over 67% of brands, but less than 30% have actually experienced it.
- 75% of marketers prefer to use a dedicated SaaS platform instead of an external affiliate network, which leads to more brands setting up such in-house SaaS software.
Final Thoughts
Affiliate marketing is one of the most powerful ways to earn money online. Due to its adaptability and versatility, it is suitable for beginners as well as experts.
When done correctly, affiliate marketing can be extremely beneficial for the vendor, promoter, and consumer alike.
The publisher makes money by adding value through testing and offering their expert opinion, the merchant profits from expanding their company, and the consumer benefits from great deals and well-informed purchasing.
In most cases, it is a win-win-win scenario for everyone.
Hopefully, this list of affiliate marketing stats has proven the immense benefits it can bring to your organization.
Knowing these industry statistics will also give you a solid foundation if you’re planning to give this strategy a try.
References
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Article by
Nikola Baldikov