January 25 2007
73% of affiliates are spare-timers
Just 27% of affiliates give their site their full-time attention, according to the first UK Affiliate Census, carried out by E-consultancy and Affiliate Program Advice.
The results shed some light on a thriving community of internet marketers who helped to generate an estimated £2 billion in UK e-commerce sales during 2006. Key findings from the E-consultancy Census include:
The overwhelming majority of affiliates are male (83% of respondents)27% of affiliates say they do affiliate marketing as their day job (compared to 73% who do it in their spare time) Half of all respondents (49%) earned less that £500 a year from affiliate marketing Of those who do affiliate marketing as their day job, 61% earned at least £20,000 a year 10% of day-job affiliates earned more than £750,000 in the last year from affiliate marketing Only 26% of affiliates have done any marketing courses compared to 73% who have not Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is far and away the most commonly used method of promoting merchants & getting traffic. Organic search is used by 74% of affiliates compared to 38% who use Paid Search Affiliates are typically signed up with multiple affiliate networks. Only 15% of affiliates are signed up with just one network Travel and Flights is the most popular sector for affiliates, followed by Entertainment and Music
Linus Gregoriadis, E-consultancy's Head of Research, said: "This is a groundbreaking piece of research aimed at learning more about the thousands of affiliates in the UK who play a vital role in e-commerce, about whom very little has previously been known. There has always been a bit of mystery surrounding who exactly affiliates are, and this census helps to give us some more understanding."
Emma Herrod
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