Today in this post, I am going to present you the affiliate marketing statistics. Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make money online.

With affiliate marketing, you can earn a decent one-time or recurring income by promoting other people’s products.

By looking at these stats, you will get to know the power of affiliate marketing and how you can leverage it.

Editor’s picks:

  1. 81% of brands rely on affiliate programs to improve their business.
  2. Affiliate marketing worth $12 billion as of now.
  3. The U.S affiliate marketing is expected to reach $6.8 billion by 2020.
  4. Affiliate programs contribute 30% of revenue for the companies.
  5. For marketers and advertisers, affiliate programs generate 15%–30 % of sales
  6. Affiliate marketing will hit $6.8 billion by 2020.
  7. About 48.36% of affiliate marketers are earning $20k per year while only 3% are earning over $150k per year
  8. Companies have allocated 15% of all marketing budgets to affiliate marketing.
  9. Around 84% of content publishers monetize their web traffic by leveraging affiliate marketing.
  10. The majority of affiliate marketers promote between 1 to 10 products only.
  11. 84% of bloggers use affiliate marketing to grow the audience.
  12. 84% of publishers use affiliate marketing.
  13. 80% of brands use affiliate marketing to generate leads.
  14. 40% of marketers think that affiliate marketing is a crucial skill to have.
  15. 73% of the merchants reported that their affiliate revenue met their needs.
  16. The affiliate marketer’s content pool has grown by 175%.
  17. 67.32% of affiliate marketers connect with customers using social media.
  18. 64.48% of the affiliate marketers blog to generate traffic.

General affiliate marketing statistics

Affiliate marketing statistics

The search volume for the term “affiliate marketing” is rapidly increasing.

  • Digital media has allocated 15% of the advertising revenue for affiliate marketing.
  • The U.S affiliate marketing is expected to reach $6.8 billion by 2020.
  • The global estimation of affiliate marketing is $12B.
  • 81% of the marketers and 84% of the publishers are already using affiliate marketing.
  • People are showing more interest in researching affiliate marketing. The search volume increased by more than half in less than a year.
  • 83% of the affiliate marketers are leveraging affiliate marketing to increase brand awareness while 79% of them use it to increase customer engagement.
  • The advertisers who are using the affiliate program are generating 15%–30% of the sales.
  • More than 50% of the affiliate traffic comes from mobile devices.
  • 81% of brands rely on affiliate programs to improve their business.
  • 38% of marketers agreed that they use affiliate marketing for customer acquisition.
  • In the US and Canada, affiliate marketing generates 16 percent of all e-commerce sales.
  • Affiliate marketing has generated 5 billion clicks and 170 transactions worldwide, in 2017.
  • Spending on affiliate marketing is increasing at a rate of 27% CAGR.
  • 40% of marketers think that affiliate marketing is a crucial skill to have.
  • 65% of the merchants earned 5-20% of their annual revenue through affiliate marketing.
  • 90 percent of the advertisers said that affiliate marketing is important to their digital marketing strategy.
  • 60% of the large merchants who earned $5 million were using affiliate marketing over the past 5 years.
  • 91% of all merchants effectively plan their affiliate marketing budgets.
  • 73% of the merchants reported that their affiliate revenue has met their needs.
  • Affiliate marketers achieve an average conversion rate of between 1% and 5%.
  • Content marketing helped the publishers to increase their revenue by 240%.
  • “Pay per call” affiliate marketing is having a good conversion rate of 10-15%.
  • 80% of affiliate marketers track their desktop and mobile sales.
  • Most of the affiliate marketers use email channels to communicate with affiliate managers.
  • Digital affiliate products generate 50% commissions.
  • 67.32% of affiliate marketers connect with customers using social media.
  • 69.22% of the affiliate marketers drive traffic leveraging SEO.
  • With optimized keyword targeting, affiliate sites can get 7 times more conversions.
  • 34.28 percent of the affiliate marketers leverage PPC marketing to generate traffic.
  • Among the Australian affiliate marketers, 61% use the “last click” attribution model whereas 13% use first-click attribution.
  • 30 percent of the website owners agreed that there weren’t enough affiliate products that were relevant to the readers.
  • 24.46 percent of the affiliate marketers learn about affiliate programs on the merchant’s website.
  • Revenue share is the most popular advertising model in the gaming sector with a share of 55%, followed by CPA [cost per action] with a 19% share.

Fashion is the most popular affiliate marketing category

Affiliate marketing stats Top 10 affiliate categories

AM Navigator report shows that Fashion is the most popular affiliate marketing category which accounts for 18.7% of the total share.

Next to that is the sports and outdoors which generates 14.6% of the total affiliate share, followed by health/wellness and beauty with 11.1% share, and travel at 8.6%.

7.53% of the affiliate marketers like to promote over 300 products:

42.17% of the affiliate marketers would prefer promoting 1–10 products, 23.18% of the affiliate marketers like to promote 11–20 products, while 14.19% would promote 21–50 products.

76% of the publishers said that affiliate marketing made monetizing their site very easy:

65% of the publishers who use affiliate marketing said that affiliate marketing generates additional revenue. 45% of the publishers like affiliate marketing because it does not disrupt the user experience.

Only 3.2% of affiliate marketers earn over $150000 per year:

Almost half of the affiliate marketers make less than $20,000 per year. 48.36% of the affiliate marketers earn less than $20,000 per year.

The top affiliate marketers are generating a good passive income of six figures from the business.

Pat Flynn, John Chow, Rae Hoffman, Mark Ling, Kristy Mccubbin, and Shawn Collins are some of the top affiliate marketers who are earning a good income with affiliate marketing.

Retail affiliate niche generates the highest revenue %:

Telecom and media generate 24% of the affiliate revenue, followed by travel and leisure which account for 16%.

Top categories affiliate marketers prefer to promote:

Top categories affiliate marketers prefer to promote

Computer and electronics with 41.04% are the number-one category that affiliates prefer to promote.

This is followed by clothing and apparel [39.84%], online services [29.88%], accessories [29.48%], beauty [27.89%], and health & wellness [26.69%]

Top traffic sources for affiliate marketers

Top traffic sources for affiliate marketers

SEO is the number one traffic source for affiliate marketers with 69.22%.

Followed by social media – 67.32%, blogging – 64.48%, email marketing – 41.47%, and Payperclick – 34.28%.

Affiliate marketing networks stats

Amazon Associates accounts for the highest market share of 39.42% as per the Datanyze report.

Affiliate marketing networks stats
Source: Datanyze

Next to Amazon Associates, the biggest affiliate networks are

  1. VigLink
  2. CJ Affiliate
  3. SkimLinks
  4. Rakuten
  5. ShareASale
  6. Awin
  7. Impact Radius
  8. Refersion
  9. Post Affiliate Pro

79 percent of advertisers attend the events to find the best affiliate partners.

Amazon Associates’ commission rates vary from 1% to 10%.

Affiliate Marketing demographics

  • In affiliate marketing, there are 54.23% male affiliates, whereas female affiliates are only 42.97%.
  • Most of the affiliate marketers i.e. around 31.86% of them are in the age group of 35 and 44 years.
  • As per the 2016 data, 57.44% of the affiliate marketers are based in the US, while 1.85% of them are in India, and 9.71% are based in Canada.
  • 63.83% of the affiliate marketers’ main traffic source is the U.S. and Europe contributes to 13.39% of the traffic, and the U.K. has 4.46% of the traffic share.
  • 33.67% of the affiliate marketers are single while 55.32% of the affiliate marketers are married.
  • 54.28 percent of the affiliate marketers work from home while 19.21% of the affiliate marketers work from the office.
  • Only 10% of the affiliates generate approximately 90% of the sales in most of the affiliate programs.
  • Awin marketplace gets 50% of the traffic from the mobile devices itself.
  • 48.69 percent of affiliate marketers prefer direct payment methods.
  • 19.16% of the affiliate marketers use PayPal as the main payment gateway, followed by Bitcoin used by 69% of affiliate marketers.
  • Affiliate marketing sales are mainly dependent on the website loading speed. By the way, 47% of the visitors expect the website to load in less than 2 secs.
  • You will lose 40% of the customers if your site takes over 3 secs to load as they abandon the site.
  • One-sec delay in the website’s loading time results in 7 percent fewer conversions.
  • Comparison type of content drives 20 percent of the sales for the travel sites, while the coupons generate 21% of the sales.
  • While choosing affiliate programs, 81.16% of the affiliate marketers make their own decisions. On the other hand, 0.47% of the affiliate marketers depend on the spouse to make the decision.

Blogging affiliate marketing statistics

  • 64.48% of the affiliate marketers blog to generate traffic.
  • 62% of the affiliate marketers worry about the quality of the content they publish while promoting the affiliate products.
  • The affiliate marketer’s content pool has grown by 175%.

Affiliate marketing UK statistics

  • U.K. affiliate marketing is worth $1.7B.
  • Affiliate marketing spending in the U.K. is increased by 15.1% in 2017.
  • In the U.K, affiliate marketing ROI is 1:15 on average. For every £1 spent, they will earn£15.
  • In 2017, the U.K. generated £8.9 billion in sales.
  • In the U.K., the best way to earn more with affiliate marketing is by creating a price comparison website.
  • The U.K. is the top marketplace for gaming affiliates with a share of 43%, whereas the U.S. stands second with 33% of the market share. Asia has 23% of the traffic share.

Sources:

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Conclusion

By looking at these affiliate marketing statistics, you would definitely know the power of affiliate marketing.

As more and more people move online, it gives rise to more and more digital and also physical products. SaaS products are especially on the rise.

These product owners make use of affiliate marketing as a way to reach more audiences and effectively market their products.

I hope these stats help you in taking your affiliate marketing strategies to the next level.