The affiliate industry is thriving. In 2020, the COVID-19 forced retail activity online and advertisers and publishers alike took advantage.
Previously, there may have been a hesitancy to launch an affiliate program. But, with stores closed it became a necessity.
Now there has been a dramatic investment in the channel with brands bowled over by the ROI’s compared to other digital media.
Publishers are also taking advantage by monetising more content. Affiliate links can help make them more money from new or existing content as they cater for the surge in online shopping.
To give you an overview of the affiliate industry and those in it. I have brought together some of the best stats from the past year.
Affiliate Industry Stats
Internet sales made up 31% of total retail sales in December 2020 - ONS
By 2022, the affiliate marketing industry is forecasted to eclipse the $8 billion mark - Statista
65% of business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing executives worldwide expected to spend more on affiliate, or partner, channel marketing in 2021 - Gartner
In July 2020, searches for “affiliate marketing” hit the highest rate in 11 years - Mediakix
Of the top ten global ad networks sending traffic to fashion and apparel e-commerce sites. Awin was fourth on the list. Google Display Network was first with Criteo in a close second - PerformanceIn
Over 80% of advertisers and 84% of publishers surveyed ran an affiliate program - Rakuten
50% of marketers saw an increase in affiliate spend in 2020 - IAB UK
Affiliate Network Stats
The network tracked more than 100k sales every hour across Black Friday - Awin
Over 230,000 new publishers joined the network in 2020 - Awin
More than 9,000 new advertisers joined the network in 2020 with over 800 being SME's - Awin
According to Awin, almost one in five brands and agencies spent more than £250k per month on their affiliate campaigns - IAB UK
Just three short months into a relaunch, following the acquisition by Idle Group LLC, IDLE Sleep’s affiliate program has become one of the Top 50 programs on ShareASale - PRWeb
Data from Rakuten Advertising shows that new customers who come to a brand’s site via affiliate publishers are 11% more likely to make more than one purchase - Rakuten
Singles Day (11/11) 2020 sales increased 16% YoY - CJ
Retail sales on the Saturday (11/21) and Sunday (11/22) before Black Friday were up 47% YoY - CJ
Between 12/20 – 12/24, beauty items were very popular with category sales increasing 137% YoY - CJ
Affiliate’s presence in the path-to-purchase produces 88% more revenue per shopper when compared to no affiliate presence in the path to purchase - CJ
Sports & Fitness was +98% YoY was the biggest growth sector for sales on CJ during the period November 1, 2020 – January 2, 2021 - CJ
Affiliate Publisher Stats
The largest affiliate industry purchase, Paypal paid a whopping $4bn for coupon browser extension site Honey - TechCrunch
Surveys/Market Research is the most profitable vertical in affiliate marketing - mThink
The number of transactions made via affiliate links on Future owned websites which include Tech Radar, Marie Claire and Woman and Home rose considerably. In 2020 it reached 13.6m, up from 9.8m in 2019 and 3.2m in 2018 - Future
The Daily Mail website almost doubled its outgoing traffic to eCommerce partners through affiliate marketing - PerformanceIn
