Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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What are the biggest challenges holding back affiliates in 2006? A recent survey of more than 1,000 affiliates produced some answers for us.

The survey was conducted by PartnerCentric, and they gathered data from affiliates of a number of affiliate programs, including ClubMom, The Company Store, Domestications, FootSmart, LifeScript, and National Geographic.

The Affiliate Marketer Successes and Challenges Report 2006, a 16-page PDF report, was published by MarketingSherpa earlier this week.

Interesting data in the report, though I don’t agree with some of it. According to the write-up by MarketingSherpa, the affiliates responding to the survey had “average monthly revenues in the tens of thousands,” yet nearly a fifth said their most used tactic for promoting an affiliate program was via banners.

I’d be happy to eat my words on this, but I’ve never seen data in any affiliate programs I’ve managed that would suggest the affiliates earning real money are those who focus on running banners.

On the contrary, those who promote affiliates on a site and make money have always had a penchant for text links, and banners were generally the link of choice for newbies.

But that’s the good thing about a wide-ranging study - it brings in lots of diverse voices and can potentially disprove affiliate marketing folklore.

Anyhow, it’s an interesting read for all sides of the industry - you can download the Affiliate Marketer Successes and Challenges Report 2006 at http://www.marketingsherpa.com/cs/amscr2006/study.html (it is only accessible through 7/7/06).

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Edited to add the following from Linda Woods, President of PartnerCentric:

“I wanted to clarify a point that Shawn makes here that is important. We received just over 1000 responses to our survey representing the entire spectrum of affiliate participants, those who have just gotten started up to those who earn 5 figures a month on affiliate income and everything in between. Their earnings however, was not tied to their answers, so it shouldn’t be extrapolated that just because the banner was the linking type that was most used, that it is also the most profitable. The majority of affiliates don’t earn thousands of dollars a month and also don’t typically use the most advanced linking types (like datafeeds or optimized text), they use banners. They are quick and easy and in widespread use in affiliate programs. So, of course, as a “popular” linking type, that was the clear “winner”. But, a small and potent, successful sector of affiliates use datafeeds, paid search text links, and email to drive traffic and significant revenue. So, there is a smaller percentage of those link types in use, but if we had asked how much revenue each type of link produced (which we didn’t), I believe we would see a dramatically different outcome of which link types are most profitable.

The 2 most important points FOR merchants from our perspective, is that 1) affiliates of every size need proactive, relevant consumer offers, personal support, key marketing information and a variety of link types in addition to VIP payouts when warranted. 2) Customized content is in high demand. Most important for affiliates is: If you begin to utilize more advanced links like datafeeds, optimized text links (for both paid and organic search) and targeted creatives + landing pages that deliver what YOUR visitors want, you will earn greater commissions. But you’ll have to work closely with your Affiliate Manager to get the type of personalization and results that everyone would like to see.

Thanks everyone for your feedback on this survey!”

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