Affiliate Marketing on the Rise

Great event for affiliate marketers yesterday by affiliates4u team. Four hundred attendees, merchants, affiliates and networks in Holborn, London.

Merchants are courting affiliates and their ability to attract targeted user traffic. From Kevin Cornil’s buy.at presentation; affiliates sold in excess £ 2000m goods online for a fee of £140m. A year-on-year rise of 60%, taking an alleged 10% of total online advertising spend.

Merchants are discovering pay-on-acquisition model. My opinion is that CPA commissions will inevitably rise though, as merchant demand for the model exceeds the volume available through affiliate networks. In the end, buy through ad impressions (CPM), clickthroughs (CPC), and on-purchase-results (CPA) will balance out to give the same value-for-money (ROI).

Yes, what a soup of acronyms.

The word branding came up in conversations increasingly. Paid-search and affiliate marketing have a secondary benefit in addition to the immediate sale; repeat sales. In fact, the repeat sales experts extraordinaires, the email marketers, were also at the event. It is not just about the sale on clickthrough, it is about the repeat visit. The brand and the loyalty. In fact, one expert from UK Media Ltd, who arbitrages £ 12m in volume, says branding is the next natural step for affiliate web sites.