The E-Consultancy Affiliate Census January 25th, 2007 5:47 pm

A popular subject on affiliate blog pages is the recently published E-Consultancy Affiliate Census. The content and analysis of the census has been interestingly covered by Lee McCoy, Fraser Edwards and Stephen Pratley, and no doubt there will be more to follow.

Having briefly looked through the results there are a few things that caught my eye. The survey was completed by over 1500 affiliates, and I consider this to be quite low especially as the networks involved in the study emailed their users - however it could also potentially explain a lot about the current state of affiliate marketing.

If we make a wild assumption that these 1500 represent active & interested affiliates and if you then take the fact that “half of all respondents (49%) earned less that £500 a year from affiliate marketing” this puts into perspective just how important good active affiliates are to networks and to programs. It may also explain why some merchants get frustrated when joining a network they’re offered access to a pool of thousands of potential affiliates, only to find that the pool of affiliates who may even consider their program and go on to earn with them is in the low hundreds or even lower.

Furthermore, if affiliates aren’t making money to establish themselves in AM and subsequently raising the funds or income to be able to go full time, then they may find themselves put off by the industry - even more so if the few hundred quid they have earnt isn’t paid out for months on end. The report does also suggest that the number of good affiliates coming through is not on par with the number of new merchants signing up for AM.

The census also reports that “3% of affiliates operate more than 100 websites” - what I’d love to know is how does anyone operate, manage and sustain more than 100 websites with any degree of quality? Are these sites current and updated? Also what defines a website? Does 100 landing pages with different domain names = 100 websites - yes probably is the answer, but it doesn’t equate to running a website which requires several hours updating daily and user admin. Another interesting figure would be how many of those sites actually earnt anything!

The number of affiliates promoting programs on each network also provides some interesting stats. Tradedoubler had the most respondees, but lower down the list Buy.at were suprisingly behind Affiliate Window and Affiliate Future, and not that far ahead of DGM, with Paid on Results not too far behind either.

The final point that I noticed was that some respondees felt that networks needed to do more to assist and guide new affiliates. I’m not so sure about this! Should the network be educating affiliates how to promote programs (or essentially run websites)? Should networks be advising on PPC and how to get started? My feeling is no - in part because I’d rather they concentrated on providing the service that they do (and most need improvements in terms of the basics - i.e. creative, information etc) and also because many other affiliates before have already succeeded in these areas without network help - simply through hardwork, effort and investment (financial and/or time).

Affiliate marketing is not just “here’s a script and here’s a website et voila here’s an income” - it’s about hard work, time, energy, investment and the occasional bit of luck along the way. Perhaps those are the lessons that need to be learnt before would be affiliates start along the AM road?

I guess the census shows that there is a place for consultancy to help new affiliates get established, and offer guidance, but then again is that difficult to be an affiliate? Joining a program, adding some links and creating web pages isn’t that hard to do. The problem is getting converting traffic from either SEO or PPC methods and that kind of consultancy may prove too costly for some?

Would I offer consultancy? Probably not, mainly as I don’t feel qualified to tell anyone how to SEO or make a living from affiliate marketing. I am qualified to tell you how we run Loquax though - a subtle difference!

affiliate marketing  affiliates  census  consultancy  

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