Affiliate marketing spend is expected to increase in 2012, according to a survey from the IAB.
Over the next 12 months, growth in Affiliate advertising is expected to increase with 77% of respondents stating that their marketing spend for affiliates had grown this year, while another 71% would grow further next year.
140 brands were involved with survey, which aims to offer insight into advertiser’s opinions of the affiliate marketing sector.
The results also found that further education was necessary amongst senior marketers, with 50% admitting that there was a knowledge gap in affiliate marketing at CEO level.
One quarter of respondents also said that they spent more than 20% of their budget on the channel, while 93% said that they would recommend it as an effective marketing channel.
Nearly one fifth (19%) claimed that they were spending over £100,000 a month on affiliate commissions, while 59% said that they had worked with just one affiliate network in order to manage their programmes.
Helen Southgate, chairperson of the IAB Affiliate Marketing Council, commented: “At a time when the economy is suffering it was really positive to see that 77% of advertisers had seen growth in the channel year on year and over 70% were expecting the channel to grow again in 2012. Affiliate Marketing is one of the few channels that is a performance only model so it makes real sense for Clients to invest their marketing budget here as there is less risk. It was really interesting to see that nearly 20% of respondents said they spent over £100k in affiliate commissions a month and over one quarter said that affiliates account for more than 20% of online budgets. This indicates affiliates are a significant channel in these brands marketing mix. The council is looking to run these surveys at least twice yearly so will be interesting to compare results in 2012.”
