Today’s affil­i­ate space is throw­ing up some impres­sive fig­ures. A recent UK mar­ket study by the IAB and PwC show­cased the affil­i­ate and lead gen­er­a­tion mar­ket as a £14 bil­lion rev­enue gen­er­a­tor – one that paid out over a bil­lion pounds in com­mis­sions and expen­di­ture to affil­i­ates. For­rester is also pre­dict­ing that by 2016, the com­mis­sion and expen­di­ture fig­ure in the U.S. is like­ly to be poised around the $4 bil­lion mark.

In short, the “paid on per­for­mance” mod­el is being well received by the peo­ple it serves, and things are only about to get big­ger.

The Global Ascension Of Affiliate Marketing

The Euro­zone affil­i­ate scene is also bub­bling away nice­ly. Emerg­ing east­ern Euro­pean mar­kets are ben­e­fit­ting from wider Inter­net pen­e­tra­tion and infra­struc­ture along­side a desire from exter­nal busi­ness­es to expand into these areas. APAC is anoth­er pic­ture of pos­i­tiv­i­ty, exem­pli­fied by a host of com­pa­nies recent­ly launch­ing into the Aus­tralian mar­ket. There is also a fast-grow­ing LATAM region, ral­lied by an impres­sive mobile inter­net boom and exper­tise from over­seas.

There’s no need to go on about its glob­al rise, but the main ques­tion we’re often asked is about the true USPs when engag­ing with the affil­i­ate mar­ket. Ulti­mate­ly, the true USPs for brands engag­ing with affil­i­ate mar­ket­ing derive from the low-risk and lucra­tive oppor­tu­ni­ty that it presents.

Few­er over­heads and big gains to any brand’s bot­tom line can be seen from the OPM study and £14:£1 ROI that affil­i­ate and lead gen­er­a­tion dri­ves. That’s a £14 pound return on every £1 pound spent in the chan­nel. What oth­er indus­tries can attribute such pos­i­tive and mea­sur­able return on invest­ment?

While the UK mar­ket can ben­e­fit from being tight-knit, Lon­don-cen­tric (thus enabling eas­i­er self-reg­u­la­tion), and close to oth­er dig­i­tal indus­tries, oth­er geo­graph­i­cal loca­tions are hav­ing to look at how they can shape their more expan­sive mar­kets to con­tin­ue encour­ag­ing more trans­par­ent affil­i­ate mar­ket­ing.

Today’s affil­i­ate mar­ket, like many oth­er dig­i­tal com­merce chan­nels, ben­e­fits from increased data and tech­nol­o­gy plat­forms. The abil­i­ty to real­ly drill down and man­age your ecom­merce efforts is height­ened, and enables smarter com­par­isons, jus­ti­fi­ca­tions, and busi­ness deci­sions. When con­duct­ed and man­aged cor­rect­ly, and show­cas­ing an impres­sive ROI fig­ure, it isn’t sur­pris­ing to hear that many brands have start­ed to invest more time, effort, and resource in the affil­i­ate chan­nel.

Affiliates vs. Partners vs. Publishers

With their indus­try recent­ly cel­e­brat­ing its 20th birth­day, there has been a notable shift in how those being paid on per­for­mance have adapt­ed to bring them­selves in line as pro­fes­sion­al out­fits. Although many start­ed out as small enti­ties, a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age have grown to become mar­ket lead­ers with hun­dreds of staff, dri­ving mil­lions in rev­enue each year and plac­ing them­selves along­side tra­di­tion­al media own­ers.

Affil­i­ates, part­ners, or pub­lish­ers – how­ev­er you define them – there are a num­ber of key points about their offer to take note of.

When work­ing more close­ly with them as an acqui­si­tion and reten­tion arm for your busi­ness – through man­ag­ing, mon­i­tor­ing and col­lab­o­rat­ing – it’s safe to say that affil­i­ate mar­ket­ing can, with­out doubt, sup­port any company’s bot­tom line.