29th October, London: New research from European affiliate network, affilinet, released today, reveals the industry’s views on the affiliate marketing industry.  Speaking to delegates at this year’s ad:tech event, the results cast light into the digital industry’s understanding of affiliate marketing and how it compares to other forms of advertising.

Benefits are understood but spend unlikely to change
The benefits of affiliate marketing are widely accepted by the industry (78%), yet only 42% of the delegates questioned (42%) plan to increase their affiliate marketing budgets in the next 12 months.  This is in contrast to figures which indicate that over half (52%) will be raising their overall marketing budgets over the same period.

Impact and effectiveness
An overwhelming majority (86%) see affiliate marketing as being more, or as effective, as other forms of advertising such as search, display and email.  Moreover, the key benefits are singled out as; increased sales (55%), lead generation (50%) and measurable ROI (44%) – a positive sign for networks looking to increase their portfolios.

Jargon impacting understanding
There is still a degree of uncertainty when it comes to demystifying the acronyms and phrases that dominate the sector and while understanding of Pay Per Click (PPC) and Cost Per Action (CPA) are both high at 72% and 70% respectively, knowledge of the more specific terms is low.  Post Impression tracking (PI), for example, is understood by only 20% of delegates, Effective Cost Per Thousand by 20% and Earnings Per Click (EPC) by just 22%. 

Peter Rowe, head of affilinet UK comments, “We wanted to get under the skin of the sector to understand what digital marketers really think about affiliate networks.  It’s encouraging to see that uptake and acceptance of affiliate marketing is growing but clearly there is still work that needs to be done and our sector is notoriously rife with jargon and confusing acronyms.  There’s an obvious educational role networks can play here and we’ll be taking steps to ensure we’re separating the fact from fiction, which may in turn lead to greater spend and investment.”

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For further information, please contact:

Giles Barron
Hotwire
020 7608 8355
Giles.Barron@hotwirepr.com 

Annie Woodhead
Hotwire
020 7608 4664
Annie.Woodhead@hotwirepr.com

About affilinet
affilinet is AdLINK Group’s affiliate marketing specialist. With offerings in 7 European countries affilinet is one of Europe’s leading affiliate networks and No.1 in the German-speaking countries. The network offers online advertisers an effective digital distribution channel, and its registered publishers attractive opportunities for earning money. Approximately 1,500 affiliate-programmes and more than 450,000 websites throughout Europe are registered with affilinet. In addition to traditional affiliate network management, affilinet offers an extensive range of services, flexible product solutions and performance based billing. For the past 10 years, affilinet has been at the forefront of Affiliate Network technology in Europe and works with brands such as 1&1, eBay, Next, Mazda, Interflora and Debenhams.

For more information, please visit www.affili.net  and www.adlinkgroup.net