Affiliate marketing is a real powerhouse in the digital marketing world, and it's seen tremendous growth and transformation in recent years – and chances are you're benefiting from it too.
Now is not the time to ignore this approach, with everything in place to help your business succeed: the power of social media, increased device usage, and the explosion of creator-driven media.
According to _Influencer Marketing Hub__, the affiliate marketing industry is experiencing robust growth, and by 2023, there will be around 9,600 affiliate marketing-related services and companies worldwide, including agencies, platforms, and various organizations and apps offering affiliate services. Additionally, Astute Analytica predicts that affiliate marketing spending will reach a staggering US$39,805.4 million by 2031.
In context,
That's an interesting number.
Here are a few more:
According to survey data from the Performance Marketing Institute,
- 84% of businesses believe affiliate marketing is more profitable than other marketing methods.
- In 2021, affiliate marketing contributed approximately $71 billion to U.S. e-commerce revenue.
- On average, every dollar spent on affiliate channels generated $12 in ecommerce revenue across all industries.
- 84% of media publishers and bloggers create content for affiliate marketing.
- Retail brands account for 76% of affiliate channel spending, with roughly one-third of that going to clothing affiliate programs.
Again, a numbers-focused fact, but you and I both know that marketing is nothing without numbers.
The explosive growth of the affiliate marketing industry in the 21st century can be attributed to several key factors. Firstly, the proliferation of digital operations and the widespread use of mobile devices. Subsequently, the digitalization of services, advances in digital marketing, and changes in consumer behavior resulting in an increase in online purchases all contributed to the thriving of affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing has been widely accepted because it is cost-effective and has a high return on investment in both time and money compared to other marketing methods. Companies jumped on the bandwagon, adapted their operations, and created affiliate marketing programs to boost revenue. Then the boom of social media gave affiliate marketing the boost it needed, and thanks to a massive increase in social media usage (from 5% in 2005 to 79% in 2019), coupled with the rise of influencer marketing and brand partnerships, affiliate marketing has grown significantly.
That's how we got here. Affiliate marketing is no longer just something businesses do as a side hustle, it's now a way to actually make money. Looking at the landscape, it's clear that the rise of the Cost-Per-Action model is not just a trend, but an inspiring story for anyone selling on the global stage. So what's the plan? In this article, I would like to share the current trends and recent market breakthroughs in affiliate marketing from a founder's perspective.
Choose your fighter
No growing market can do without innovation. And the emergence of new tools is a good indicator of the importance of the market. As complexity increases, humans start looking for (and creating) tools to deal with the existing ones. The rapidly growing affiliate marketing industry is no exception. Here are some of the objectives and tools that have given us so far:
- Affiliate Tracking:This is software offered by Impact Radius, Awin, and Post Affiliate Pro that provides advanced tracking and analytics for affiliate marketing campaigns, allowing brands and their affiliates to optimize their strategies based on performance data.
- Influencer Marketing Platforms: Companies like AspireIQ, Upfluence, and CreatorIQ help brands connect with influencers (including micro-influencers) and streamline the process of finding the right partners for affiliate marketing.
- Content Creation Tools:If you need a little help creating your visuals, tools like Canva and Adobe Spark make it easy for affiliates and marketers to create high-quality, engaging content to promote their products across almost any channel.
- Social media management tools: For managing affiliate marketing content across multiple social media platforms, scheduling posts, analyzing engagement metrics, and more, Hootsuite, Buffer, and Later are great choices.
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Email Marketing Services: Big names like Mailchimp and ConvertKit are well-known as powerful tools for building email lists and launching outreach email campaigns with personalized affiliate offers and content. You can also track opens, clicks, and conversions.
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SEO tools: SEO helpers like SEMrush, Ahrefs, Moz and similar services provide affiliates with key insights into keywords, competition and performance, helping them optimise their content to improve their visibility in search engine results.
in conclusion
In recent years, affiliate marketing has become not only a useful tool but also a powerful solution for sales, and it will undoubtedly play a key role in the future of marketing as a whole. There are many reasons for this. The low risks make it a safe avenue for both companies and marketers, while the high rewards and scalable income potential add an attractive element to the field of affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing allows you to increase traffic while increasing brand awareness, so it presents itself as a comprehensive marketing solution and an attractive option in the evolving field of digital marketing and plays a pivotal role in shaping the future of promotion strategies. So why not join us?