It is good to see this year being so fruitful for affiliate marketing reports. In February Econsultancy released their UK Affiliate Census 2009. In March the US Affiliate Census 2009 was published. Another great report — this time from the Affiliate Summit — is being released tomorrow, June 15, 2009. Thanks to Shawn Collins, I’ve had a privilege of studying this brand new 2009 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report (sample: 450+ affiliates) today, and in this post I’d like to give you a quick sneak peak at it. Starting form tomorrow, you will be able to download the full report for free at AffStat.com.
Today I’d like to turn your attention to just four charts that I have personally found to be of interest.
— 1 —
The top 3 decisive factors in choosing a merchant whose affiliate program to join are:
- Payout amount (24%)
- Affiliate management (23%)
- Brand awareness (23%)
Needless to say, that I especially appreciate the presence of that “affiliate management” option in the top 3.
— 2 —
The highest reversal rates affiliates are willing to accept are:
- Up to 3% (22%)
- 5.01 to 10% (21%)
- More than 10% (19%)
Very interesting data. It is a bit surprising how tolerant affiliates, in reality, are.
— 3 —
Frequency with which affiliates would like to hear from their affiliate manager:
- Monthly (44%)
- Weekly (39%)
- Quarterly (11%)
…and 6% of the respondents said they do not want hear from affiliate program managers ever! Wow.
Between those that have voted for “monthly” and those that chose the “weekly” option (a total of 83% of respondents!) one may as well conclude that semi-monthly newsletters may not be a bad idea.
— 4 —
The top 3 communication channels that affiliates prefer affiliate program managers to use are:
- E-mail (42%, of which 38% chose mass e-mail, and 4% personal messages)
- Blog (17%)
- Network internal e-mail (17%)
The above data both underscores the importance of running affiliate program-specific blogs, as well as reveals some interesting data on the subject of network-internal e-mail.
Much more information will be accessible starting from tomorrow at AffStat.com.
It is interesting to me that just 3% of affiliates cite choosing a merchant for the relevancy to their site.
I’d say that’s the main factor when I apply to an affiliate program.
Yes, Shawn, that data was somewhat surprising to me too. I guess the majority of your respondents build sites for merchants/niches as opposed to looking for merchants that fit their existing websites.
Wow, I just got a hold of that AffStat Report. What a great collection of data.
I love the way it’s laid out and the “Affiliates: Their Words” section is great.
Can’t thank you enough 🙂