Today, we look at the latest affiliate marketing industry statistics. Along with the growing social network usages, our desire for recognition can go as wild as we want it to. Where everyone has a chance to build their audience on a worldwide scale, it only makes sense that more people are looking to monetize their online presence. It's almost impossible to work out the number of affiliate marketers worldwide. Partly because affiliate marketing is one of the easiest business models for anyone to take on and get started (though not necessarily easiest to earn.) It means it's easy for anyone to quit. There is no centralized institution to calculate the number of individuals that actively work as affiliates. In any case, the industry scale has been growing continuously.
On the other hand for brands, users' recommendations play a vital role in increasing their sales. They save a lot of advertising costs by giving users a chance to become an affiliate and only paying them a commission upon sale. The following affiliate marketing industry statistics prove that it is certainly one of the most popular ways for the general public to make some cash online, and also it shows how brands are relying on it.
1. The Trends
Affiliate marketing is an established business model. Looking back over the past decade, not only full-time affiliate marketers but it's become a norm for casual bloggers to at least earn supplementary income from PPC (pay-per-click) as affiliates. According to Google Trends, "affiliate marketing" has always been a fairly popular search term.
But for the past few years the public interest for affiliate marketing has been up on rising again - analysts say this is due to the increase of YouTubers. The huge increase in 2020 is due to - not surprisingly, the global pandemic and the dramatic rise of remote working opportunities as well as unemployment rates. Especially when looking at it at the worldwide scale, the popularity has increased in the past couple of years. This is pretty fascinating.
49.5K
Searched
per month
The term "affiliate marketing" is searched approximately 49,500 times every month in the USA.
Makes it an average of 1,650 times per day, 69 times per hour.
People still search for this simple term (rather than to search for longer tail keywords starting "affiliate marketing"), which means something. Many people either try to understand the meaning of it, or perhaps consider starting the business.
Per Keyword search tools SEMRush (L) and Mangools KWTools (R)
2. The Adaptation of Affiliate Marketing
81% of advertisers (brands) run an affiliate program and 84% of publishers (incl. bloggers) create content for affiliate marketing.
Less than 3% of them said they were not part of this business model, nor had a plan to be involved in the future.
This commissioned study above was conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Rakuten in but January 2016, but referencing this data against the search trends above, we can only assume that similar high percentages still apply.
74% of U.S. online shoppers check multiple affiliate websites.
They visit more than 2 non-retail websites before completing a purchase. 16% of them visit more than 4 websites.
23%
Affiliate programs generate an average of 23 % of all sales for brands.
15%
15% of the digital media industry's revenue is accounted for from affiliate marketing.
58%
58% of the affiliate purchases was made on a mobile device in 2019.
This comes as no surprise, as up to 70% of internet traffic comes from mobile devices and 39% of the worldwide population are smartphone users.
3. Affiliate Marketing Growth
$8.2b
Affiliate marketing
spend in 2022
Affiliate marketing spend is due to reach $8.2 billion by 2022.
Comparing to $5.9 billion in 2018 - it will increase by $2.3 billion (39%) in the next 3-4 years.
In 2010, the total of affiliate marketing spending in the United States was 1.6 billion U.S. dollars. The spend has steadily grown since, and it's projected to reach 8.2 billion dollars, i.e. over 5 times during the 12 years.
4. The Best Selling
Amazon owns 35.7% of market share.
Not surprisingly, Amazon is the biggest affiliate program, owns 35.7% of the market share by the size of accounts.
Without a doubt, for the variety and number of the products, Amazon Associates offers the best affiliate program for any publishers. Certain restrictions apply (e.g. you're not allowed to place their affiliate link on your email/ebook), otherwise anyone can join as long as they have a website or an app to promote the products.
Also Read: How To Make Money As Amazon Affiliate
Fashion is the most popular affiliate niche (23%).
Followed by Sports & Outdoors (18%), Health & Beauty (14%), Travel (11%). It means over 50% of total affiliate sales is in either of these four categories.
As opposed to the four most-converting niches, generally recognized by affiliate marketers - health & beauty, wealth, love & relationship and self-improvement... When looking at the industry as a whole, fashion turns out to be the most promoted niche.
51.3% of affiliates find the affiliate program information on the merchants website.
Followed by "Affiliate manager reaches out to me directly" (42.2%), Searches on Google, Yahoo, etc. (38.6%), Affiliate or CPA network website (38%), "I check out my competitors websites" (25.9%).
Personally as an affiliate myself, I find this statistic spot-on. The best way - the most natural way to find an affiliate program is to find a product that I love, and that makes me want to promote it, so I check the header/footer menus to find partnership information. If I can't find the information, the next thing I'd do is to google. I also value any promotional emails that I receive from affiliate managers and am more than happy to look into what's on offer (as long as it's the right niche.)
1-3%
Typical affiliate conversion rate is 1-3 out of 100.
It all depends on the type of affiliate page, niche, targeted audience, time of day/year, and the marketer's skill and experience.
35-44
Years Old
32% of affiliate marketers are aged between 35-44.
The data may not be surprising either - the second top age group is 25-34 (28%), followed by 45-54 (22%), 55-64 (9%), 18-24 (5%), 65 or above (3%).
References:
- Networks Help Drive Affiliate Marketing Into The Mainstream https://go.rakutenmarketing.com/hubfs/Networks_Help_Drive_Affiliate_Marketing_Into_The_Mainstream.pdf
- Affiliate marketing spending in the United States from 2010 to 2022 (in billion U.S. dollars) https://www.statista.com/statistics/693438/affiliate-marketing-spending
- Datanyze https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/affiliate-networks
- The Affiliate Marketing Report https://www.businessinsider.com/the-affiliate-marketing-report-how-mainstream-publishers-are-turning-performance-based-marketing-into-a-fine-art-2015-11?r=US&IR=T
- The Big Affiliate Marketing Handbook http://bigbobchang.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/the-big-affiliate-marketing-handbook.pdf
- Analysis of 550 Best Affiliate Programs Reveals Top 20 Niches https://www.amnavigator.com/blog/2015/09/25/analysis-of-best-affiliate-programs-top-20-niches
- Distribution of affiliate marketers worldwide in 2016, by age https://www.statista.com/statistics/693422/affiliate-marketers-age
Just launching my online affiliate business, a year ago, it feels like I've learned more information in 12 months than I ever did in 12 years of schooling growing up. And as still being a rookie, there's so much more still to learn. From what I have been taught, personally experienced and researched the past year, your stats seem pretty in line with what's really going on in this fast-paced industry. It's a very exciting world to be a part of and certainly not one for the dabblers out there. When treated like a business though, it can become a very lucrative and freeing lifestyle. Thanks for the article, Ray. Definitely well researched, thought out and put together. Truely the works of a professional!
Wow, it sounds very exciting that you’ve just launched a new business, yes, the industry may be fast-paced but once you get on track you’ll just enjoy the continuous process of “learn as you earn”. Thanks for your comment and thank you for the kind words TD, I wish you all the best of success with your new business!
Good to know some essential info, thanks. I can make use of some of them.
Thanks JJ!
Great statistics that anybody can refer to in order to succeed online and make their affiliate marketing business profitable, there is a lot that you can learn from them. In this day and age working online is a good standard way. If you cannot find a job you should at least try something online and affiliate marketing is something that anybody can start. Take a look at some examples here.
These are very useful and interesting statistics. I guess due to covid more & more people are taking up affiliate marketing from home. I myself is learning a lot right now but I see the market is so competitive. Do you think when the pandemic is over will the number of affiliates decrease in the future?
Hi Dave, thanks for your comment. We never know when or if the pandemic is over so soon, and I don’t think the “number of affiliates” will particularly decrease though. Working online has become a norm, we’ll just have to see what happens!
Very interesting post, I understand how thousands of people out there make money through affiliate marketing. I have one website that sells pet products but I’ve never thought about selling anything else other than my own range of products. I think need to do more work on the site before I can start affiliate marketing. The statistics show it’s not easy but it’s manageable for me. Will you please advise me how I can improve my site traffic.
Thanks
JB
Hi Johnny, thanks for your comment. Your site looks great, and I can see you’ve already placed some banners, so I assume you are already an affiliate. One thing I can tell you is, you’re selling pet products yourself as an e-commerce owner, but you’re also promoting your competitor’s site on your very page, i.e. confusing. Perhaps you can come up with a product range that you cannot sell yourself on your site, and sell that as an affiliate. Pet insurance, for example? I wish all the best – any questions unrelated to the statistics, please contact me from the link on the menu. I’m more than happy to share what I know with you.
Hi Johnny, thanks for your comment. Your site looks great, and I can see you’ve already placed some banners, so I assume you are already an affiliate. One thing I can tell you is, you’re selling pet products yourself as an e-commerce owner, but you’re also promoting your competitor’s site on your very page, i.e. confusing. Perhaps you can come up with a product range that you cannot sell yourself on your site, and sell that as an affiliate. Pet insurance, for example? I wish all the best – any questions unrelated to the statistics, please contact me from the link in the menu. I’m more than happy to share what I know with you.
Very nice article about affiliate marketing statistics.
I only learned about affiliate marketing a few months ago after I got laid off work and knew the only way for now is to start working for myself from home. The statistics will give me idea how competitive it’s going to be so I will not be pressurized by it.
I am excited about this, thank you ? Ty
Hi Ty, thanks for your comment. I’m glad the post has helped, and sorry to hear that you’ve been laid off work. Affiliate marketing business is a business after all, it will take a while before you can start making decent money online though. Let me know if you need any help. I wish you all the best!
Hey, useful stats. Also eye opening. You think all the affiliates sell mmo stuff warriror plus scammers but good to know most of affiliates are in fashion & Amazon is most used. Trying to get on the industry trends before it gets too competitive. Do I need keyword tool I’ve never used one?
Hi Vincent, yes that seems to be the case. Full-time affiliate marketers may constantly promote products “to sell” but a much greater number of influencers and casual bloggers recommend products to their followers/readers. Re: keyword tool, if you start learning SEO techniques, you’ll know it’s a necessary tool. It depends on how you want to promote your affiliate products. If you have any more questions don’t hesitate to ask at any time. Thanks for your comment.
Please tell me, how can I survive with other affiliate marketers when you are a brand new starter?
It is sometimes too hard to affiliate market over all social media and websites. Can you please give me advice as I’m a brand new starter. Thank you very much.
Hi Namser, the affiliate marketing industry is already competitive, as you can see. No point trying to compete with experts but there’s every reason that you should learn good tricks from them. You are there to help users solve their problems by recommending good products/services, so keep providing meaningful, quality content and be true to yourself. I hope that’s the answer you’re looking for. I wish you all the best. Thanks for your comment!
Interesting stats, thanks. In average how many products or companies do people promote at the same time? In average how many niches do people promote?
Hi, unfortunately those stats are unavailable. Hard to find out unless you take the poll. I don’t even know how many products I promote at the same time myself. In terms of niches, it’s up to an affiliate how they categorize them. If you promote bags and shoes separately in two different websites and you count them as two niches, then there you go!
Good stats everyone should know. I bookmarked this page.
Thanks Parash!
Hi Ray, I am intrigued by the statistics you showed me here. This looks like the affiliate market worldwide is becoming ever competitive and making it more difficult even for experienced marketers to carry on without learning new technologies to techniques? If so will there ever be passive income? What is your experience, Ray? I know you have been in this industry for many years but is it becoming easier or harder?
Hi Clair, you’re absolutely right, we all have to continuously learn new techniques. The term ‘passive income’ is often used as if it’s a regular income for life but it’s really not. I wouldn’t say particularly affiliate marketing is becoming easier or harder. It gets easier as you are more experienced, but it’s getting more competitive and harder if you don’t catch up with the trends. I hope it answers your questions. If you need more clarifications don’t hesitate to ask at any time. Thanks for your comment.
Great article! I have been recently trying to make money from affiliate marketing but I find everything so difficult. Your statistics all make sense to me. It makes me think that I have to try harder to get on the \success ladder\ like every one else.
Thanks for your awesome article!
Hi Mike, thanks for your comment. I wish you all the best! If you have any questions don’t hesitate to get back to me 🙂
Hi Ray, very useful statistics. I was interested because I thought the number of affiliate marketers from certain countries in Africa was increasing from my own Facebook experience. I get so many invitation messages from new affiliates who all say easy and amazing and all. They are clearly new and believe instant money.
Also they seem to be sending messages from a mobile device which is also interesting. Your stats make sense accordingly. Thanks for the great article.
Hi Ashley, thanks for sharing your experience. It’s interesting, and I too receive odd messages from network marketers who promote ‘amazing’ systems, most of whom are new to the industry. The number is ever-increasing worldwide for sure!
This article helps me a lot. I have never been to America and I don’t know it over there. but in Kenya there are too many people try affiliating with all kinds of systems. I saw the paper say it will become very popular in the next 2 to 3 years.
Hi Trevor, thanks for your comment. Accessibility is the best thing about this business model – that market is not saturated just yet!
I love this article. I’m fascinated by all the affiliate marketing industry statistics because I need to know how competitive what I’m doing right now is to continue and make it successful or not. I have seen many other blogs but not very many of them tell you current statistics and this one helps me. I would love an opinion on other industries from an expert I just want to know if it is really worth investing time or not.
Thanks for your comment, Susanna. If you have any specific questions don’t hesitate to ask!
I think some of the data is missing. How about sales funnels vs squeeze pages etc, what kind of affiliate marketers are there in the industry, I want to know what are they promote?
Hi Kenny, I’m not sure what you mean about funnel pages – number of them built by affiliates? Then you know that’d be impossible to count because you could only find out by detecting no-follow affiliate links within each website.
“What kind of affiliate marketers” – did you mean what kind of products they promote or what kind of campaign methods that they use? Again, quite impossible to find out either of them because one can promote multiple products using multiple methods at any time. If that’s what you mean. Thanks for your comment.
The statistics are staggering. I’m amazed to see over 8 billion affiliate marketers strive to make money in the world. It’s very popular in France where I’m originally from but many of them are scammers which is becoming problematic. Also I have some friends in America who have left their job and moved to Mexico for lower living cost and to make money from home solely as an affiliate.
Hi Colette, thanks for sharing your thoughts. Anyone with an internet connection can become an affiliate, so the number’s forever increasing. But like you say, there are all in different circumstances!
Impressive statistics. I have been trying affiliate marketing for a few years now and I find it increasingly difficult to promote anything nowadays as it becomes so competitive. Things like the speed of the site or modern design are crucial. Giving free gifts to entice customers are becoming the norm. I’m guessing more people are starting to work online full time so they have more time to focus on. While people like me trying to spend our spare time are being left behind. That’s what I feel like right now.
Good to know about popular affiliate networks. I’ve never heard of Viglink, I must check that in a minute. Thanks for the useful data.
Hi Tomasz, thanks for your comment. You may be right, things are becoming competitive, but what doesn’t? Affiliate marketing is accessible for anyone, so it will continuously go viral, at least for now I guess! VigLink is free to join and offers a broad range of niches. I hope you like it.
I’m looking for the most up to date statistics.
Some of your stats are based on data from 2+ years ago. You need to update it to show the true figures.
Hi John, statistics are based on the latest research, so some of them can be a couple of years old, unfortunately. We all appreciate the fact that gathering information worldwide takes research companies a lot of time, resources and efforts. I’ll try updating the record when I find the latest figures. Thank you so much for your comment.
Interesting statistics. I was particularly interested in the trends: it went popular a couple of years ago and peaked in the USA while it’s still going up worldwide. Where I live in Europe it’s becoming really popular. I think the trends shown here are accurate.
Hi Bernard, thanks for your comment. Yes, affiliate marketing is still a very popular business model right now. If I find more in-depth statistics by country I’ll update this page.
This post shows great statistics. I can make use of them to build new websites.
I have bookmarked this site for the future. Thanks.
Hi Arnold, thanks for your comment. I’m glad to hear that the post helps. Any questions don’t hesitate to get back to me.
Hi Ray, I found your statistics really interesting. The currencies are falling and many things are uncertain economically, politically and environmentally. We never know what’s going to happen with employment conditions in this country. I definitely see affiliate marketing is a way forward for me to secure my future financially.
I also think I can make good use of the market shares of affiliate networks so that I can only focus on products from popular networks. I think it’s most useful for me. Thanks for the great post.
Hi Seb, thanks for your comment. You’re absolutely right, the world’s changing and the Dollar’s weakened, we never know what’s going to happen to our future!
How can I turn affiliate marketing into cash? I need an immediate solution. I have lost so much money for some unfortunate circumstances. Things are becoming difficult both publicly and privately. I appreciate your advice.
Hi William, there’s no such thing as an immediate solution to make money online. If you already have an affiliate marketing business, you know you have to work hard for it. I wish you all the best!
This is a very useful information. Well done to you for composing this. I receive a lot of questions from my team about this kind of statistics from the fear of losing their prospects. In essence what they need is numbers for assurance.
There are other sites like Statistica but they charge to view and also not all the results are available. That’s why invidisual sites like yours come in useful for people with no budget. With great insights I would recommend your page to anyone.
Hi, thanks for your comment. I’m glad to hear that the post can help your students. I’ll try updating the data as and when. Thank you so much for your feedback!
I find it very interesting, Ray. I am over 50 years old. Over half a century I didn’t even know what affiliate marketing meant, until recently. it proves that more and more people are aware of the way to make a full time income. We never know where the world economy is heading at, we all seek for better ways to earn income relying on retailers. Thank you for your statistics. I will bookmark this page. Kristine
Hey Ray, great stats. I’m intrigued by the fact that the affiliate industry is growing so much. Is there a ceiling, I guess it will saturate at some point in the future, do you think? It will not make any sense if every person becomes an affiliate, percentage of every product becomes an affiliate commission which pushes the prices up. Interesting to see what it’s going in the future. Good job on gathering info, Ray. Cheers.
Hi Zak, I see your point, who knows what happens in the future as the speed of the trend cycle accelerates faster year on year! Thanks for your comment!
Great stats. The growth chart is particularly interesting for me because it shows how competitive this industry is becoming. I guess you have to catch up with new trends +algorithms at all times to stay active as an affiliate. Thank you.
Hi Sue, thanks for your comment. You’re absolutely right – never stop learning to get on top of things!
Why is fashion so popular do you know? Fashion as in clothing or as in trends…is biased.
Hi Ray, thank you for the very useful statistics. They show how widely available affiliate marketing is now and how easy for everyone to give a try.
Hi Pam, thanks for your comment, great to know that you find them useful!
Your website suggests as if affiliate marketing is the only way to make money but it is not. You encourage people to become scammers but what most important is they need to understand online businesses before they learn to become affiliates.
This is lacking from your website.
Hi, thanks for your comment. I’m sorry to hear that you feel so negative about affiliate marketing. Just bo be clear that this site (1) does not suggest affiliate marketing is the ONLY business model (2) certainly does not approve scams but (3) encourage our readers to ‘learn’ to be successful in online business. Any questions don’t hesitate to ask at any time.
Great stats. I’d like to know other areas such as
– Which countries have the most affiliate marketers
– Which countries have more buyers and how much they spend
– What kind of products sell the most just like the affiliate network comparison.
Thanks
Hi, thanks for your comment. I’d be interested to know those stats too. They don’t seem available right now, and some things are difficult to measure due to languages (impossible to get information from ALL the non-English speaking countries). What kind of products sell – if you mean niches, then as shown in the post, but per individual product, I guess they change according to the trends.
Hi Ray, this is a very good insight with some surprising stats. As a struggling business owner they almost make me think I have to have affiliates as the way of moving forward. The thing is I don’t know if there is a way for an ecommerce to take affiliates like Amazon to pay commission on numerous products. This is something I’m gonna have to research and sort out in the future. Any ideas? Thanks for the interesting stats. I like the ‘animated percentages.
Hi Ben, thanks for your comment. You can join affiliate networks such as CJ, ShareASale, Awin, Flexoffers etc as an advertiser…is that what you mean?
Interesting stats. My friend from Hong Kong says that the popularity of affiliate marketing is increasing in amazing speed but he thinks it’s becoming saturated because almost all his friends are involved. Clearly not the case. Maybe it’s the big China that’s affecting the stats worldwide.
Hi Guiney, thanks for the info. Yes, more people are taking on online business as an affiliate which makes the market competitive but certainly interesting – we assume that the business model is popular enough and pretty sustainable, but people from other countries are catching up and it’s becoming even bigger. The methods are evolving too. Thanks for your comment.