The PricewaterhouseCoopers’ online performance marketing study on affiliate marketing and lead generation, found the market increased 15% year on year and generated £14bn in sales – a return of £14 for every £1 spent.
The £14bn in sales primarily came through the most common forms of online performance marketing (OPM), which are price-comparison, voucher, cashback, loyalty and product-review websites.
Research claims that in 2013,
Dan Bunyan, a manager at PwC, said: "OPM generated around four billion clicks in 2013, the equivalent of 10 million per day or 120 per second, about 5% of which resulted in a transaction. This high conversion rate and the high return on investment explains the significant increase in advertisers (to 4,000) and publishers (to 12,000) now using OPM.
"It isn’t just the big publishers, or ‘super-affiliates’, who generate revenue through OPM. It’s opened up a new and growing industry among the ‘long tail’, where individuals and small publishers with specialist knowledge of a particular area can produce websites and then automatically generate advertising revenue."
Return on investment is so high because OPM sites such as Comparethemarket, TripAdvisor, Vouchercodes Nectar and Quidco only charge advertisers for the ad if it causes a defined action.
The defined actions include making a purchase (affiliate marketing) or submitting contact details (lead generation).
