My Take On The Affiliate Census

Yep, it was done by E-Consultancy and Jess so we know it'll be done properly and, being a stat-junky, there was loads of useful and interesting information in there.

What shocked me was that there were over 1,500 completed surveys - boy things have changed since I've been in the game!

- Ages
But when you look at the ages, there's no real surprises, 25% are 30 or under (including myself for the next month). But an interesting find is that over a third are 41 or over. Why that is, I have no idea!

But when you look at the "Active" element of each age group then you notice that most of those 20 or under are actually inactive, whilst those in the 31-40 age group are less likely to be active or do it when they can find time.

- Gender
When it comes to the gender of affiliates, if you're male you're more likely to be active than inactive. I'll resist any sexist, stereotypical remarks - novel for me I know.

- Location
It would have been useful to compare the percentage of affiliates in each geographic location with that of the general population which would have allowed one to make comments like "you're more likely to be an affiliate if you're based in London than in Scotland." At the moment you can only remark that if you're an affiliate you're more likely to live in the South East - which is obviously a different statement.

- Education
Again it would have been useful to have a comparison against the national average. The survey says that 48% of affiliates will have a bachelor's degree. So can we say that affiliates are on average more educated than general "middle management" or company directors? Nope.

However, there is one interesting fact that only 26% of affiliates have done any sort of marketing course. I'm one of the remainder who haven't. My excuse is that I got into Internet marketing before there were any IM courses and before I actually knew I was doing IM. I wonder how many of the under 31's in the survey have marketing qualifications?

My circumstance generally matches the finding that "50% of affiliate marketers say that their education has ‘not at all’ helped their present knowledge and understanding of affiliate marketing". Although, I'm sure a degree in Economics has helped in the peripheral aspects of running a business.

- Length of Time Being an Affiliate
44% of affiliates have started in the past two years. This isn't too surprising when you see the new faces and names on affiliate marketing forums and boards. For me the level of noob questions on the A4U forum has increased whilst the more experienced affiliates seem to have moved into closed circles and now communicate primarily via messenger, perhaps?

- Hours spent working
From the survey you can establish that a quarter of all affiliates do over 10 hours "work" a day. But it would be interesting to find out if they're actually doing "productive work"? How much was copy creation, advert writing, stats checking, networking, social marketing or time-wasting?

- Source of Income
57% of full time affiliates earn some money elsewhere, it would have been interesting to find out where from? May be it's consultancy, running a network, a bricks and mortar business etc?

- Level of Income
The big shocker of it all was that "Half of all respondents (49%) earned less that £500 a year." So how can you really surmise that 12% of affiliates work over 10 hours a day but only earn around £500 a year. This just doesn't add up. So it would have been good to divide the level of work done with the level of income earned.

And the 2 people that said they do over £2mil in their spare time can they please give me a call?

- Business Relationships
What I found surprising was that 11% of affiliates work in partnership. I've tried it, and it's a good idea when you can mix skills to form a complete team then it's worth it.

- Number of Websites
3% of people have over 100 sites, ooh I remember those spamming days! I've getting there with around 60-odd though.

-Converting traffic
40% think that SEO is the best way to get converting traffic. They're obviously not doing PPC right!

- Number of Networks
15% only use one network. Bloody hell, there's benefits in choice. No network has the best merchants in any given industry.

- Which network?
I would have thought all would have been signed up with Tradedoubler, but only 87% were. 48% use Affiliate Window and 44% use Affiliate Future. But it doesn't say if there's a tendency for active affiliates to use one network over another.

- Which Sectors?
It was good to see a fairly good spread between which industries affiliates work in.

- Why wouldn't an affiliates promote a merchant?
The biggest reason why an affiliate wouldn't promote a merchant is the quantity and type of links offered - I take it this means the availability of dynamic banners, html banners, flash etc? It would have been good to have specifics.

- Google damaging the industry
36% of affiliates would agree, the survey says! After recent events, its fewer than I expected!

You can download the UK Affiliate Census for free or visit E-Consultancy.