Back

Affiliate and Influencer Marketing Statistics for Publishers and Merchants

Number of Active Publishers in US and UK

How many active affiliate publishers are there? In the Awin report, (available with email signup) we can see some helpful statistics. They have an abundance of information broken down by country and local Q&As. Here are a few takeaways:

Number of active publishers in the United States: 105,258

Number of active publishers in the UK: 19,220

Authenticity Is Critical to the Future of Influencer Marketing

A study by Influencer Intelligence (report available for download here) shares some information on how marketers feel about influencers.

90% of marketers say authenticity is critical to the future of influencer marketing.

This isn’t surprising, since authenticity is originally what made influencer marketing so valuable. Consumers are less likely to trust television ads or banner ads as much as information coming directly from a friend or influencer they follow. Personal, relatable content comes across as very genuine. As influencer marketing grows, the battle to keep reviews honest and authentic will grow as well.

‘Fake followers’ ranks as number one concern within influencer marketing

Fake followers can be bought at a low cost (see our article here.) At first glance, you can’t always tell how many of an influencer’s followers are real. Research is very important when choosing an influencer partner — especially to retain that authenticity in the statistic listed above.

Affiliate Content on YouTube and Pinterest

A study by Princeton University found the following data:

0.67% of 515,999 YouTube videos contained at least one affiliate URL

0.85% of 2,140,462 Pinterest pins contained at least one affiliate URL

This may not seem like a whole lot, but considering how many users they have, it adds up to a significant part of the internet.

YouTube Usage Stats:

Over 1.9 Billion logged-in users visit YouTube each month and every day people watch over a billion hours of video and generate billions of views. (Source: YouTube for Press)

Again, 0.67% of videos may not seem like a lot — but when you look at the sheer amount of users accessing YouTube monthly, it becomes much more significant.

Pinterest Statistics

The Princeton study also referred to Pinterest as a platform for affiliate marketing. How relevant is Pinterest for affiliate marketers? Here are some stats:

Ninety-three percent reported that they use Pinterest to plan for purchases, and another 87% reported Pinterest engagement has helped them decide what to purchase. (Source)

Some believe Pinterest interest is declining, and it’s worth noting the data above is from 2015 when Pinterest was arguably more popular than it is now. However, it’s still a relevant platform for affiliate marketers currently. A chart from Statista shows the percentage of U.S. adults using Pinterest:

34 percent of U.S. adults between 18 and 29 years use Pinterest. (Source)

Find more statistics at Statista

Overall Low Rate of Affiliate Disclosure

Unfortunately, regardless of FTC guidelines, the same Princeton study discovered a low rate of affiliate disclosure overall. According to the study, “In an initial analysis of 20 randomly selected affiliate videos and pins, we found no disclosures in these locations, and instead focused our attention to the descriptions.”

10.49% of all affiliate videos and 7.03% of all affiliate pins contained an affiliate marketing disclosure.

Does Content With Affiliate URLs Have Higher Engagement?

One more takeaway from the Princeton study is engagement among content with affiliate URLs. According to the study, they found that “on both YouTube and Pinterest—content with affiliate URLs have significantly higher user engagement compared to content that does not contain affiliate URLs.”

Most Brands Look For This Engagement Rate From Influencers

A HopperHQ article on Love Island Instagram states that they’re “typically seeing brands work exclusively with influencers who have a 10-20% engagement rate”. This seems to be the percentage that indicates the viewership is invested in what the influencer is saying. Looking at engagement helps prevent wasting money on accounts with fake followers.

Influencer Marketing Effectiveness & Growth

TradeDoubler has some interesting statistics on influencer marketing. Here are a couple facts that stand out:

75% of all marketers claim that they have allocated money to influencer marketing

40% of Twitter users say, that they have already purchased something because of a Tweet from somebody else.

What about the difference in influencer marketing today vs. a year or two ago? The same TradeDoubler report states,

“[Influencer marketing] is predicted to be a 6.8 billion dollar industry in 2020.”

“When it comes to the term influencer marketing itself and Google searches, the keyword has been searched for 325% more often now than one year ago.”

Affiliate Channel Growth in Q2 2018 vs. 2017

According to the Acceleration Partners benchmark report (available here with email signup) for Q2 2018 compared to Q2 2017, “affiliate channel revenue for Q2 2018 was up 23% when compared with Q2 of last year.” This is good news for affiliate marketers, as we look forward to seeing the growth in Q2 of 2019 compared to Q2 2018.

Google Trends: Affiliate Marketing vs. Influencer Marketing

Google Trends is an interesting way to gauge interest and popularity of industry topics. Check out the graph below of affiliate marketing searches compared to affiliate marketing in the past 5 years.

While affiliate marketing has a higher number overall, you can see a steadily increasing trend of influencer marketing searches:

Affiliate and Influencer Marketing: An Ever-Evolving Atmosphere

We hope you enjoyed reviewing these affiliate and influencer marketing statistics. The continued growth of affiliate marketing continues to reap exciting rewards year after year. At FMTC, we’re proud to be a part of this ever-evolving scene. We’re also pleased to offer solutions to help you grow along with the industry. Check out our solutions for affiliate publishers, merchants and OPMs here.

Sources:

https://www.hopperhq.com/blog/love-island-instagram/
https://www.awin.com/us/the-awin-report
https://influencerintelligence.econsultancy.com/resource-article/HW/Influencer-Marketing-2020/
https://freshpress.media/influencer-fake-followers/
https://www.statista.com/
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1803.08488.pdf
https://www.tradedoubler.com/pl/blog/top-global-trends-in-affiliate-marketing-for-2019/
https://www.accelerationpartners.com/resources/guides/q2-2018-affiliate-marketing-benchmark-report
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=affiliate%20marketing,influencer%20marketing