MarektingSherpa has come out with Affiliate Marketing 2007 Special Report which is an interesting look into the minds of both affiliate marketers and the merchants who work with them. To get the full report head over to Shawn Collin’s blog and click the “download” link.

Some of the more interesting bits of information that I ran across in the report were:

• Affiliate marketing in general is a growing industry, and merchants are generally optimistic about the future growth of their programs.
• Some merchants still offer pay-per-click programs, and a couple even offer pay-per-impression offers. I’d love to know how those are working.
• Commission structure, quality of consumer offers and relationships with merchants are all very important to affiliate marketers. Surprisingly, full-time affiliates felt that a good merchant relationship was a lot less important the part-time affiliates.
• Merchants say that their biggest challenge is finding high quality affiliates…which makes us feel pretty blessed here at InsureMe
• Affiliates seem to be grasping Web 2.0 concepts faster than merchants - but merchants are looking to be more involved in blogging, videos, etc. in the coming year. The merchants that are using blogs and communities to communicate with affiliates are finding that it helps promote relationship building. (Amen)
• Only 21% of affiliates thought that merchants communicated with them often enough, but a majority found that when there was communication with merchants it was helpful.
• Affiliates who have been affiliates for three or more years make an average of $54,975 per year; affiliates with less experience make, on average, $34,612 per year.

Interesting information for sure. I appreciate the last bullet point a lot, since I think the tendency in the affiliate community is to talk about the MILLIONS that are being made by a few super affiliates and not talk about the average affiliate who is working hard to make a good wage online.

Make sure you check out the full report to see all 16 charts and get some insight from industry leaders.

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