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Do you want to know the hack by which successful entrepreneurs or businesses reach millions of customers and generate 10X salesrevenue?
If that is the case, Affiliate Marketing is the answer and key to executing the sales target by rapidly scaling the potential customers. Most importantly, it is a cost-effective way.
But, how do businesses implement affiliate marketing in such a way that not only do they build their brand successfully but also get thousands of influencers to promote their services?
For that, you have to stay updated with the recent data and demographic of affiliate marketing. This guide will provide 80 affiliate marketing statistics to help you develop unique marketing strategies to make your business fruitful.
So, without any further delay, let's get started.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Let's start with the definition of the words:
affiliate and
marketing.
Affiliate:
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, affiliate means to be officially attached or closely connected to a larger organization or company.
Marketing:
And marketing indicates how a company presents, advertises and offers valuable products and services for sale in the best possible way.
Let me explain. Mainly, a merchant owns services, products, or goods.
Now, you, as an affiliate, join and promote their goods or services in your blog or social media channel, and when anyone purchases products from your links, you get a commission from the parent company.
So there are 3 key players in the business:
Merchant
Publisher
Customer.
Affiliate marketing is a risk-free and sound marketing strategy, as it allows every business to market its products on a meager budget.
How Do Businesses Grow through Affiliate Marketing?
Whether you are a small business owner or prominent, whether you sell physical or digital products, in the beginning, you are not likely to invest big money in building a dedicated team for marketing your products or services.
So what is the solution?
You may have heard of these techniques like emailmarketing, SEO, PPC, social media marketing, and many more.
But affiliate marketing is the best way to scale up your business with zero risk. In fact, 80% of companies and brands use affiliate marketing to boost sales and scale their business.
These are some powerful reasons why you should implement affiliate marketing:
First, you only pay an affiliate when a customer makes a purchase.
Affiliates do blogging and content marketing to promote the product and services; as a result, your brand value gets increased at a zero cost.
Affiliates use blogs, social media platforms, or websites to promote their products. Consequently, your business reached thousands of new customers quickly.
You don't need to pay every single time for advertising. Instead, you only pay affiliates when they generate sales for you.
Now we will share the statistics of every affiliate marketing sector, from the affiliate companies, affiliate niches, and top affiliate marketers to the future of affiliate marketing.
80+ Interesting Affiliate Marketing Statistics in 2025
Current Statistics of the industry provide the exact latest information on current affairs.
Particularly in affiliate marketing, statistics can make you a top contender as it upholds the quickly changing numbers and ratios of every sector in the affiliate industry in every way.
So let's learn all about them.
General Affiliate Marketing Statistics
According to wikipedia.org, William J Tobin designed and presented the concept of affiliate marketing to the world in 1989.
IAB UK’s affiliate marketing produced £8.9 billion in sales in 2017.
Affiliate marketing produces 16% of eCommerce sales in Canada and the USA.
Affiliate marketing offers advantages and influences 80% of advertisers and 84% of publishers.
According to 38% of all global marketers, affiliate marketing is the best to gain customers.
Only 1% to 5% of affiliate marketers become super successful. Therefore, they are commonly called “super affiliates.”
Google search volume for the keyword “Affiliate Marketing” doubled between 2015 and 2021.
1 out of 10 sales in the eCommerce industry occurs due to the excellent structure of affiliate marketing.
Nearly 95% of customers read multiple reviews of products on blogs before buying.
You don't need to create your products to be a successful affiliate marketer. There are thousands of affiliate companies. Simply create review content and promote their products.
Affiliate marketers mostly rely on Search Engine Optimization to get organic traffic. After that, they target social media platforms, video content, podcasting, etc.
Affiliate marketing is possible in several ways, but the best practices are –
Social Networking
SMS
Email Marketing and
Blogging.
(Source: Kinsta, Fetch Profit, Master Blogging)
Statistic of Affiliate Marketing Revenue
The USA affiliate marketing industry reached more than 7 billion dollars in 2020.
As per the report of Statista, the affiliate marketing industry will be worth 8.2 billion dollars in 2022.
In 2022 affiliate marketing budget has grown by more than 10% compared to 2021.
The retail sector represents the majority of affiliate revenues, accounting for 43%.
Affiliate marketing represents 15% of the overall income of the digital media industries.
According to 65% of merchants, affiliate marketing accounts for 5 to 20% of the company’s annual revenue.
73% of merchants report that affiliate income fulfills their expectations.
During the COVID-19 in late March 2020, 56% of affiliate advertisers and agenciesincreased their affiliate channel revenue.
The toy industry is a fast-moving and thriving company in affiliate marketing, with a 109% growth rate in 2020.
The second fastest-growing industry is software, with a growth rate of 109% in 2020.
The third-fastest growing industry is home improvement, with an 86% of growth rate.
Successful affiliate marketers don't rely on AdSense for generating revenue, as they can make 10X more money than AdSense.
(Source: Business Insider, BloggingX)
Statistics of Affiliate Companies
Amazon Associates continues to be the largest Affiliate network with the most active affiliate sites.
Software services, web hosting programs, and digital tools are the highest paying affiliate programs to join in 2022.
8 out of 10 brands, meaning 80% of businesses run affiliate marketing programs.
A company offers 1% to 60% (or more than that) commissions to an affiliate.
Amazon associates, Awin, Skimlinks, VigLink, ShareASale, Hostinger, Impact, Flexoffers, Shopify, and BigCommerce, are the top 10 affiliate programs in 2022.
Hostinger, Elementor, Cloudways, SiteGround, GreenGeeks, WP Engine, SEMrush, Kinsta, and Liquid Web are the top 10 high-paying affiliate programs to join.
Most companies charge zero money for joining their affiliate programs.
Fashion is the number one niche in affiliate marketing. It represents 23.27% of all online affiliate programs.
The second-largest niche is sports and outdoors. It represents 18.16% of all online affiliate programs.
The third-largest affiliate industry is health and wellness, accounting for 15% of programs.
41.04% of affiliate marketers favor promoting products in the category of computers and electronics.
Making money online, software and mobile service, gaming, dietary supplements, health and wellness, beauty and cosmetics, finance, lifestyle, real estate, and relationships are the top 10 niches in affiliate marketing in 2022.
Bitcoin and cryptocurrencyare becoming more common. This will uncover possibilities for more affiliate programs using cryptocurrency.
SaaS products were expected to reach 146 billion US dollars in 2021, a 20% increase from 2020.
(Source: Adsterra, Easy Affiliate, Forbes)
Statistic of Affiliate Marketers
Robby Blanchard is the world's leading affiliate marketer, with more than $1 million in monthly earnings.
Finch Sells, Missy Ward, Shawn Collins, Zac Johnson, Ian Fernando John Chow, Kirsty McCubbin, and Andrew Payne are the top affiliate marketers in the world.
Around 60% of affiliate marketers are from the US.
Almost 2% of affiliate marketers belong to India.
Nearly 10% of affiliate marketers are from Canada.
Approximately 9% of affiliate marketers make over $50,000 every year.
9% of affiliate marketers earn over $50K every year.
Around 20% of affiliate marketers prefer to use PayPal as a payment method.
95% of affiliate marketers fail and quit.
Only 10% of affiliates make up 90% of sales.
45% of content creators believe affiliate marketing to be a trusted method for earning, as it never affects the website’s user experience (UI).
Most affiliate marketers struggle because they choose the wrong niche and target the wrong keywords and audience.
Building an email list is an essential strategy for an affiliate marketer, as every email subscriber is worth an average of $1 per month.
To succeed in affiliate marketing, you must invest at least 16 productive hours every week in content creation, SEO, and website maintenance.
Affiliate markets need not spend money to join affiliate programs. However, they should have authentic websites with legitimate content.
Influencers who publish creative, valuable content are likely to get more affiliate sales than average content creators.
TikTok is the best source of getting potential customers for influencers.
Affiliate marketers target Gen Z customers, who are 16 to 24 years old and use social media and search engines.
(Source: Hosting Tribunal, VigLink, CloudWays)
Statistics of Contents In Affiliate Marketing
Half of the customers use voice search rather than typing. Therefore, affiliate marketers should optimize their content using voice search optimization.
Video content is the soul of content marketing. When it comes to physical products, video content is the most trusted way to check their quality.
Organic traffic is the key to boosting affiliate sales, and it comes from optimized, valuable content that solves readers' problems.
Micro-niche websites can generate good money in less time in affiliate marketing, as they have target audiences. However, these websites have less traffic.
Nowadays, customers prefer to consume video content and stories rather than reading blog posts.
(Source: CloudWays, SimilarWeb)
Statistics of Influencers in Affiliate Marketing
Most brands have faith in influencers as they gather many potential customers through their blog posts, social media, and video content.
There are three kinds of influencers on the market: micro-influencers, mid-tier influencers, and nano-influencers.
47.3% of Influencers are micro-influencers, 26.8% are mid-tier, and 18.74% are nano.
Brands love to work with tons of small influencers as they have the highest engagement rate.
Around 61% of consumers trust influencers and believe in their recommendations. However, only 38% of customers believe in the brand’s content.
(Source: SimilarWeb, Commissionfactory)
Statistics of Customers in Affiliate Marketing
45% of millennials use voice assistants to purchase any products.
Zen-G and Millennials are 44% of buyers as they have been brought up in the digital world.
75% of Zen-G and Millennials customers follow and read reviews on social media platforms to purchase their interested products.
Before purchasing their interested items and products, 54% of social media users read reviews online.
Potential affiliate customers prefer voice search rather than typing queries on search engines.
Potential customers likely to purchase products from your blog always search with long queries.
80% of customers follow influencers before making a buying decision.
Customers mainly use Pinterest and YouTube to purchase products.
40% of merchants in the USA point to affiliate marketing programs as their premium customer acquisition channel.
(Source: CloudWays, Backlinko)
Statistics of Commission Rates in Affiliate Marketing
Some highly paid affiliate programs reward affiliate marketers $8,000 in a single conversion.
BigCommerce pays affiliate members a 200% commission for the client's monthly payout.
Affiliates also get a maximum of $1500 for every enterprise customer.
According to Influencer Marketing Hub, an average conversion rate in affiliate marketing usually is about 1%.
Neil Patel says digital affiliate products offer a 50% commission rate, more than physical products, as people can use software products and digital tools repeatedly without damage.
The most trusted affiliate program, Amazon Associate's commission rate is between 1% to 10%.
Convert Kit, an email marketing software, offers a recurring 30% commission to affiliates every month.
A profitable commission rate above 5% is considered good. However, it depends on the niche and product type you choose.
(Source: Bengu Online, Ryan Robinson)
Statistics of Affiliate Marketing and Blogging
Affiliate marketing is an evergreenindustry that grows every year. So, if you want to make money blogging, this is a perfect time.
Blogging is the 3rd best traffic source in affiliate marketing, with approximately 67% of traffic.
Affiliate marketers' content pool has expanded by 175%.
While promoting products, 62% of affiliate marketers are concerned about the quality of their content.
Just 30% of website owners believe that there are insufficient affiliate products that are suitable and appropriate for their customers.
After proper keyword research and SEO-optimized content, an affiliate blog site can get 7 times more conversions.
(Source: BloggingX, Master Blogging)
Statistic of Affiliate Marketing and Social Media
Approximately 68% of affiliate marketers are united with customers on social media.
Social media influencers single-handedly influence 49% of customers and inspire them to make buying decisions.
74% of users rely on social media platforms for making purchasing decisions.
67.32% of affiliate marketers use social media to connect with potential customers.
YouTube video content is also one of the best ways to generate affiliate sales, as it grabs a viewer's attention for a long time.
55% of consumers look at product reviews via video content. So, using videos can be a powerful method to promote affiliate products.
Pinterest and YouTube are the best social media platforms compared to others to drive traffic and generate sales.
Currently, affiliate marketers focus on TikTok rather than Facebook for organic traffic. Also, some are going for paid advertisements.
Quora is also one of the best social media platforms for affiliate marketers as they can directly paste affiliate links on their posts.
(Source: BloggingX, Tradedoubler)
Statistic of Affiliate Marketing & Social Demographic
More than 5% of all affiliate marketers belong to the 18 to 24 age group.
According to the Hosting Tribunal, 40% of all digital marketers believe affiliate marketing to be a crucial skill to learn and master.
55.32% of affiliate marketing experts are married.
33.67% of affiliate marketing experts are unmarried.
62.35% of affiliate marketers have children.
You can learn and master the skills to be a successful affiliate marketer at home.
Every social media platform, especially a YouTube channel and email marketing, helps affiliate marketers build a healthy connection with the customer.
Affiliate marketing is a proven technique that is way better than advertising for generating leads and sales.
83% of advertisers use and implement affiliate marketing for branding and to reach out to customers.
Affiliate marketing accounts for 15% of overall digital advertising turnover.
Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to grow leads and sales for your business. It is also more economical than advertising.
Only 35% of affiliate marketers are eager to invest in PPC, pay-per-click.
62.32% of affiliate marketers allow advertisers to display advertisements on their website free of cost.
Affiliate marketing is more economical than advertising, as businesses pay affiliates only when they generate sales.
More than 40% of internet users use ad blocker extensions to reduce the number of advertisements displayed on the screen.
(Source: Forrest Consulting, Master Blogging)
Statistic of Affiliate Marketing and Modern Technology
Half of the affiliate traffic comes from mobile devices.
According to Neil Patel, if your website takes more than 3 seconds for page loading, 40% of customers will leave your website.
According to a BigCommerce report, a 1-seconddelay in your website's page load time can reduce conversation by 7%.
Around 3% of affiliate marketers use Bitcoin as a payment method.
50% of affiliate-referred traffic comes from mobile devices.
Always have a mobile-friendly website if you want to boost affiliate sales.
Push notifications, mobile popups, and email marketing are the best methods to retarget your customers.
Cryptocurrencies have become one of the more promising verticals in affiliate marketing.
Since digital currency is booming, small business owners have started accepting cryptocurrencies.
Artificial intelligence tools will make running affiliate marketing campaigns more effective by analyzing plenty of data.
According to SimilarWeb, AI will increase affiliate marketing sales by 30%.
(Source: Masterblogging, Forbes, Neil Patel)
Statistics of Affiliate Marketing and Countries
The USA is the top-selling country for affiliate marketers.
In 2022, total affiliate marketing spending in the USA is 8.2 billion dollars.
The UK spent more than 670 million dollars in affiliate marketing in 2017.
In the United Kingdom, affiliate Marketing has an average Return Of Investment, ROI, of 1:15.
The US makes up 39% of the affiliate marketing Market share.
In the USA, 74% of online buyers check numerous affiliate websites before making a buying decision.
61% of the Australian affiliate market applies the last-click attribution model.
(Source: IAB, Master Blogging)
Future of Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing has an excellent future in 2022. Currently, it accounts for around 50% to 20% of total online sales.
IAMAI (Internet and Mobile Association of India) has announced that the affiliate marketing sector in India will reach 835 million dollars by 2025.
A successful affiliate marketer makes an average of $65000 5 lakh in INR every year, which is more than a 9-to-5 job.
The lower 10% of affiliate marketers make $37,000, and the top 10% earn $71,000 annually.
It is possible to make big money from affiliate marketing, but it requires a lot of work and good strategies as it is becoming a competitive field.
Due to the tremendous growth of mobile users, the eCommerce industry is booming and will be an evergreen niche.
Affiliate marketers should focus on voice search optimization and voice search queries, as half of the users use voice search on search engines.
(Source: Taboola)
To Sum Up
We have researched multiple branded blogs and websites to find the current reports and statistics on the affiliate marketing industry.
Whether you are an entrepreneur who wants to expandyour business or a digital marketing beginner who wants to make money online, affiliate marketing will be a game-changing decision for you.
Please read those statistics thoroughly to learn more about this industry, and comment below if you have any questions.
Jitendra Vaswani is a leading authority in digital marketing, known for his vast expertise and impactful contributions to the industry. As an international speaker, he has shared insights on stages worldwide. He is the founder of Digiexe.com, a digital marketing agency & Bytegain.com, a tool for SEO copywriting and local SEO. With his strategic acquisition of AffiliateBooster, Jitendra solidifies his position as a leader in the digital marketing industry. He is set to revolutionize affiliate marketing by providing advanced solutions that drive sales and performance. His best-selling book, "Inside A Hustler’s Brain: In Pursuit of Financial Freedom," has sold over 20,000 copies globally, showcasing his expertise and influence. Jitendra continues to inspire and empower digital marketers and entrepreneurs worldwide, establishing new benchmarks for success in the industry.