Affiliate Marketing is fast becoming the new trending topic in the country. More and more people are opting to become an affiliate marketer due to its high return value compared to the other forms of marketing. According to Mhojho Research, Affiliate Marketing is already a $17 Billion market and has expanded momentously from $13 Billion in 2016. Why is Affiliate Marketing becoming the new household term for every marketer? What are the current prospects? Is there a future for the Affiliate Marketing industry? We will answer all these questions but first, let us talk about Affiliate Marketing.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate Marketing is a form of partnership in which an affiliate marketer receives a commission for promoting products and services with their network of other brands. Anytime someone from the affiliate’s network makes a purchase, the affiliate gets a commission. Affiliate Marketing can be done both full-time and part-time. Here is more to Affiliate Marketing. But like every other profession, affiliate marketing has pros and cons.
Pros of Affiliate Marketing
Return on Investment
You do not have to invest much cash to become an affiliate marketer. The investment may depend on the niche you choose for yourself, but it is still not as much as the other marketing forms. However, the earning potential in affiliate marketing is unlimited. Once you make a decent reputation for yourself, gaining more partners to affiliate with becomes easier.
Work from Home
Since COVID struck, work from home has become the new normal. People look for WFH opportunities more extensively in all industries and job profiles. This is where affiliate marketing shines. You can become a flourishing affiliate marketer without stepping out of your house. All you need is to understand all the basic techniques and requirements for being an affiliate marketer.
Scope for Expansion
You need not be curtailed to a particular platform when you are an affiliate marketer. Affiliate Marketing can be done on every social media platform and search engine. Once you successfully set up your operations on a single platform, you can expand your horizons.
Cons of Affiliate Marketing
High Competition
As Affiliate Marketing gains ground, more and more people opt for it. Now you have to compete with many marketers to become successful in this field.
Content Creation
As a full-time affiliate marketer, you must ensure a stellar audience to promote the products. Before deciding to become a full-time affiliate, you might want to think if you can keep up with the high content standards that are being broken in the industry every day. Even though the choice of content is vast -blogging, YouTubers, social media, messaging apps, and many more, it is your job to think about which channel you can use in the best way to make a successful living out of affiliate marketing.
Bargaining Power
As a new affiliate marketer, it can become really hard to leverage when negotiating with companies about their affiliate marketing programs. Many companies may want to exploit their affiliates to gain an unfair advantage at the lowest price possible.
Current Status of Affiliate Marketing Industry
Affiliate Marketing is growing rapidly. The field has seen growth, particularly in the last five years. The significant rise of this new branch of marketing can be understood by these latest trends mentioned below:
- 56% of Affiliate programs increased their revenue over the period of last two years during the COVID-19 crisis
- 77% of people buying a product make their decision based on reviews.
- Google Searches for the term ‘Affiliate Marketing’ has doubled between the period 2015-2021.
- 43% of Affiliate Marketing revenue is generated by the retail industry, followed by telecom (24%) and travel (16%).
- 88% of buyers have made a shopping decision after listening to an influencer.
- 79% of marketers engage their customers through affiliate marketing apart from other channels.
- 67% of affiliate marketers use social media to connect with their customers. Social media can include YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and many more.
- 8 of 10 brands run an affiliate marketing program through different stakeholders and partnerships.
Earning Potential of Affiliate Marketers
Affiliate marketing can be a good source of passive income in India. If done rightly, it can become a primary source of income as affiliate marketing has the greatest earning potential than any other online business or work. By becoming affiliate marketers, people in India have earned money in lakhs and even crores. According to Glassdoor, affiliate marketers earn an average of ₹5214202.56 a year, with earnings between ₹3328214.40 at the lower end to ₹ 6577185.60 at the higher end.
Future of Affiliate Marketing
The future of the affiliate marketing industry does not look too bad, looking at the current statistics and revenue generated by this industry. The affiliate marketing industry in India is anticipated to exceed ₹66168.07 million by 2025, according to a recent report from IAMAI (Internet and Mobile Association of India).
India has the third-largest start-up network in the world, according to 2019 research by NASSCOM (The National Association of Software and Service Companies).
More Affiliate Marketing Companies
Currently, there are only around 10,000 Affiliate Marketing companies in the market. This number is expected to grow substantially as the market expands and more retailers opt for affiliate marketing.
Bigger Market
The affiliate marketing industry is anticipated to grow exponentially over the next five years. Already standing at $17 Billion, the industry could follow or surpass its past trajectory.
Higher Spending
Major online retailers still invest heavily in other marketing channels like offline marketing, social media marketing & content marketing. But as Affiliate marketing gains ground, companies’ budgets for the same are bound to grow.
Niche Industry
Even though Affiliate Marketing is already a very niche industry, it is poised to become even more professional and competitive due to higher competition. People who lack the understanding and skills to innovate in their affiliate marketing strategies will have to leave the industry for good.
New Career Opportunities
As Affiliate Marketing expands, it will create better jobs for retailers and affiliate marketers. New professions like content creator, blogger, and YouTuber will become mainstream and yield high returns.
