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Affiliate Marketing Helps Companies Grow Even in a Tough Economy

Jun 15, 2009
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Commission Junction released some data today that goes a long way to show that having an affiliate program helps you grow your business compared to competitors without programs. In the most recent Internet Retailer Top 500 guide, they look at the Office Supply category which is listed as one of the top three growth areas last year.

The Office Supply category is listed with a 14% year over year growth in online sales, but that is only half the story. Splitting the Top 500 merchants into those with affiliate programs and those without has surprising results. Just over half the group have a program and they saw a 36% year over year growth. Those of you with a better than average grasp of math should realize that to balance that figure out requires that the other half experience a decline in online sales.

And for those of you who may be ValueClick stockholders or just want to know what else they are proud of, CJ also announced today that for the fourth consecutive year it is the leading choice of performance marketing solutions for more of America’s largest retail Web sites. 62% of the retailers listed in The 2009 Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide who work with third-party affiliate marketing partners choose CJ.  CJ’s 62% market share shows growth over last year, when it claimed 53 % of the Internet Retailer Top 500 market share.

About Brad Waller

Some say Brad created the first affiliate program. We’ll never know for sure, but we do know that Brad has been running businesses online since 1994 and affiliate programs since 1996. When he is not running the affiliate program for EPage Classifieds, helping publishers monetize their sites with AdJungle, or working on iPhone applications, Brad is also busy starting up the Performance Marketing Alliance, a trade association created to represent and build the entire performance based industry.

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Filed under: Affiliate Marketing + Internet Marketing + News + Online Marketing
  • http://stephanielichtenstein.com Stephanie Lichtenste

    Thank you for sharing these statistics with us Brad. It goes to show we are definitely in the right industry.

  • http://www.nickstamoulis.com/seo-consultant.html Nick Stamoulis

    I think a great deal of it has to do with unemployed people trying to take advantage of the internet to make some extra cash and taking the affiliate route to make it happen.

  • http://www.bongobing.com/affiliates Raul Pellerano

    Hi, as someone in the know in the affiliate community what do you think of a new program that allows you to create as many affiliate product pages as you'd like for a flat monthly cost.

    The pages look awesome, and the technology behind them is powerful, but we're not affiliates so we figure that we'll stick to what we're good at and do the tech, and let affiliates reap the benefits of this new system we have developed.

    Please let us know your thoughts? Take a look at the package we are offering and please provide feedback: bongobing.com/affiliates. We're here to serve the community and want this program to be reflective of what affiliates want, so don't hesitate to tell us what we need to add, remove or change.

  • http://affiliatesmania.com Affiliates Mania

    affiliate marketing is not effect by the economy. for me, it is more better in tough economy, because in we got many chance in affiliate marketing

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  • http://www.seop.com Christine Magtoto

    Great news! Thank you for sharing the data, Brad and CJ. I'm confident that online programs will continue to be strong or will bounce back, if they've felt the effect. Keep us informed!