Digiday and Taboola Survey Shows Publishers Grew Affiliate Marketing As a Significant Revenue Source, As Native Advertising and Affiliate Marketing Make Up the Majority of Revenue

Taboola, a global leader in powering recommendations for the open web, helping people discover things they may like, announced the results of an independent survey with Digiday, a digital media company exploring technology’s disruption within the global media and marketing industries.

Industry forecasts predict the affiliate marketing industry could reach $15.7 billion by 2024 and indicate that searches for “affiliate marketing” increased by nearly 30% throughout 2021.

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The survey measured how publishers approached affiliate marketing pre-pandemic (in 2019) and how their tactics shifted to meet audiences and markets in 2022. Key findings include:

1. The role of affiliate marketing has grown as a revenue source. Nearly half of respondents (49%) indicated the performance of their company’s affiliate marketing channel grew during the e-commerce surge from 2020–2022. Additionally, in 2022, among the nearly three-fourths of respondents who are engaging with affiliate programs, 74% indicated affiliate marketing has become more important regarding revenue than it was in the past.
2. Commerce content and native advertising are seeing an increase in dedicated publisher budgets. When asked about the specific channels that publishers use to drive revenue, the most respondents said commerce content is a contributor (87%) and the next most popular was native advertising (51%). Also, the majority of respondents are seeing up to 20% of their revenue come from affiliate marketing efforts in 2022 (34%) and are expecting the same for 2023 (37%).
3. Publishers are diversifying their strategies by establishing a hybrid setup of in-house experts and third-party technology providers. As publishers work toward improving their affiliate marketing strategies for 2023 and beyond, the majority (65%) are partnering with third-party technology vendors or other partners specializing in affiliate marketing, with 59% working with a hybrid setup of in-house experts and third-party partners. Diversification is on the agenda too, with publishers seeing more growth from non-Amazon commissions than Amazon commissions, with 81% reporting an increase in non-Amazon commissions over the past six months.

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