Affiliate Marketing Poised for Growth

A recent Internet marketing survey shows that 55% of respondents said they even if get more than $10,000 in revenue from the average customer from a highly-qualified lead, only  8.8% said they would be willing to pay $500 for that lead.

Why are so few companies willing to pay that money for a promising lead? After all, in many cases those leads will lead to a much larger return in revenue.

The industry is poised for growth, according to a recent report from Marketingland.com. In today’s market, very few companies have an extra $500 lying around invest on even a promising return. The actual cost of acquiring a customer is simply not part of many budgets these days.

Marketers are increasingly turning to alternate lead-generation models, sometimes termed “pay-for-performance”, as budgets are cut and management demands more statistics measurement as a part of any marketing program.

Due to the explosion of affiliate marketing on the Internet, many companies are generating a large number of leads quickly and inexpensively. Affiliate Marketing is a partnership where an affiliate site will generate traffic to another site, thereby generating leads and earning revenue in exchange.

Instead of paying a marketing agency to feed highly-qualified leads into one large pipeline, companies can garner trickles of leads from any number of targeted sources through affiliates. This process can reduce the cost of incoming leads to just pennies per lead.

Market research firm Forrester anticipates a nearly 16% growth in affiliate marketing every year until 2014, which equates to approximately $4 billion a year.

How can you cash in on the growing trend towards affiliate marketing? Actually getting into a position where you’re consistently earning revenue is initially tough, say the experts marketers at NetConsultCo.com. You need customers in order to make sales. And nowadays, social media is the place to find them.

As posted recently on a NetConultCo blog, “social media websites present multiple opportunities for effective, targeted advertising.” For affiliate marketers, this simply means a more effective environment to succeed.

If you take the plunge as an affiliate marketer, make sure you ask others what programs they would recommend. There are a wide variety of affiliate programs available, and some are more lucrative than others.

You will probably end up joining several and finding the ones that work for you by trial and error. You will want to keep up with industry trends, as the marketing business climate will change as you go.