Online Performance Marketing Adds £14Bn To Advertiser Revenue In 2013

Last year, affiliate marketing and lead generation added £14 billion to the revenues of UK advertisers after they spent just £1 billion on those channels, the latest research from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) shows.

This means that local advertisers generated a return of £14 for every £1 spent on affiliate marketing and lead generation techniques last year.

The online performance marketing study of IAB and PWC, now in its second year, revealed a 15% increase in affiliate marketing and lead generation budgets on a like-for-like basis. The bulk of sales came from the most prevalent types of online performance marketing channels, namely price comparison, voucher, cash-back, loyalty and product review websites. More specifically, affiliate websites contributed £13 billion to advertising revenues in 2013, resulting from 150 million purchases made by local consumers. The remaining £1 billion came from contact forms submitted by users, meaning that online performance marketing now accounts for 10% of UK online retail sales.

Advertisers from the finance and retail sector were responsible for over 50% of online performance expenditure in 2013, with insurance and credit card advertisers’ use of price comparison sites driving 35% of expenditure. Next came retailers, accounting for 21% of the total, followed by travel and leisure with 17%, telecoms and media with 9% and gaming with 7%.

The study also revealed that in the last six months, price comparison sites were visited by 52% of UK online consumers, suggesting that online performance marketing techniques are now broadly preferred by consumers seeking to find the best deals.