I have just been notified about a site, AffiliateProgramAdvice.com and E-Consultancy.com which are working on an affiliate census for affiliates in the United States. In order for the census to go through they are asking all affiliates to participate in a survey, which is less than about 10 minutes, and you will also get a copy of the results as well.
The deadline to complete the Affiliate Census is January 27, 2009, which is coming very close.
But what does this mean to affiliates? Well recently a UK affiliate census was recently released and can be downloaded at the following link. This UK census is about the lack of transparency for the advertisers and networks on who are 'affiliates'. There is little known information about us and the way we contribute to the online economy.
The main benefit of this is seeing what the average income an affiliate or publisher makes. We know very little about our own competition, as affiliates we are very cautious on who we share information with if any at all. The census will allow us to determine what an average affiliate income is base on network income as an individual. It will also let affiliates know what kinds of threats there is towards affiliates, best method of promotion, and how many networks an affiliate belongs to.
My Input on all this
This research definitely affects the affiliate industry but as US affiliates do we want this?
As a growing affiliate marketer, I would like to know some threats about our industry, wich I personally do not see from an economic standpoint.
But do we want to know what the yearly income is for an average affiliate? Do we want networks to share our methods of promotion. The amount of networks we work with, revenue that is generated off maybe a merchant. I mean we are very private marketers. Do we want this to really go out? Some of the questions are pretty personal, like amount of time spent, when and how long you started, etc.
These are very basic questions but they do hold some truth behind it. Even though the questionnaire is anonymous. Should we as affiliates, be anonymously helping our own competition? It is great that this would be good information but at to what extent?
Their already studies and surveys out their that takes a general idea and provide feedback to the affiliate industry. Recently a report was release from AFFstats.com which provided a very good study on the affiliate industry. But a census?
What is a Census:
A census is the procedure of acquiring information about every member of a given population.
Population being our industry and information - that can be any information they would like to acquire. This is just my input and would like to be interested in hearing what you think about all this.
If you want to know a little more about the survey - read this post about it and give your input on what you think about this census idea.
