Competitor Analysis SWOT Affiliate marketing Competition in Affiliate Marketing: the Current State And Few Tips on How to Come on Top

The history of the development of affiliate marketing can be compared with the hot start and introduction of technology at the beginning of the 21st century. The advantage of the sector is that it has learned from the mistakes of "crisis.com" and uses a more viable business model. The affiliate marketing sector was small and nascent, but talented and enthusiastic people were immediately visible.

At this point in 2022, when affiliate marketing generates multibillion-dollar revenue, it is the global industry bet for any e-commerce business hoping for sustainable growth. 

The success and steady growth of affiliate marketing lie in its main model - an adaptive advertising model with pay-for-performance, which allows millions of consumers to make more informed purchasing decisions every day. Companies can use the channel to create their advertising ecosystems, creating a galaxy of revenue sources at almost every point of contact with the media. 

Here are the statistics for 2021: In 2021, more than 80% of brands worked with affiliated partners. 65% of sellers report that up to 20% of their income comes from affiliate marketing. 

An even more interesting statistic is that 65% of affiliate marketers are bloggers; another shows that 68% communicate with customers through social networks. Some of them are experienced webmasters and SEO specialists. The final part is video bloggers, such as TikTok or YouTube with niche topics, with whom it is easy to collaborate to promote the product.  

The most important thing is that all this is achieved with little risk and a very high ROI. 

Based on all of the above, it seems that the train left and many did not have time to get into the last car. Also, beginners are now worried about competition in the field of affiliate marketing. According to a recent report by the Effective Marketing Association, the affiliate industry grew by 47% between 2018 and the end of 2021, demonstrating how it has become the main channel for many retailers. But is the future for newcomers that cloudy? 

Catalysts For the Growth of Interest in Affiliate Marketing

This diversity of possibilities is the result of several factors:

1. Pandemic and 2020. A lot of this is because brands during this period did not know where to invest advertising costs, they sought refuge in campaigns with CPA payment. Internet traffic has also grown significantly in various niches that were not so popular before the pandemic.
2. Cryptocurrency. The crypto BOOM in 2021 created a great opportunity to fill the internet with money, new projects were looking for followed the same pattern as brands during the pandemic, expanding opportunities: here and RevShare, CPA, Pay Per Lead, and many others.
3. Well-known media houses that have avoided traditional advertising locations are now integrating affiliate marketing into content trading strategies to better monetize traffic. Many businesses have realized how profitable these opportunities are to promote their product: find a marketer with influence on the audience of a niche product and save money for large marketing companies. 

All this has led to the fact that analysts continue to predict the growth of affiliate marketing in the next five years. According to Statista, projected affiliate marketing spending in the United States alone could reach $8.2 billion in 2022, up from $7.4 billion in 2021. From $2.5 billion in 2012, affiliate marketing spending has continued to increase year on year, indicating that more and more companies are including affiliate marketing in their campaigns

Affiliate marketing is evolving, and affiliates themselves are getting smarter, which many perceive as a threat to their earnings. Back in 2013, it was enough to create a simple HTML file and add a link to the product from the picture, but now everything is becoming more acceptable. This is a matter of adaptation and development, the better you cope with your responsibilities as marketers, the more profit you will make. 

Thanks to the competition in the market and the influx of new partnerships, the industry has become better able to evaluate and reward its partners accordingly!

Nuances of Business in Affiliate Marketing 

For the sustainable development of each business, there are growth patterns of the entire sector that are worth looking at to succeed. 

1. The issue of inclusivity and professional ethics. As we said above, the importance of ethics in business has perhaps never been more important. Sustainable development, inclusiveness, and accessibility are priorities for both consumers and companies. More and more businesses are trying to counter these problems in the way they operate and in the services they offer!
2. Use your information field, be it a blog or a website, to try something new. At this stage, affiliate marketing is not just a coupon code and commission, it is a great opportunity for companies to find traffic for budget testing of products or new fintech processes. Now, for example, in the field of cryptocurrencies, you can receive not only commissions for inviting affiliates, but also create a kind of community, jointly testing new tools, and receiving rewards. There is also an opportunity to participate in large-scale projects at the very start.
3. Locality is not a verdict. In affiliate marketing, the amount of your influence on the masses is not the key to success. Many branches can be considered small and insignificant compared to the tops, but they can be considered central in their niches or a regional center of influence in their subordinate bodies! In this case, the conversion rate may be even higher than those who are sprayed on a lot. Perhaps this is the "face" and "basis" of all affiliate marketing around the world!
4. There is no ceiling and no framework to not realize yourself. Affiliate marketing resembles the IT sphere because many say that the market is already overheated and it is impossible to find good offers - in fact, this is not the case. According to Affiliate Marketing Benchmark Report 2022, more than 84% of publishers join affiliate marketing. As many as 94% of publishers use 2 or more affiliate programs, while 39% and 20% of publishers use 3 or more and 5 affiliate marketing programs, respectively. And the numbers continue to grow. 

Returning to statistics again, we can say for sure that affiliate marketing is quite democratic and decentralized, where everyone has a chance to get their own. If we look at the list of affiliate networks with the largest number of links to a publisher, then according to a study conducted by WeCanTrack: Wine accounts for 30% of links to publishers worldwide, followed by CJ affiliates (15.8%) and Rakuten (7.4%). This list does not include links to Amazon Associates publishers and affiliate activity from pages in the app or social networks. In another study from Datanyze, we can observe that Amazon Associates ranks first with almost half of the 44% market share. In second place is the Awin market share of 11.95%! 

The Most Popular Niches 

Based on the statistics above, we can also highlight the most profitable niches in which most marketers work. The fashion industry, which includes everything related to clothing and accessories, makes up 25% of all affiliate program accounts! 

Also, many resorts to the health and sports sectors, the cost of which exceeds $ 4 trillion, and they turn out to be the most profitable. 

Here is a list of niches that are rapidly gaining popularity, and they also include global brands at a high rate: 

• Travel 
  
• Beauty industry 
• Film and music subscriptions 
• Fintech and crypto
• Pet care
• Gambling
• Gaming 
• Technology

The current state of affairs in affiliate marketing is quite positive: the market is decentralized and democratized, because any company or brand can participate in it, thereby adding opportunities to earn money for anyone who wants. 

Democracy and decentralization are the general states of affairs, as for individual cases, the factor separating profitable and not quite-profitable partner campaigns is the quality of content and competitiveness. Such a rapid development of the industry could have happened due to high internal competition and rapid improvement in the quality of content.

Competitor Analysis and Key Actions 

Before entering any niche or the affiliate marketing market itself, make sure that you evaluate the market in which you work and identify any new affiliate campaigns launched by competitors. 

To be able to launch more successful companies, it is worth following these key actions: 

1. Set up wiretapping of your market - track your competitors and related keywords using free tools such as Google Keyword planner and Google Alerts. Keep an eye out for review websites, for example, Rei.com it is also worth paying attention to forums or Twitter for keywords that are gaining popularity in your niche.
2. Look for ways to differentiate yourself from your competitors. Search for opportunities that your competitors do not offer to the market, which you could use to increase the attractiveness of your affiliate program.
3. Always have performance benchmarks.
4. Use SWOT analysis to identify many gaps and opportunities that the strategy should provide you with.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT designates strengths and weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and trends! It is important not only to collect information but also to sort it. When you identify strengths and weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and trends, before writing them down, ask yourself if you can use them to improve what you do and how to win the battle with your competitors. Don't waste your time on generalizations and theory, but always focus on practice!

There are several effective recommendations on how to remove extra numbers from the paper and add more efficiency and actions: 

• Put yourself in the shoes of buyers or users. If you want a big conversion, then put yourself in the place of your affiliates. Ask for feedback, collect data from various departments, monitor the behavior of affiliates, and use the results to identify weaknesses that need to be corrected. Analyze which approach has proven to be good to use it even more. 
• Learn to separate external problems from internal ones. It happens that the market goes against you or there comes a time of crisis in which you will not receive a penny. External problems are those that exist regardless of the existence of your company. 
• To analyze the internal characteristics, it is worth considering not only the fact of conversion itself but also the technical aspect. Perhaps your website is loading too slowly due to the limited resources provided by your hosting provider, in which case you need to either switch to a better hosting plan or change provider. Maybe you are providing poor-quality content.
• Identify your competitors. Analyze everyone and everything aimed at your potential customers offering products or services related to yours!
• Use this distinction to separate opportunities from marketing options, tactics, and strategies in your analysis. Sometimes they may overlap, but never neglect their independence!

The base has been laid, now it's worth considering how to conduct a good competitive analysis! 

How to Conduct a Competitive Analysis

The purpose of the analysis is to find and apply the necessary data for setting up and directing the development of your affiliate campaign. This analysis is best broken down into 5 components. 

Strengths of your campaign

What helps you stand out from the crowd? This is what we should focus on at this stage. We pay attention to several points: 

• Content quality
• Uniqueness of the advertising company and its effectiveness
• Conversion rate
• Your media presence and the engagement of your audience
• Your knowledge, experience, or technology that you use

You should not immediately change your strengths if it didn't work out the first time. Neglecting the skills you have will play a bad joke on you. Decide what you are good at and keep moving in that direction. 

Weaknesses of your campaign

You should not fall into apathy or look at your results very pessimistically. An objective and constructive approach is needed in this matter. It's great to start here by looking at your strengths and building on what you lack. 

Possible vulnerabilities: 

• What are your affiliates complaining about? What content do they dislike and bring little conversion? Review failed campaigns and conclude;
• Perhaps there is a marketing channel that brings the highest conversion;
• There may be unprofitable investments or instruments.

By this point, you should already have a few weak points to work on, and you may discover even more along the way. 

Potential opportunities 

What you can offer and where it is better to apply for maximum success - these are your opportunities. Many weaknesses, both yours and your competitors, can be turned into opportunities with the right approach! 

What can be done: 

• Consider new technologies
• Geotargeting of a marketing campaign
• Wider markets or neighboring niches
• Areas that your competitors have not covered

Opportunities and your reaction to them are also an indicator of either your strengths or weaknesses.  

Threats and risks 

There are not only sunny days, but in addition to opportunities, you also have to watch out for threats. They can be external, like changes in legislation, or internal, like incompetent, disloyal publishers. Regardless of their type, it is important to anticipate threats and prepare to avoid or overcome them.

Threats can be perceived as a kind of disease, the earlier you diagnose them, the easier it is to cope with them.

• Are there any problems with your website or blog?
• Are there new competitors with more innovative technologies that take your traffic
• Are there any difficulties with communicating information to affiliates?

The answers to these questions will help you diagnose your campaign, which can lead to success. Since one thing leads to another, our threat analysis forces us to pay attention to trends. Let's see how you can identify them and keep up to date on the last stage of our analysis.

Trends 

Markets are changing rapidly, and customer preferences are changing along with them. It is necessary to choose the most successful trends, and not to be sprayed running from one to another! To find out where you are and what else you can do, look at your campaigns from the following perspectives:

• Current online marketing trends that you could adopt
• New trends that match the strengths of your campaign
• New traffic in the form of interest groups that you can work with
• Follow the info field 

By combining these 5 points, you should have a complete picture of your campaign analysis to assess the current situation and development opportunities. You will also see whether it is advisable to launch a particular campaign, because in affiliate marketing - time is money, and energy is also money!

Recap

Affiliate marketing is a fairly democratic and decentralized environment that allows many to earn at a decent level. Is there competition? - Of course, there is, but the question here is how you approach it. Competition is the key to development, and the better you adapt to it, the faster you will achieve what you want.

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