2008 Affiliate Report - November 12, 2008 AffiliateBenchmarks wanted to ensure that the affiliate community was aware of this research project.  We made every effort to increase publicity and foster participation.  With the help of everyone who promoted this project, over 450 responses were accumulated. The 23 questions were brainstormed and refined by members of the AffiliateBenchmarks Team who drew upon their experiences as affiliate program managers.  Research experts were also consulted to strengthen our methodology. 67% of the people who originally intended to participate in the survey identified themselves as affiliates.  These participants completed the entire survey, while the other 33% did not.  The affiliates who responded to the survey range in size from the very small to much larger “super affiliates.”  They were users of an array of affiliate platforms, including Commission Junction, Google Affiliate Network (formerly DoubleClick Performics), LinkShare, ShareASale, and more. Survey Question List

1. Please let us know your role in the affiliate marketing space.
2. How many affiliate programs have you joined?
3. How many affiliate programs are promoted on your site (or sites) in an average month?
4. Out of all of the merchants that you promote on your site, approximately what percentage of them generated at least one order for you last month?
5. How many employees does your company have?
6. When evaluating an affiliate program, does the affiliate technology play a role in deciding whether or not to apply?
7. Please choose your top three affiliate technologies from the list below.
8. From the list below, please pick three items that you find to be the most valuable when promoting an affiliate program.
9. What are the three most important items you look at when deciding if you want to join an affiliate program?
10. With regards to communication, how many newsletters do you receive in a week?
11. How often do you like to receive newsletters?
12. Please select your preferred method of messaging for each type of communication.  Please choose one method of contact for each.
13. With regards to banners, do you prefer to host the images yourself or do you allow the network technologies to host?
14. How do video advertisements perform on your website?
15. If you run flash ad units, please tell us how they perform.
16. Which of the following methods do you use to drive traffic to your site?
17. Do you currently charge a fee to list advertisers on your site?
18. If you are currently running Google AdSense on your site, please tell us what drives more revenue for your site.
19. Please check any advertiser types that generate strong revenue.
20. What is the average conversion rate you see for the categories you selected above?
21. What is the average age of your visitors?
22. Please provide us with the percentage of male and female users on your site.
23. What is the average household income of your users?