Though its not as big a part of their overall sales and marketing program as paid search or e-mail, affiliate marketing is an effective strategy to build broader brand awareness and drive motivated buyers to business-to-consumer e-commerce sites, say web retailers participating in the latest Internet Retailer survey.
Most web retailers have already made a multi-year investment in affiliate marketing and count on a network of several thousand affiliates to drive visitor traffic, according to the latest Internet Retailer survey. For instance, 43.2% of web merchants taking part in the survey indicate that their affiliate marketing program is at least 4 years old, compared with 23.2% who say theyve had a program in place for 2-3 years, 10.5% with programs only about a year old and 23.2% with programs in operation less than a year.
Complete article at http://internetretailer.com/article.asp?id=16248