As affiliate marketing has evolved into a multi-billion-dollar global industry with a proven ability to drive growth and customer acquisition, travel brands that may have held back from incorporating the channel into their advertising strategy are taking a second look.
Also referred to as partner marketing, affiliate marketing is a rapidly growing industry that now generates an estimated 16% of all online orders within the e-commerce world. As noted in the Performance Marketing Association’s most recent industry overview, “Along with the growth of e-commerce, affiliate marketing has proven to be a pivotal and increasingly critical channel for brands to leverage— especially in volatile economies.”
A brief history of the industry
Affiliate marketing has been around for a long time in one form or another, beginning with basic referrals. While early efforts to track performance were rudimentary—for example, counting the number of times consumers claimed a unique discount by citing an ad they saw—the concept of performance-based affiliate marketing didn’t really get underway until the advent of the World Wide Web in 1993. As noted in Investopedia, “Affiliate marketing predates the internet, but in the world of digital marketing, analytics and cookies made it a billion-dollar industry.”
While affiliate marketing remains a relatively small advertising channel, it has achieved a high rate of growth in recent years as brands in and out of the travel industry increasingly add it as an important tool in their advertising kit. According to the most recent eMarketer report, affiliate marketing exceeded $8 billion in the United States and $14 billion globally by the end of 2023.
As affiliate marketing has evolved into a multi-billion-dollar global industry with a proven ability to drive growth and customer acquisition, travel brands that may have held back from incorporating the channel into their advertising strategy are taking a second look.
Also referred to as partner marketing, affiliate marketing is a rapidly growing industry that now generates an estimated 16% of all online orders within the e-commerce world. As noted in the Performance Marketing Association’s most recent industry overview, “Along with the growth of e-commerce, affiliate marketing has proven to be a pivotal and increasingly critical channel for brands to leverage— especially in volatile economies.”
A brief history of the industry
Affiliate marketing has been around for a long time in one form or another, beginning with basic referrals. While early efforts to track performance were rudimentary—for example, counting the number of times consumers claimed a unique discount by citing an ad they saw—the concept of performance-based affiliate marketing didn’t really get underway until the advent of the World Wide Web in 1993. As noted in Investopedia, “Affiliate marketing predates the internet, but in the world of digital marketing, analytics and cookies made it a billion-dollar industry.”
While affiliate marketing remains a relatively small advertising channel, it has achieved a high rate of growth in recent years as brands in and out of the travel industry increasingly add it as an important tool in their advertising kit. According to the most recent eMarketer report, affiliate marketing exceeded $8 billion in the United States and $14 billion globally by the end of 2023.
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