Affiliate marketing industry set to touch USD 835 mn by 2025

Affiliate marketing industry in India is expected to grow over eight times to touch USD 835 million by 2025 from USD 96 million in 2016, according to a report. The growth of affiliate marketing spend would be driven by increasing digital marketing spends, adoption of affiliate marketing by new industries beyond e-commerce and improved ecosystem for affiliate marketing on mobile platforms, according to the Tata Strategic Management Group (TSMG) white paper on 'Affiliate Marketing in India. The Next Frontier'. Affiliate marketing refers to the practice of a merchant partnering affiliates like publishers, bloggers, companies or organisation to promote their brands, offers, deals or sales. In India, affiliate marketing accounts for less than 10 percent of digital marketing spending, against 15 percent in some matured markets, it noted. The report observed that traditional industries like banking, financial services and insurance, automobiles and real estate are likely to allocate more money on affiliate marketing. "Affiliate marketing today is primarily being leveraged by product categories brought or consumed online. Offline categories have found it difficult to effectively leverage the potential of affiliate marketing. "However, increasing use of affiliate marketing for influencing decisions, and integration of online and offline channels would drive such companies to invest more in affiliate marketing programmes. Hence, traditional industries like BFSI, automobiles and real estate will allocate more money to affiliate marketing programmes," it said. Influencer blogs and comparison websites are likely to be the key affiliates for the auto sector, while for the BFSI sector, it expects comparison websites and product reviews to be the key affiliates. The report noted that that non-traditional industries like wedding planners and event planners have already started adopting affiliate marketing.