Other publications such as the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) are recognising Affiliate – and rightly so.

IAB’s latest Australian Industry Review showed positive results for Affiliate, showing that in Australia, there has been an increase in budgets coming from eCommerce (from 22% in 2019 to 29% in 2020). Nearly 7 in 10 reported increased budgets for Affiliate marketing over the last year.

The DPRI reported that 78% of digital publishers view advertising revenue growth as a high strategic priority over the next year, however, there is no mention of their plans in terms of Affiliate or Performance.

According to MediaKix research, 81% of brands have Affiliate programmes, and a staggering 94% of publishers use more than one CPA network (Affise research), in addition to large publishing houses such as Future PLC utilising affilate revenue across their platforms; therefore it is interesting that these facts haven’t been mentioned.

When asked for a comment, the AOP team said: “Affiliate and performance marketing revenues are not featured as specific categories but are included in the report as per format (display, video, audio, and sponsorship) or within the Miscellaneous category – which is made up of four subcategories, each of which we collect data for and report as a combined whole.

“The subcategories are; off-platform publishing, content recommendations/discovery units, data monetisation, and other digital revenue – which is any digital revenues that cannot be clearly allocated to a DPRI category.”

We hope that in the future Affiliate and Performance will gain the recognition it deserves rather than being bundled with display!

*The headline of this article has been changed to reflect the fact that Affiliate and Performance were recognised in the miscellaneous category.