A new report published by the UK’s Affiliate & Partner Marketing Association (APMA) shows that companies in the country spent approximately £1.7bn on affiliate marketing last year.
The industry body’s research also found that the finance sector accounted for 10% of that, implying total spend of around £170m.
It’s worth noting that includes the entire financial services industry, not just the brokerage sector.
Strikingly, just 3% of affiliate-led transactions were in the financial services sector.
More room to grow?
That small number is reflective of the much lower mass appeal that finance firms have, although it’s worth noting that transaction and affiliate rebate sizes tend to be larger than they would in other industries.
By way of comparison, 56% of all affiliate-led transactions were in retail and 27% were in the travel sector.
It’s arguably also a sign of how the industry has somewhat lagged behind in terms of launching more structured affiliate offerings.
Although some companies, notably Plus500 and Trading 212, were very fast to do this, other big players in the sector, like IG Group and XTB’s UK branch, have only really set up a full-fledged partners offering in the last couple of years. CMC Markets’ UK entity, for example, still doesn’t really have one.
The result of that is there is arguably still a long way to go in terms of growth for finance spend in the sector.
Although it didn’t capture details for the financial services sector, the APMA’s report showed that affiliate spend averaged a £16 return for every £1 of spend.
The likelihood is that brokers would not generate those sorts of results but it’s a sign of why so many companies are spending on affiliates.
