A new study has revealed that retailers who invest in affiliate marketing are a third more likely to be considered a ‘trustworthy’ brand in the eyes of online shoppers and UK bloggers compared to retailers who rely on alternative forms of internet marketing.

As part of ongoing research set to explore perceptions of affiliate marketing compared to alternative means of online marketing, Europe’s largest affiliate marketing company has conducted a new study looking into trustworthiness and transparency according to online shoppers and UK bloggers.

The team at Optimus Performance Marketing polled a total of 1,128 online shoppers and a further 206 UK-based bloggers for the purposes of the research. All participants had a basic understanding of what affiliate marketing means prior to the study taking place, although none of the bloggers taking part engaged in any affiliate activity on their website at the time of the survey.

Respondents were initially asked to choose which form of online marketing that they would personally consider the most effective when shopping online, with the results emerging as follows:

1. Social media marketing- (33%)

2. Email marketing- (21%)

3. Search engine marketing- (16%)

4. Affiliate marketing- (13%)

5. Display advertising- (6%)

6. Other- (11%)

Next, in order to determine how trustworthy specific companies who practice affiliate marketing techniques are, participants of the study were given an extensive list of 50 well-known brands and retailers.

Of the companies on the list, precisely half currently implement affiliate activity into their online marketing strategy, whilst the remaining half rely on alternative forms such as email marketing, display advertising and social media marketing. Respondents were asked to score each company a mark out of 10 based on how trustworthy and reliable a brand they perceive them to be. Companies who don’t use affiliate marketing scored on average 5.7/10, whilst those who do averaged 7.7/10, an increase of just over a third.

Mark Russell, CEO and founder of Optimus Performance Marketing, said: “It is initially apparent that much of the general public are not aware of the impact affiliate marketing will have on the reputation and perceived trustworthiness of a company. However, our results seem to highlight that, subconsciously, consumers are more instinctively drawn to companies that do invest in affiliate activity, perhaps due to how regularly exposed they are to a particular brand or retailer on their favourite blogs and websites.”

He continued:

“With recent research highlighting that more than a third of the UK internet population are now using price comparison or voucher code sites and our findings revealing how much more trusted companies who use affiliate activity are, now is a crucial time for retailers to start implementing performance-based marketing in order to reach all potential target audiences.”

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