The Affiliate Census - the value affiliates can/want to add

In The UK Affiliate Census 2009, Affiliates ranked a range of affiliate methods by how much revenue they generate:
True content (SEO) (36%)
PPC (20%)
Price comparison (11%)
Blogs and forums (8%)
Email marketing (5%)
Voucher codes (5%)
Cash-back and reward (5%)
Shopping directories (4%)
Social networking (3%)
Corporate intranet (2%)

My impressions of this - I was amazed that so many affiliates have a focus on content and building their sites naturally. The industry gets a bad rap at times for just being voucher and incentive based, and most affiliates are looking to educate and add value.

It was also really encouraging to see this data just before we held a 'LOVEFiLM and Affiliates - Widgets and APIs' meeting at Tradedoubler Towers a couple of weeks ago.

Thanks to all that attended, I shall be working on the feedback with the team here to see what the next steps will be. It was great to see a group of affiliates passionate about taking what merchants would give them to improve their SEO rankings, while anyone from a comparison site to a new technology affiliate can use the same information. If we are able to open up our data as much as you all requested I think we could see some amazing new ideas in the next 12 months.