±±¾©Èü³µpk10

Throughout 2004, we have been inundated with encouraging growth figures. One statistic from the EIAA in October stands out. It claims online makes up 20 per cent of overall media consumption - 100 per cent up on the same period last year. For this reason, I believe growth rates within affiliate marketing in Europe will continue to rise consistently over the next few years.

The implication is that, while the web continues to attract higher advertiser budgets, it is also starting to access the largest budgets of all - traditionally held by the automotive, FMCG and pharmaceutical industries.

But how will the affiliate marketing model fare in this strengthening web advertising market? Will it be able to attract the budgets of the largest advertisers? I think affiliate marketing will not only prosper but outperform most online marketing channels. There are thousands of publishers in our networks in Europe who can earn effective CPC rates, which are comparable and sometimes better than the major publishers attract.

As this becomes more widely known, affiliates will extend their reach and results for their advertisers.

It is vital for network providers to develop the functionality they provide advertisers and publishers. TradeDoubler's AdTool aims to make it simpler for publishers to take entire databases of products from a variety of advertisers and display the items in formats that can be edited by each publisher to suit their sites. Publishers can list products by criteria such as manufacturer or price, and display them ranked according to which gained the highest earnings-per-click for their site or the entire network.

Through the functionality developed by all network providers, we're optimising the inventory for our publishers and, thereby, leading to consistently better results for our advertisers.

It is imperative that we simplify the model to attract the largest ad budgets directly and via media agencies. The search industry grew quickly by making its proposition simple and financially attractive for media agencies. Affiliate marketing needs to replicate this to ensure media agencies understand the benefit of the model to both their advertisers and themselves.