Launched at the beginning of this month, the 2011 UK Affiliate Census is aimed at the thousands of UK affiliates who drive billions of pounds in revenue for advertisers each year.

It is a follow up to the 2009 Census which was backed by Affiliates4U and the leading affiliate networks and is the most detailed study available about the make-up of the affiliate community.

We asked Chris Johnson of the A4U what they are hoping to achieve from this year’s survey:

Last time this survey was carried out two years ao affiliates cited lack of transparency as being a drawback to continued development of the channel. What do you expect this year’s findings to show?
I wouldn’t personally say transparency is now a drawback to channel development. Whilst issues with transparency are still likely to be a continuous issue for Affiliates when working with some Networks / Advertisers / Agencies, I’d say there’s more pressing issues that are disrupting the channel’s development that need addressing, first and foremost the integration of new cookie laws.

Do you anticipate a change in the affiliate mix?
As affiliate marketing and performance marketing’s borders continue to amalgamate, opportunities arise for other media owners to utilise a CPA model across their other channels. Therefore I would expect a change compared to 2009′s results with more full-time ‘publishers’ working for a company / brand. With the rise of mobile, retargeting and social marketing since the 2009 survey, I’d expect to see a increase in the number of new affiliates who have joined over the past two years.

What other trends do you expect to see from the data?
As we’ve talked about ‘outside’ entities utilising the affiliate CPA model, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t see strong results that indicate affiliates are looking to do the opposite and branch out; implementing ‘performance’ channels such as retargeting, mobile, social and even display marketing into their offering.

What issues do you expect to be high on the agenda this time around?
I think the recent Google Panda updates have caused a wave of unrest among the Affiliate community, and even those with a ‘super affiliate’ tag will still be concerned about changes in the algorithm, so I’d expect this to be the biggest issue. Obviously the Cookie law will continue to be up there, and affiliates need to be wary that this is happening, so they should check out the IAB’s recent minutes discussing how they’re attempting to combat this.

De-duplication is still a relatively unknown quantity, I’d expect affiliates to be concerned, however this relates back to how transparent the programme actually is.

And finally, how are you intending to use this data?
Affiliate surveys help those in a position to pitch for marketing budget to back themselves up with use of an affiliate report. In simple terms, the more brands we can entice to start working with affiliates, the more it will help with channel development. Surveys are also correlated from the mouths of the affiliate.

Findings are relayed back to affiliate managers and the like, and is a way to give a firm overview of affiliate concerns and issues that can look to being addressed. Let’s not forget where we’ve come as a whole in terms of the affiliate marketing industry – we’re seeing more investment and interest in paid on performance channels every day and surveys like this help to back the industry up and shows we’re moving consistently in the right direction.