There have been acres of press coverage over the past year trying to make sense of the fact that mobile has well and truly arrived.

Quantifying this and spotting the full extent of the opportunity within affiliate marketing is one of the big challenges facing us all.

With more and more advertisers creating their own mobile enabled sites and an increasing number of technology companies approaching affiliate networks with their mobile marketing solutions, it’s imperative advertisers are aware of the need to keep on top of everything.

With that in mind Affiliate Window decided to delve into the database and pull out some key headline figures to try and make sense of the stats as well as show the full potential.

There are a number of metrics we can look at but an interesting starting point is the growth in sales recorded via mobile devices over the past few months. It’s worth stating this is for all advertisers across the Affiliate Window network regardless of whether they have dedicated mobile sites or not. Only a handful of retailers have invested in building such platforms to date and therefore these figures look at total sales regardless of how easy or efficient it is to buy via a mobile device.

The below chart tracks the sales that the Affiliate Window network is recording as a total per cent of all network sales:





The statistics show a more than doubling of sales recorded in the four months covered, with almost daily increases. At more than one in every 30 sales being through a mobile handset or device it’s clear this now represents a very significant amount of revenue (over £3m in sales revenue for April 2011).

So let’s now look at the breakdown in mobile statistics by handset or device:

It’s clear that Apple devices dominate sales. The iPad converts better than any mobile device; a logical statement given its relative similarity to a traditional laptop but the iPhone records far and away the most traffic.

Interestingly Android handsets are actually experiencing the fastest relative growth. It is also encouraging to hear one of Digital Window’s mobile advertisers back our statistics saying they accurately reflect the growth of the general smartphone market.

Finally what are we seeing for individual advertisers? Whilst the picture isn’t complete, for those advertisers with mobile tracking on their pages we are undoubtedly seeing more sales come via mobile. The Hut Group, who have a series of affiliate programmes across both Affiliate Window and buy.at, is recording more than double the network average. The data isn’t comprehensive as it doesn’t include buy.at sales coming via mobile but even just looking at Affiliate Window shows a clear picture since mobile tracking was enabled last August:

So what should you be doing as an advertiser? If you are thinking of launching a mobile site remember to add affiliate tracking to your mCommerce platform. Also be clear about the full range of affiliates out there who will be keen to work with you if you have a site that is mobile optimised. It’s no surprise that affiliates such as http://sccope.co.uk/ and http://www.snapnow.co.uk/ are performing well for advertisers who have invested in optimising consumers’ retail experiences via mobile handsets.

Affiliate marketing tends to be ahead of the curve when it comes to new technology and developments. As the year progresses you can be sure this story will only grow in importance. Watch this space for future updates.