Bloggers and people who run websites will see a significant revenue from affiliate marketing programs. This makes bloggers and online media communicators more sensitive to their readers.

It is just not about the excellence in content, not just about unbiased views or reviews, it is about an ability to constantly engage the reader in a to & fro communication. It is about earning the trust. And lastly, it is more importantly about retaining that trust.

A survey conducted by Forrester Research and Shop.org (a division of the National Retail Federation) predicted that online sales will grow by 17% to US $ 204 billion by the end of 2008. And in spite of the economic slowdown, the American shoppers continue to buy online. It is no wonder that large retailers are spending a large budget on both acquiring new customers (53% budget) as well as retaining old customers (21% of budget).

Large retailers benefit from trusted bloggers and social marketers, and their devoted readers and followers in turn, for increased online sales. Affiliate marketing came out as the most significant way to reach out to new customers as well as retaining old ones.

At a micro level, small affiliates could influence and draw small groups of trusted buyers and the strategy will pay off. Large corporations are beefing up their affiliate budget for the coming years, the report said.

The other interesting part of the Forrester report said that search-engine marketing brought in 35% of the sales the past year, and about 90% of the online retailers used pay for performance for their advertisements. 79% of retailers plan to have search engine placement as a focus for 2008 and derive even more from affiliate based pay-for-performance marketing.

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