According to new research that was conducted by the performance marketing network, Affilinet, 48% of users in Briton actively avoid using affiliate links produced by social influencers. If they want a product that they found through the influencer, they will go out of their way to avoid using that direct link just so that the influencer isn’t going to receive compensation for it.
This is a surprise to many since on the surface, it seems more likely that consumers would be happy to ‘reward’ someone who brought a great product to their attention, especially since it costs them nothing extra.
The research found that 1 in 10 of those who won’t use the link choose to do this because they were ‘jealous’ of the influencer’s lifestyle, and the fact that they don’t have a ‘proper job’ so they wanted to ‘punish’ them for it. 29% said that they do this because they feel that the influencer is already making too much money.
The data comes from a UK research survey that polled 2300 UK adults, making it a fairly good study. While the results are focused exclusively on the UK, there is little reason to think that it would be significantly different in the United States or other markets.
Affilinet’s client services director, Rick Leake, commented on this report saying, “For those that don’t fully understand the ins and outs of running a successful blog and highly engaged social media channels, it can be all too easy to assume that everyone with a certain number of followers are making the kind of money that the likes of Zoella and Tanya Burr are reportedly bringing in.”
Of course, this is not the case. The vast majority of influence marketers are making much more modest incomes, even if they are able to have this as a full-time gig.
Anyone who works in this field should take this study seriously and try to take steps to bring the number of people who avoid using their links down. Perhaps discussing your more modest income, or other factors, that can help you to better identify with these consumers could help.
