The rapid growth of affiliate marketing in recent years is directly connected to the swift evolution of the e-commerce industry and the rising adoption of remote work, especially during the pandemic.
Europe is one of the biggest global markets for both industries, but it is extremely difficult to find accurate and comprehensive info about this area due to its extreme fragmentation and lack of reliable sources across countries and verticals.
As an important part of our European expansion effort, in 2021, we conducted market research covering the biggest countries inside this part of the world. In this article, we share some of the most important figures we found—we hope they will be useful for anyone interested.
Based on the data we gathered from multiple sources (you can see the most important ones at the end of the presentation below), the e-commerce industry in the top 20 European markets exceeded €700 bn in 2020, and the affiliate marketing industry in 7 of the biggest markets in Europe exceeded €1.8 bn in 2020 and €2 bn in 2021.
| 2020 | 2021 | |
| Affiliate market size | € (bn) | € (bn) |
| UK | 635.22 | 688.58 |
| Germany | 558.00 | 624.96 |
| France | 298.00 | 351.64 |
| Spain | 73.00 | 83.22 |
| Italy | 93.00 | 106.95 |
| Netherlands | 124.50 | 131.97 |
| Belgium | 43.00 | 47.30 |
It is quite clear that we have 3 uncontested European champions:
- UK – as the largest market both for e-commerce and affiliate marketing
- Amazon – as the biggest online retailer
- Awin – as the biggest affiliate network in most of the countries in Europe
The presentation below covers 18 European markets (from UK to Romania), for both the e-commerce and affiliate marketing industries.
We hope it will help you understand the specifics of the European affiliate and e-commerce industries.
