Functioning and state of Hungarian affiliate marketing

Functioning and state of Hungarian affiliate marketing

Affiliate is a developing online marketing segment in Hungary. The first affiliate projects were launched around 2010, but it has not yet become a popular form of online marketing among the local e-shops for various reasons. In 2017, the regional affiliate network Dognet entered the market, actively working on the market development and education. The result also is that increasingly higher numbers of publishers are operating in the market and increasingly higher numbers of major e-commerce players have their own affiliate campaign. Affiliate marketing has gradually grown and been professionalised in recent years.

Occupation of the market

A number of networks are operating in the market. The interesting thing is that no local network dominates the market – the first local network Affiliate.hu has for years reported a loss and virtually is already dysfunctional. The international network Tradetracker has in part local representation in the market but it is not very active. The Romanian network Profitshare had for years functioned here operating in particular the affiliate campaign Emagu (the biggest e-shop in Hungary headquartered in Romania), however the network exited the Hungarian market in 2018. The affiliate network Dognet comes from Slovakia, with the global network CJ.com also having representation in the market. As other European players find the Hungarian market small and uninteresting, they do not serve here a larger number of campaigns.

Publisher projects

The affiliate market has gradually progressed and been professionalised in recent years. This is no longer about a few individuals who click something after their work. That Google pushes for quality has shaped also in Hungary several strong content partners serving the majority of the market. The interesting fact is that that a number of publishers are also operating in Hungary having launched affiliate projects, but they are focused on foreign campaigns (in particular in Western Europe via Amazon or Chinese e-shops). However, new publishers still keep coming into being in the market and Dognet also plays a major role in it, regularly publishing tips on its blog or organizing meetups in Budapest. The affiliate campaigns from such big and important e-shops as Alza.hu are also positively affecting the market situation.

Also operating in the market is a group of cashback / loyalty projects and, of course, coupon aggregators. Several domestic coupon websites such as Kuponbrigad.hu or Kuponbánya.hu are to be found here. Of the biggest cashback systems, Refundo is present in the market. Of coupon websites, there are to be found international projects like Picodi.com, Kuplio.hu, or Bonipo.hu.

Affiliate community

Thus far it is hard to say of an active affiliate community in Hungary. The affiliate community is gradually taking shape, with the affiliate network Dognet playing a major role in it. The publishers have the option of communicating via Facebook internal groups such as Dognet affiliate partnerek or have the option of even meeting via expert meetups such as HotDognet. Classical affiliate fora, magazines or blogs are more or less non-existent.

The future of affiliate marketing in Hungary

Given a clear upward trend, affiliate marketing is assumed to have an increasingly stronger status with advertisers and publishers alike. On the upside, the market is small and players like Amazon will not soon be around and thus there will still be room for development of the local market and e-shops.

If you´re looking for your affiliate program´s partner in Hungary of all places, choose rather local networks, since the market is too small for the majority of global or European players to have their representation in it. They cannot serve the market well or do not know the community. It´s ideal to choose a single, strong local network for, say, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. These are oftentimes joined by the Baltic states – Croatia, Slovenia and Romania, which are for one fully served by the Dognet network as an ideal option for the CEE market.

It is advantageous for an advertiser to choose a single player for several markets. Naturally, consolidation is reasonable, but if a network can cover, say, five countries, an e-shop can effectively administer one “western” network and choose another as a specialised one, e.g. for the CEE region.

Juhász Szabó Csilla

Affiliate Manager for Hungary

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