Here is an interesting case study from Hitwise...

Hitwise Case Study: Affiliates and Partnerships
An Employment Firm

Learning from the successes of others is a great way to save time and money. When a employment firm was looking to identify the best partner for its business, it turned to Hitwise.

Over a 3 month period, trend analysis via the Hitwise 'Charting' tool revealed that a competitor enjoyed a 150% increase in market share of visits. In addition, by viewing the Hitwise 'Clickstream' report the client confirmed that the main driver of this growth was a new relationship with another website in the Employment category offering complimentary services.

This data, only available from Hitwise, showed the employment firm that this affiliate relationship was not only successful for acquiring new customers, but in taking market share away from other competitive sites.

Armed with this information, the marketing manager was able to:

• Gain insight into competitors' affiliate relationships and customer acquisition strategies.
  
• Measure the effectiveness of competitors' affiliate strategies.
  
• Identify, evaluate and select affiliates and partners for their own site in a more cost-effective and timely manner.