Easter, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day and back-to-school all provide opportunities to grow affiliate marketing programs, but opportunities for marketers and brands increase heading into the end-of-year holiday season.

Acceleration Partners, a global performance marketing agency, released the results of an in-depth study on its e-commerce and retailers’ affiliate programs, which show growth.

“Marketers are moving toward cost per acquisition and affiliate channels,” Bob Glazer, founder of global performance marketing agency Acceleration Partners. “They want to pay for the outcome — pay for things when they generate results, rather than the input.”

The average commission rate across affiliate partners rose by 18% during the second quarter of 2018 compared with one year ago. The percentage of affiliate program revenue from new customers in the second quarter of 2018 was 45%, up from 38% in second-quarter 2017.

Overall, revenue across the affiliate channel revenue rose 23% year-over-year (YoY), while mobile took 15%.

Retailers saw clicks driven by affiliate partners rising 35% YoY in the second quarter of 2018, with Memorial Day weekend seeing clicks up 48% YoY. The Memorial Day weekend saw the strongest YoY growth, with revenue up 43%.

Acceleration Partners, which manages campaigns for Adidas, Target and Uber, examined data from more than 13,000 active retailer/affiliate client partnerships between the second quarter of 2017 and the second quarter of 2018.

Retailers’ click active affiliate partnerships increased by 8% YoY, while sale active partnerships rose 16% YoY. Content publishers continue to be valuable partners. In the second quarter, this partner segment rose 75% YoY.

Mass Media publishers such as BuzzFeed, Business Insider, Forbes and others drove notable growth in revenue — about 38% YoY. And deal affiliates saw strong YoY click-rate growth, up 66% YoY.