An
affiliate network is a company that brings together companies with
something to sell and affiliates
who wish to profit from promoting
those companies' products or services.
For the company (or merchant), this is low risk and efficient
advertising as no payement to the affiliate is made without a sale. For
the affiliate, if he can drive traffic to the merchant's product that
result in completed sales, he earns a commission.
The affiliate network provides the links, banners and editorials for
affiliates to use. They also act as an intermediary where affiliates
can request to join new programs and merchants can sign up with new
products.
The affiliate network monitors activity and provides merchants and
affiliates with data to assist their campaigns. Affiliates can use this
data to good effect to organise their campagins and see which are
profitable.
Payments and billing for completed sales are processed by the Affiliate
Network and often they are able to pay commissions direct into
affiliates' bank accounts.
To find affiliate networks local to you, simply put affiliate forum and affiliate network into a search.
Some affiliate networks have an international reach eg Clickbank.
A few companies have their own affiliate service that is not brokered
by an intermediary affiliate network. Affiliates wishing to work with
such companies that they have not been able to find on affiliate
networks but which could have an affiliate marketing service, would
need to approach such companies directly.
Many affiliates grow suspicious that the affiliate networks are not
reporting all the sales and that affiliates do not get all their due
commissions as a result. In fact, the software used by these networks
nowadays is much more reliable than it used to be and untracked sales
are unusual. Could there be some dishonest affiliate networks? Quite
possibly, in small pockets, but it is definitely not widespread. The
simple truth is that the ease with which you can use the internet means
that people do a lot of browsing before making a final choice. A click
on an affiliate link to a merchant often has a no better than 1 in 40
chance of resluting in a completed sale.
For more information on affiliate
marketing and how to succeed as an
affiliate, consult our Successful Affiliates Guide
ebook.
|