What is an Affiliate Network? A group of merchants and a group of affiliates stick together an affiliate network in order to advertise the merchant products in exchange of a commission from the merchant. Affiliate networks are the safest when it comes to making payments on time, accounting and accurate tracking. However, it is very important to choose most profitable merchants and products on the affiliate network. The following notes are about some great Affiliate Networks that any affiliate can use to find most valuable products to promote depending on the type and nature of their affiliate efforts.
Commission Junction (www.cj.com)
Founded in 1998, Commission Junction is one of the first and one of the largest affiliate networks. Commission Junction provides the performance metrics of all advertisers, publishers and ads within the CJ Marketplace. So, CJ tell affiliates which merchants and ads are earning the most revenue, so affiliates have an advanced web-based interface to access excellent stats and analyze results.
ClickBank (www.clickbank.com)
ClickBank is affiliate network offer digital download products, so the commissions from ClickBank are usually much higher than the other affiliate networks – up to 75%. Clickbank is easy to use but provides only basic stats and tracking. ClickBank has over 10,000 products but some of them have a pretty average reputation and it somewhat hard to find relevant products to promote.
LinkShare (www.linkshare.com)
LinkShare.com is a high-quality affiliate network with a broad variety of products. With such a large selection of brands to choose between you’ll be sure to find something to promote. Unfortunately, LinkShare does not provide detailed merchant data, so it is impossible to see which programs are doing well and which ones are not.
Affiliate Window (www.affiliatewindow.com)
Affiliate Window is an UK based affiliate network has a broad base of merchants for affiliates to promote. Affiliates can get conversion rates, earnings per click, approval percentages, validation times, AWIN index, commission amounts and cookies lengths for every merchant, so affiliates get an idea which merchants to promote.
Amazon (www.amazon.com)
With Amazon affiliate advertising program, you can choose from thousands and thousands of products to promote. If affiliate would rather not have to take the time to pick out products, it is possible to place an automated ad that will list products based on the content of website or the best deals on Amazon, etc. Affiliates can track the performance of the ads on their websites. This help to identify which types of ads and products generate the highest revenue and which are underperforming. That way, affiliates can make the necessary changes to optimize the revenue potential from Amazon.
ShareASale (www.shareasale.com)
With 2000+ merchants to choose from, ShareASale is another fine affiliate network to promote. The merchants at ShareASale offer a wide variety of products and services. Affiliates can search by category for any merchant that might fit their need, and link directly to the merchant's site, or utilize direct product links. Affiliates can browse either by type of program - Pay-Per-Sale, Per-Lead, or Per-Click, category, or by looking in the "New Programs" bin, which contains programs less than 20 days old.
LinkConnector (www.linkconnector.com)
LinkConnector affiliate network has hundreds of merchant campaigns and this number is rapidly growing. Affiliates may apply to any campaign made available to them through the Affiliate Manager interface. However, the merchant has the control to approve / disapprove an affiliate. The Merchant also has the ability to approve affiliates for all campaigns or limit the affiliate to specific campaigns. Affiliates can get a glimpse of what the company offers via the "Featured Merchants" page.
Professional affiliate marketers explore all of the above affiliate networks to find out most profitable offers from merchants to get highest commissions in return from their marketing efforts. In the process, they build a healthy monthly income for themselves and their families. There is no reason why you can't do the same.