Affiliate Networks: Matching Merchants and Affiliates

Finding the Affiliate Networks

So….you want to be an affiliate marketer? You want to sell other people’s products and services on line. You have heard there are lots of people making a good living doing this, but how do you find a good products to promote and how do you get paid?

You could start by searching on google for affiliate programs by entering the keyword and “affiliate”. For example:

product+ affiliate    or       “name of merchant” + affiliate

There are a  mulititude of merchants with affiliate programs.  In addition to doing market analysis to determine if a product is profitable it is important to check the reputation of the merchant.  You can do that at reputable affiliate program review sites such as clickquick.com.   It is also important to contact the merchant directly.  If there aren’t timely replies to your enquiries we suggest moving onto another merchant.

Role of Affiliate Networks

There are typically three parts of the affiliate marketing equation:  the merchant, the affiliate network and the affliate marketer.

The merchant produces or provides the product or service.

You…the affiliate marketer can choose to promote the products on your websites using many different methods. It is possible to have a direct relationship with the merchant,  thus bypassing an affiliate network and if the merchant is reputable, reliable and organized it can be a profitable and mutal relationship.

But often it is easier all around if both merchant and the affiliate marketer use an affiliate network.  They act as the intermediate party and manage the transactions.

Once you find a product and merchant you believe you will be comfortable working with (and after you carefully scrutinize the affiliate agreement), you apply to be an affiliate for that merchant.  The merchant in turn does their due diligence and approves or disapproves your application.

Once approved you have a relationship…and this is a business relationship. (again we can’t stress enough the importance of reading the affiliate agreement)

But will it be a good relationship?  Will the merchant pay on time?  Will they carefully track all of of your sales?   That’s where having an affiliate network as the intermediary between the merchant and affiliate marketer is useful.

Merchants use networks for:

• tracking
• managing their affiliate base
• staffing to handle affiliate management
• affiliate payments (this is a big one – to make sure you get paid, tax requirements, etc).
• credit card acceptance – not all small merchants are set up to handle this

Affliate Networks in turn charge the merchants fees to use these services.   The affiliate marketer (You) typically does not pay to be part of a network.  (One exception is Affiliate Jump, a CPA -cost per action network.  Note – one does not normally have to pay to be part of a CPA network.)

Big Affiliate Networks

There are literally dozens of Affiliate Networks in which to search for products and merchants.  Here are some of the largest ones:

• Commission Junction – big brand retailers
• Clickbank – software and ebooks (digital downloads)
• LinkShare.com- merchants such as Dell, Nordstrom, Target, Disney, AMEX (over 600 companies)
• Google Affiliate Network  (formerly Doubleclick + Performics) – merchants such as AOL, Bose, Comp USA, Eddie Baurer, LL Bean, with a total of over 200 brands)
• Shareasale.com -offer Pay Per Sale, Pay Per Lead and Pay per Click products
• ClixGalore – administers affiliate programs for small to medium merchants, over 2400 programs
• Kolimbo
• Pepperjam
• PayDotCom -digital products (newest alternative to Clickbank).

Do your homework before signing up for any affiliate program and consider joining through an affiliate network.

The biggest advantage may be receiving that paycheck on time every month…

[Editor - For more on Affiliate Networks and comprehensive training on Affiliate Marketing visit Affiliate Classroom 2.0]