Friday, April 23, 2010

Affiliate Networks - Easy as 1-2-3

In the world of internet marketing there are 2 basic parties to advertising deals.

  1. Publishers - The people who have a website and need advertisements
  2. Advertisers - The people who want to display ads for their products on other people's websites
The way a typical "Affiliate Network" works, is they will work out deals with Advertisers, so that they can publish "Promotional Offers" which will pay the Publishers on their network a percentage of the amount they are getting from the Advertisers. This works out for everyone because
  1. The Advertisers don't have to find thousands of little websites to work deals with in order to get their ads out
  2. The Publishers don't have to continuously work at finding new advertisers for their sites
  3. The Affiliate Networks make some money by doing the leg work for both parties
3 Things Publishers should look for in an Affiliate Network
  1. The best CPA because the more they get paid per lead, the more they can make on their traffic
  2. Trust - Trust that the Affiliate Network will pay them the money they say they will, and that the Affiliate Network is tracking all of their leads correctly (not accurately tracking leads for the purpose of saving money is called "shaving").
  3. Conversions - Although CPA is important, if the offers on the network don't entice the Publisher's traffic, it's better for them to run ads at a lower CPA depending on the conversion difference.
A few Affiliate Networks I have worked with
  1. MarketLeverage - I trust them, I did a lot of business with them. They always paid on time and they were in contact with me regularly.
  2. Azoogle - Only had limited experience with them and never got paid. The amount wasn't a lot, but above my minimum and I never got any response from their client services.
  3. CommissionJunction - Didn't do much business with them, but they had a lot of offers. Their offers didn't convert well though, and many people have raised trust issues about them.
  4. Google AdWords/AdSense - It's Google!
    • AdWords - This is the Advertiser's Side
    • AdSense - This is the Publisher's Side
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