Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate Management Networks

Not All Affiliate Programs Are Created Equal

When selecting an Affiliate Program to promote through, it is important to understand a few basics - like the type of programs that exist.

1. Affiliate Management Networks
These are companies that exist to help providers of products and services locate partners for promotion.

Most of these companies are highly reputable and have highly sophisticated systems in place for reporting and marketing managment.

The companies generally charge the product and services providers a fee for their service - and handle all aspects of the Affiliate Management process from Affiliate signup to paying the affiliates at the end of the reporting period.

These networks may support suppliers of Digital only products, or may support suppliers of physical products - or they may be a mix of both.

Most online marketers will be most aware of Clickbank as an affiliate network.

While these networks are reputable, they do have a series of Terms and Conditions that may prove a little restrictive to the Vendor and the Promoter.

2. Self Hosted / Self Run Affiliate Programs
Some online vendors will run their own affiliate programs. They may do this for several reasons, such as not being 'bound' by the restrictions of the Affiliate Networks or the fees associated with a third party provider.

Additionally, digital products vendors may have a large number of products that they wish to place in their affiliate program and it is often easier to 'run your own'.

In these types of programs, the vendor is responsible for affiliate signup right through to paying the affiliates at the end of the period.

Each option has its benefits and detriments and often, as promoters, we are not given a choice as to which type of program we can use - if we want to promote a specific product.

Clickbank is possibly the most well known Affiliate Network for online marketers.

Clickbank has been around for years, like 10 of them, and boasts an affiliate network of more than 100,000 active affiliates.

Clickbank is responsible for managing the affiliate network, payment processing, paying the vendors and paying the affiliates.

Clickbank is a large marketplace that brings vendors and sellers together.

Whilst Clickbank is very good, there are a few things that are frustrating.

The biggest thing is that Clickbank does not provide any area for the provision of marketing tools and the like. It is up to the vendor to provide a page on their website for marketing tools for their affiliates.

As Clickbank owns the relationship with the affiliate, it is difficult for the vendor to communicate directly with their affiliates and let them know where to find marketing materials. As a clickbank vendor, the only way to really provide resources to your affiliates is to have a link from your home page - a little clunky in my view.

The other thing to consider is that Clickbank pays by cheque - although they do now allow bank transfers under the right circumstances. For International affiliates this can be quite annoying and a little costly - so it pays to have the payment threshold set a little higher.

Overall, if you're just starting out as an Affiliate Marketer - Clickbank is an excellent place to start

Clixgalore is another affiliate network however, it represents a range of main stream organizations that provide physical products and services.

Amongst the Vendors that Clixgalore represents are Vistaprint, Identity Direct and TimeLife.

Clixgalore handles all the affiliate acquisition and management and also provides excellent marketing resources. A range of banners and 'marketing creatives' that affiliates can deploy on their sites.

Clixgalore also monitors the 'balance' of their vendors accounts and provides feedback to the affiliates if the Vendors 'payment account' is low.

Clixgalore has five main sites - US, UK, Australia, NZ and Japan - so it is possible to get targetted campaigns for your region.

There are a bundle of other Affiliate Networks around. I have looked a quite a few and here are the ones that I recommend:

Share A Sale

Link Share

Commission Junction

Click Booth - Clickbooth are very particular about their affiliates and may not approve your application.