Review the top affiliate marketing networks for web advertisers or website publishers to join, including Commission Junction, LinkShare, Amazon and Google.
Affiliate advertising can be a win-win for smart advertisers and persistent publishers. Advertisers can tap into a low cost marketing tool and publishers can earn money from referrals. But deciding which affiliate marketing programs are the best to join as either a web advertiser or a website publisher can be a daunting task.
Reporting functionality, ad tools, user accessibility and tracking accuracy are all essential elements of a good affiliate sales network for both advertisers and publishers. Review some of the top networks with available affiliate management programs.
Top Affiliate Marketing Programs and Advertiser Networks
Most websites that want to work with affiliate websites as another sales channel take advantage of management networks. Rather than spending time and money building an in-house tracking system, launching an affiliate sales program through an established system gets businesses on a faster track to new sales.
In terms of affiliate marketing, advertisers are websites with products to sell and publishers are websites that are referring sales to the advertisers by placing affiliate ads on their sites.
Here are some of the top affiliate sales management programs available to advertisers and publishers:
Amazon Affiliates. As one of the few major websites with an in-house affiliate program, the Amazon Affiliate program is a power house for web sales and has expanded product offerings into nearly every conceivable category. The Amazon Affiliates sales program is very user friendly giving publishers to generate a tracking link from any page on their website. Building widgets with recommended products, top products in categories (such as electronics) and personalized aStore web pages with collections of selected products makes Amazon a leader in the pack. For publishers using the Blogger platform, Amazon Affiliates is integrated for easy access to affiliate links while writing blog posts.
Commission Junction. According to Commission Junction, 63% of the largest website advertisers are working with their affiliate marketing network. Commission Junction is also the only truly global affiliate marketing network. By creating smart zones on web sites, publishers can A big differentiator for
Commission Junction is their CJ Marketplace where they publish the performance metrics of all advertisers, publishers, and ads within their network. There is also dedicated support for top performing publishers.
LinkShare. Top advertisers such as WalMart and iTunes use LinkShare to manage their affiliate marketing programs and increase online revenues. LinkShare offers advertisers self-serve or full-service options to maximize program performance. For publishers, LinkShare combines ease of use with support by offering tools such as a dynamic sales dashboard and easy get links functionality.
Google Affiliate Network. The newest player in affiliate marketing management networks, Google Affiliate Network is quickly becoming a notable competitor. With performance tracking functionality similar to
Commission Junction, Google Affiliate Network has a growing membership of both advertisers and publishers because of their ease of use and accessibility for new members to join. Applying to advertiser programs for publishers with multiple websites can be tricky with Google Affiliate Network, requiring a change to the publisher profile website with each new application.
Benefits of Joining Multiple Affiliate Sales Programs
Although advertisers must join one affiliate sales network for managing their affiliate marketing program, publishers can join more than one. In fact, it may be necessary to join more than one program in order to display a wide variety of affiliates on a website. Giving website visitors more options with recommended products or brands may increase sales potential and improve website brand credibility with affiliates. Joining multiple affiliate sales programs and multiple advertisers at once may prove complicated for new publishers. It may be best to launch a new affiliate ad program and optimize online advertising options prior to joining other top networks.
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