What is an Affiliate Network?

People looking for a source of income through the internet can do so with the help of affiliate programs. Though there are many affiliate programs available for you to choose from, to help you in making more money through affiliate programs, you can use the help of the many available affiliate networks.

It can be said that an affiliate network is basically a mediator between publishers or affiliates and merchants or affiliate programs. It is with the help of an affiliate network, that publishers find it possible to find suitable affiliate programs for their websites. Similarly, affiliate networks help affiliate programs find their relevant audience.

An affiliate network can also be considered to be a value added facilitator that provides various services that prove to be beneficial to both affiliate merchants and affiliates. There are different benefits for publishers and merchants with an affiliate network.


Affiliate Networks are Beneficial to Publishers and Merchants


IncentReward provides the services like reporting tools, tracking technology, payment processing and access to a large base of affiliates, which prove to be very beneficial to merchants. While for the affiliates, affiliate networks offer them with one click applications for new merchants, payment aggregation and reporting tools. While affiliate networks are offered for free to affiliates, in most cases the merchants have to pay a fee for using it.

The fees change from network to network where traditional affiliate networks usually charge initial setup fees and perhaps recurring maintenance fees. Some affiliate networks charge their merchants a percentage of the commission that affiliates receive as fees for using their services.

In addition to this, some affiliate networks also let their merchants offer their affiliates a revenue share or cost per action as a compensation method. When given this choice, merchants usually opt for the revenue share over cost per action.


Finding the Best Affiliate Network For You


Though most affiliate networks let anyone join it, some may have a visitor site requirement that has to be met for joining. Such networks need a fixed number of people to visit your site before you are considered worthy of receiving ads from the affiliate network. At IncentReward, we invite anyone large or small to apply to our network. Once you are approved, you will be shown a list of merchants available for your scrutiny, and for you to choose from.

The biggest problem with affiliate networks is that they are difficult to locate as they are not always referred to as affiliate networks. They are also called marketing solutions provider, pay for performance network, performance based online marketing services company, or cost per action advertising networks on the internet.

It is always better to choose merchants on the affiliate networks that offer the best payouts with ads that are related to the content of your site. Also choose ads that offer the best payment percentage. It is important to choose the right merchant as some high pay out merchants may not collaborate with the content of your site. With such merchants, you find that you don’t receive as many clicks as you had anticipated.