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Affiliate Network Solution Providers |
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Network Solution Providers offer participating merchants the opportunity to tap into a database of affiliates who belong to their network. The "Big Three" have robust networks with many thousands of affiliate members. Some merchants view these networks as a tremendous benefit, however, my personal view is that the benefits of these networks are often not worth their cost, and they are too often relied upon by the merchant as the primary means to recruit new affiliates. The sad fact is, if you place your program with one of these providers you will most likely have a thousand or more affiliates join your program each month. Unfortunately, only a VERY small percentage will actively participate (advertise your links), and fewer still will become top affiliates (make sales). There is no substitute for the hard work required to search out, recruit, train, and motivate top affiliate partners. Read this article to learn more: Dump 'em and focus on real partnerships! For this reason, I find myself, more and more, recommending Non-Network Program Solutions as the best way to run an efficient affiliate program. I also highly recommend that, regardless of the program solution you choose, that you devote adequate resources to ensure it is properly managed. Outsourced Program Management often represents a cost-effective opportunity for merchants to hire an expert to manage their affiliate program without adding to their staff.
I am now highly recommending DirectTrack as the affiliate program solution of choice! Over the past year, I've become much more familiar with this solution and I am now convinced that there is no better bang for the buck available today. The comparison chart below will give you a good idea of what I'm talking about, but I highly recommend that you check out DirectTrack for yourself -- their features are outstanding!
Compare for yourself and you can quickly see why I am now recommending DirectTrack...
Be Free - If you are serious about your affiliate program goals and have the resources to devote to a quality approach, then I highly recommend Be Free. After working with all the major solution providers, I have concluded that Be Free offers the highest quality solution. Their private branding approach gives you total control over your program, yet Be Free is highly active when it comes to helping its merchants connect with super affiliates. LinkShare - I have worked extensively with the LinkShare solution, managing several LinkShare merchant programs. I suggest that you read my article, My Personal Experience with LinkShare, to learn more about LinkShare. Commission Junction - The costs to run a program through CJ are pretty low compared to LinkShare and Be Free. CJ is a favorite among affiliates, or in their vernacular, "publishers" because of CJ's "Open Marketplace", where your payout stats are public info and it's long time practice of paying affiliates directly. As a merchant or "advertiser", I don't like that the only way for me to effectively reach publishers who are participating in my program is to pay CJ around six cents each to email them. Performics - I don't have extensive personal experience with Performics, but mine and others I have talked with have been positive. They claim to be very pro-active in finding and cultivating relationships with good affiliates on behalf of their merchant clients. If so, then Performics is worth looking into. QuinStreet - If
you're doing $50 million or more in sales, have
products or services that are fairly unique and proprietary,
and want a high quality out-sourced solution to all
your internet marketing needs (including the affiliate
channel), then you should surely contact QuinStreet.
According to their site: "Specialty product companies can best benefit from the Internet's power to
target, reach and deliver product information to new customers. Through its Specialty Retail Networks division, only QuinStreet
has the distribution, merchandising and technology to deliver these benefits
completely and effectively."
Did you know there is a patent-pending method for making all your
affiliate links count towards link popularity
with search engines?
Would you rather your affiliates have a
short link with your domain like this:
Or a standard affiliate tracking link that looks like this:
Plus, sign up now and pay NO MONTHLY FEES EVER!!!
shareasale.com - This is a very
affordable network solution. (You can get started for just $200, with
nothing more to pay except performance based fees.) Maybe that's why hundreds of merchants have joined shareasale over the past year. The newest release of their solution
allows merchants to include affiliate links in emails to affiliates -- a
must have feature in my book. I encourage you to check
out shareasale!
LeadCrunch - According to Brian Welch of Perfect Presence Inc., the company behind LeadCrunch, "We offer two basic types of CPA advertising. We can drive visitors to your site via banners, buttons, skyscrapers, text ads, html, rich media, pop ups and more. You only pay for the traffic that converts into a lead. The second type of advertising is opt-in and opt-out co-registrations. We can opt people into your offer directly from our partners registration forms. Our rates vary depending on the offer. In general we charge 30% above what you pay out to our affiliates." |
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