Top affiliate networks for merchants

There are many affiliate networks out there for merchants, each offering their own benefits. Costs vary and some high street brands use more than one for maximum impact.

By Martina Mercer

Affiliate networks for merchants also use different methods to promote your products, and depending on what you want to sell, they can complement or confuse your strategy.

Affiliate marketing isn’t simply an ad on a website, more advanced networks use cookies and other campaigns to ensure maximum effect.

Here are three that are popular today in the UK:

Commission Junction

Commission Junction or CJ as it is more fondly known is the largest affiliate network in the world. It is not only respected by affiliates but by merchants too as it has many benefits for promoting products.

As it is large, it also is adept at promoting any industry, whereas some smaller companies focus on one retail sector such as sports or food.

CJ began as an extension of ValueClick an advertising company worth millions. The success of this alone allows confidence in their abilities.

Benefits

CJ offers a wide range of schemes to ensure your marketing message is effective. You can choose from CPA (Cost per acquisition), CPC (Cost per Click), CPL (Cost per lead) allowing you to measure the effectiveness before committing to a higher commission.

CJ also allows merchants to control the amount and length of the cookies that are used.

Drawbacks

As CJ is so large you will have to measure performance yourself. You will also have to compromise seasonal offers and sales as although these are present, they are not bespoke enough.

You could compromise your relationship with your affiliates as there’s no way to offer incentives or bonuses however, affiliates generally know this when signing up to commission junction.

Affiliate Window

As the largest affiliate agency in the UK, many merchants are champing at the bit to sign up to Affiliate Window. They are used by giants such as John Lewis to increase sales.

Benefits

They have the biggest network in the UK. Giving you the opportunity to set up in hardly anytime at all. Unlike CJ they have many merchant tools that allow you to track performance and monitor conversions.

Drawbacks

Known as AWN, the Affiliate Window has been seen as quite expensive for retailers, so it may not be the best option for SMEs. Some also complain of a lack of communication as they think AWIN are busy enough already.

ShareaSale

Shareasale is becoming popular in the UK due to the speed and the low fees. For very little you can get started quite quickly.

The Benefits

Shareasale actually help, regardless of being a big company. They also have a user friendly mangers area where you can store all of your prices, products and advertisements making it easy to change according to feedback.

Their own staff will help you upload large quantities and will be on hand to help. As well as being popular with SMEs they also provide great feedback, statistics and analysis so you can take action on the results.

Upon signing up they will advertise you as a merchant and bring you relevant affiliates so you don’t have to worry about sourcing the affiliates yourself.

Drawbacks

As they are not the largest they don’t really have the capacity for huge businesses, they also have less affiliates than some.

Others:

Tradedoubler

Tradedoubler is most noted for its client list as it can boast the likes of BodyShop and British Telecom. It has recently been acquired by Monterro in Scandinavia. They are definitely the ones to watch and with this latest acquisition they are sure to grow.

Rakuten Linkshare

If you want to see an example of a gigantic affiliate marketing agency, visit Rakuten Linkshare. A global business they have over ten million partnerships with affiliates.

Giants such as Lego and Starbucks add to its popularity in the affiliate marketing world.