[ChrisMiquel]

Just want to know which network affiliates prefer.

[Julian]

what about GAN?

[ChrisMiquel]

Don't know, what is GAN? Just posted the main ones I see on the forum.

[loxly]

medgen, there are lots of threads like this one and the answers are going to boil down to "It depends". Most affiliates here at ABW prefer Shareasale and Avantlink, and GAN is starting to gain some support.

How you manage your program is going to mean more than what network you are on.

[loxly]

GAN is Google Affiliate Network, formerly Performics.

[ChrisMiquel]

Ah. Got it.

Thanks,

Chris

[Julian]

If you are a large merchant and have lots of money to give to the network, then go with Linkshare or cj.com

If you are a smaller merchant, then go with Shareasale.

Lots of people love Shareasale, but it is full of junky merchants, and garbage affiliates.

If you have a large budget, go with the Google Affiliate Network (GAN)

[loxly]

Originally Posted by Julian

Lots of people love Shareasale, but it is full of junky merchants, and garbage affiliates.

Not any more or less than other networks.

[25trees]

If you have data feeds then, ShareASale and GAN offer free data feeds to affiliates.

CJ now offers free data feeds, but I think it is limited only to about 5 merchants. Ask CJ about this.

LinkShare also offers data feeds but affiliates have to pay for it if they don't meet the minimum requirements for the free data feed.

Both CJ and LS have web services which is awesome.

CJ has a great combined product search which makes it easy for affiliates to discover products, no other networks have that feature in usable form yet.

[BurgerBoy]

AvantLink offers every affiliate tool the other networks offer plus a lot more.

Any affiliate that hasn't joined Avantlink doesn't know what they are missing out on when it comes to affiliate tools.

All of their tools are far superior to all of the other networks and easy to use.

They even have tools that can do what GoldenCan and Popshops does.

The have a one line javascript that you put on the bottom of your pages and you can put raw site links for any page on any of their merchants sites and when the raw link is clicked on the javascript turns it into your affiliate link and you get paid for it.

You don't even need to get affiliate links at AvantLink if you use the javascript code on the bottom of your page. Just go to the merchants site and get the links you want from the merchants site. The script is called ALE.

And - your money comes to you every month just like clock work.

You never have to worry about getting paid there.

By the way Chris. You have SAS on the poll and you are already a merchant at SAS.

[Trust]

Originally Posted by loxly

Not any more or less than other networks.

That I have to disagree with as far as merchants. They have some real good ones but they do have a lot more junky merchants than any other network, hence the greater percentage of $0 EPC merchants than any other network. That's mainly due to some past low thresholds of being able to get in. And they've uppped that recently I believe to address some of those problems.

[lulav]

I voted for SaS but it really isn't a huge deal to me. I have accounts at all except Avantlink...a much bigger consideration than the network are the payouts and how well I think the page I'd be sending traffic to converts.

[Ronald Marva - SEOP]

I voted for Linkshare. Found the programs that suit me and the affiliate panel is just fine with me.

[cre8iveq]

I am guessing I am missing something... I am pretty new to ABW... but with is ClickBank not on the list?

[BurgerBoy]

Originally Posted by cre8iveq

I am guessing I am missing something... I am pretty new to ABW... but with is ClickBank not on the list?

Because most of their merchants sell CRAP e-books.

[MLChris]

Choosing an affiliate network is a great question to pose, but why limit yourself to a 5 network poll to choose from? Depending on the merchant’s offer, they should check out all the different networks and see what each has to offer. There are a lot of networks not in this poll that might offer some different things. My advice would be to research each network by getting in touch with their Ad team to find out what they offer! Good Luck!

[FriendlyPlanetTravel]

We are currently a SAS merchant but not married as haven't done an official hard launch till after our new website re-design comes out. At that point will become more interactive with affiliates and push. What about buy.at and others?

Really looking for a totally affiliate/merchant FAIR network. ie. network w/o any affiliates that steal from other affiliates or merchant. I know SAS started that way but wondering whether allowing toolbar affiliates is breaking with original concept.

[Bill]

What about BUY.AT? They advertise here and have a forum here. They are also one of very few (along with AvantLink) remaining totally "clean" networks. They do not allow parasite affiliates or toolbar affiliates into their network. Affiliates and merchants alike, in the buy.at network, get the full value of their online merchandising efforts.

If you are going to create a poll, please try to make it a complete sampling. Your poll, by omission, is skewed.

[purplebear]

Agree with what ya said Bill

Another network that doesn't allow parasites, toolbars, etc. is Webgains. Recently joined em and so far like what I see very much.

[edun]

I'm on Linkshare, which gives access to some pretty strong affiliates and has good support. However, their merchant interface needs a LOT of work; to give you an idea of how antiquated it is, the text at the bottom says "LinkShare recommends Netscape 4.x or Internet Explorer 5.x for optimal performance." For real! IE 5.5 was released in 2000, so that gives you an idea of the last time they upgraded the interface...but apparently a new one will launch in Q1 2010.

[Vrindavan]

>> LinkShare recommends Netscape 4.x or Internet Explorer 5.x for optimal performance

not an issue to me.
i think they just mention it as the min. requirement.

Of course you can use the latest browser to view the site.

[net4biz]

Save the fees and headaches and run you own indy program ... obviously on the networks you will have access to more affiliates but that is not the only consideration.

Affiliate software is not a big deal ... you can buy a forum here and have access to just about all the affiliates you can handle ... you can hire an affiliate manager to help you run the program ... its pretty stupid to pay a monthly fee plus 30% to run your program on some outdated, clunky software and where tracking is supposedly never effected but in real time is never not effected by parasites.

If you do $100K per month and pay your affiliates 10% ... on a network like CJ you will pay
about $2,000 in monthly fee, plus $10K to your affiliates plus $3k to CJ as a bonus...15% of your sales, plus whatever you are paying your affiliate manager.

So you are looking at $6K or per month in costs ... just to have access to some affiliates.
You can run your own indie program for about half that including paying to recruit affiliates.

Plus, you have to weigh that against the fact that whatever you spend to run your affiliate program you can put into PPC, advertising and pay for some SEO and you might actually make more profit since you save the 10% commission.

You do not need a zillion affiliates to make a bunch of money ... just a few good ones.

[Vrindavan]

if cost is a big concern, there are also lots of low cost networks to select.

[davidh]

The bottom line for affiliates is that sales get tracked and commissions get paid.

Your best bet is to go with your bottom line and choose whichever network is most economically viable for you. Most active affiliates are members of all of the networks anyway.